The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

Understanding the GA4 Menu 

You’re in Google Analytics. You’ve set up your account, and you’re ready to start looking at your data. But where do you start? Google Analytics can be a little overwhelming at first, but don’t worry! We’ll help you understand the GA menu so that you can find your way around with ease.

Home 

The first thing that you’ll see when you log in to Google Analytics is the Home screen. This will eventually give you a high-level overview of your website’s performance, but you first need to create a data stream.

On your home page, you will find an option to create a data stream, prompted by the message “Start collecting data for your website or app.” Click on the “web” button, and insert your website URL. Once connected, you’ll receive a full overview of how your website is performing.

All of the other options in the Google Analytics menu can be found in the left-hand sidebar. We’ll explore these options in more depth below.

Reports 

If you love managing and analyzing data, the Reports section is going to be your new best friend. GA4 gives you the opportunity to create customized reports, so you can see the data that matters most to you.

To create a custom report, head over to the explore tab on the left-hand side, and create a blank report. Then, choose your segments, metrics, and dimensions.

• Dimensions refer to the attributes of your products, transactions, or events and may include things like “product name” or “quantity.”
• Metrics are the numerical values that you want to measure, such as “engagement” or “transactions.”
• Segments are a group of visitors with something in common, like “first-time visitors” or “visitors from a specific country.” They help you to understand how different groups interact with your website.

Now that you’ve chosen your metrics, dimensions, and segments, it’s time to decide which type of report you would like to generate. Again, you can choose from pre-built templates or start from scratch. If you want to get really creative, Google Analytics also gives you the option to build data visualizations.

Voila, you’ve created your very first Google Analytics report!

Explore

The explore section is where you’ll find all of your Google Analytics data. It’s one of the most crucial sections of GA4, as it’s where you’ll uncover deep insights about your website and your audience. 

Explore will take you beyond the standard Google Analytics reports and really help you to understand your data. As the name suggests, this is the section where you can really start to dig into and analyze your Google Analytics data.

Explore techniques vary depending on your level of Google Analytics knowledge, but they all have one goal in common: to help you gain a better understanding of your online presence. Techniques include: 

• A further examination of your data
• Discover new insights
• Use filters and segments to tailor your data to your specific needs.
• Switch between methods to discover the appropriate information
• Create segments and audiences to utilize in the research
• Use filters and segments to tailor your data to your specific needs.
• Examine the data in your spreadsheet and export it to other applications
• Queries can be run on demand using one of the many analysis approaches.
• Post your findings with other users

Take full advantage of the Google Analytics Explore section by following the below steps:

1. Click on “Explore” on the left menu.]
2. The Exploration page will open, go ahead and choose from the many templates.
3. Choose a style depending on the nature of your company and your target market. If you know what sort of approach will work, select it from the template; if not, start with a blank template.

Once you have chosen your template, Google Analytics will provide you with a list of recommended dimensions and metrics. Feel free to add or remove any that you see fit for your needs.

Now, there’s nothing else left to do than to start exploring your Google Analytics data!

Advertising

The user journey is a crucial component of Google Analytics. It helps you to understand how your users interact with your website, so you can improve their experience, and in turn, increase conversions. 

It all starts with a user landing on your page. They then interact with your website, perhaps by viewing a product page or adding an item to their cart. Finally, they convert by completing a purchase or taking another desired action.

Through advertising reports, Google Analytics can track all of these interactions, so you can see how users move through your website, what actions they take, and where they drop off. This section also offers you reports that can help you assess the ROI of your media spending across all channels, make strategic allocation decisions, and evaluate attribution strategies. This data is incredibly valuable, as it allows you to optimize your website to improve the overall user experience.

Your advertising workspace in GA4 will really help you to understand how your Google Ads are performing, but you first need to link Google Analytics 4 to your Google Ads account(s). When you do this, Google Analytics will automatically import your Google Ads data, so you can start generating reports and campaign data.

Users of your Google Analytics 4 property can browse the Advertising workspace. Reports within the workspace appear and work somewhat differently than other GA4 reports. The Advertisements workspace currently contains three reports:

• Advertising snapshot: Quickly get an overview of company data, then go deeper into the areas you’re interested in.
• Model comparison: Examine how various attribution approaches influence your marketing channel’s worth.
• Conversion paths: Analyze your consumers’ conversion paths to learn how different attribution algorithms distribute credit.

By using the reports available, you can begin to answer questions like: 

• How long did it take for a customer to become interested in your product and make a purchase?
• What are the most popular pathways that customers take before making a conversion?
• What are the most common conversion actions that customers take?
• What were the roles of referrals, searches, and advertising in conversions?
• Which channels influence customers the most at each stage of their journey?

Configure

Last but not least, we have the configure section. This is where you can really start to customize Google Analytics to your specific needs. You can add and edit tags, triggers, and variables; set up goals; and configure ecommerce tracking, all without having to write a single line of code!

Below, we outline a few of the most critical elements you need to configure to make the most out of Google Analytics 4:

• Google Signals – Crucial information about your users, like age, gender, and interests, can be pulled in from Google’s ad products and used to enhance your Google Analytics data. This data can then be used to create more targeted marketing campaigns and improve the overall user experience on your website. You must enable Google Signals data in order to see this user information. This is accomplished by accepting the Google Advertising Features Policy and enabling data collection.
• User and Event Data Retention – In Google Analytics 4, the retention period for user and event data is two months and 14 months. You must ensure your fresh analytics are robust enough to withstand analysis when looking back at previous trends and statistics.
• Cross-Domain Tracking – Google Analytics can track across multiple domains and sub-domains. This is incredibly important if you want to accurately measure how users interact with your website, as it allows Google Analytics to see the full journey that a user takes, even if they leave your site and come back later. Cross-domain tracking does not require any code to be deployed. However, you do need to change settings in your admin panel is enough.

Ensuring that you have Google Analytics configured adequately is crucial to getting accurate and actionable data. By taking the time to set up Google Analytics correctly, you’ll be well on your way to understanding your website traffic and making better marketing decisions.