After years of notifications about the end of Google’s Universal Analytics (UA) website tracking platform, it is finally gone. Traffic stopped being recorded for most websites in the summer of 2023, and as of 2024 the historical data is no longer accessible. This period allowed everyone using Universal Analytics the time to save any necessary data, as well as migrate to the new Google Analytics 4 (GA4) platform.
Many users have noted that GA4 does not contain all of the features they were accustomed to with UA. This includes a longer wait before data becomes available in reports, the lack of filtered Views to compare internal and external traffic and fewer default reports available.
While we’re not getting Google Analytics back in the Universal form we’d become so accustomed to, there are some ways to make GA4 work for you. Here we’ll be discussing some workarounds for common problems and ways to get the most out of your GA4 implementation.
Updating Your Reporting Library
One of the most frustrating things about GA4 is that there are fewer default reports provided under the Reporting tab than there were in Universal Analytics. Many of the UA reporting options can still be found in GA4 by selecting a different Primary Dimension in the provided report, such as changing the default dropdown in Demographic Details from Country to City or Gender.
These existing reports can also be edited to include the Dimensions and Metrics you want, with the ability to Save or Save As a new report. This is done by:
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Clicking Customize Report (pencil icon)in the top right of the report
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Then selecting your Dimensions and Metrics, and even applying a filter if needed.
This is especially helpful because there are some available Metrics that aren’t in any default reports including Average Session Duration and Views per Session.
If you do a Save As to create a new custom report, you can add it to the list of available reports in the Reporting section of GA4 which is called the Library. This is done by:
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Clicking the Library (folder icon) at the bottom of the list of reports in the Reporting tab of GA4.
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This will allow you to add your newly saved report to a new or existing Collection (what they call the dropdowns within Reporting). This will then allow you to curate the list of reports to suit your specific needs.
Creating Custom Reports and Segments
In addition to updating the Reporting Library, GA4 offers additional custom reports under the Explore tab in the lefthand navigation.
These reports go beyond what is offered in the Reporting tab, giving you access to every Dimension and Metric when building tables, and the ability to create Funnels off of any recorded event in GA4.
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For example in UA you could see the top pages where users were leaving the website, a report that isn’t available by default in GA4. You can still access the Exits metric in the custom Explorations.
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GA4 also lacks a default report for Google Ads for those websites being promoted through Google’s search and display platform. If your GA4 is linked to Google Ads, all of the associated metrics can be accessed under the Explore tab.
Another helpful feature in UA was the ability to create Segments on any page of a report. This meant that instead of looking at the behaviors of All Users, you could create a segmented audience based on their website actions, such as non-converters or users interested in certain product types. Those UA Segments reflected historical data and could be imported into Google Looker Studio to better visualize the data. While GA4 does allow you to filter most reports, the Explore tab is the only place where you can create custom Segments that reflect historical data.
These Segments can be User-scoped, meaning they take into account multiple visits by the same user, or Session-scoped, meaning they only include data from a visit that contained a specific action. That means you can see which pages are being viewed, or which events are triggered, by users the day they convert, or weeks prior to conversion.
Building Custom Audiences
While Segments are a helpful tool that let you report on specific groups in the custom Explore tab of GA4, they aren’t usable outside that section. You are able to create Audiences in GA4 which follow the same overall rules (user-scoped, session-scoped, based on activities and/or attributes) they do have some limitations. While Segments will allow you to view historical data, Audiences will only be usable for data after they have been created. You can also edit Segments after they’re created, but Audiences cannot be edited. This means that an Audience might need to be recreated if new pages or events are added which are associated with this audience.
The main benefit of Audiences over Segments in GA4 is that Audiences can be added as a Filter on almost any existing report throughout GA4 and they can be imported into Looker Studio to create visualizations of their behaviors.
Tracking Conversions
One of the most important steps of measuring and analyzing your website traffic is defining your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) within the platform. This is as true of GA4 as it is of any third-party advertising platform. You will want to know how often specific actions are taken on your website to understand the effectiveness of inbound and outbound marketing tactics.
GA4 launched with these KPIs called Conversions, which is what the metric was called in Universal Analytics. Around Q2 of 2024 Google started updating GA4 properties to rename these metrics as Key Events instead of Conversions. Key Events can be created from any existing events that are being captured in GA4 by specifying specific event parameters like a URL that was viewed or a destination URL that was clicked.
The update from Conversions to Key Events means that not every KPI needs to be on the level of a bottom-of-funnel activity in order to be counted. Key Events can be any important event happening on your website, even if it’s not directly related to a Conversion. Measuring Key Events is helpful in that, when triggered, they will count towards your website’s Engagement Rate. This metric provides a high-level snapshot of the percentage of users interacting with website content. Key Events can be set to fire once per event, or once per session. ZAG recommends counting Once Per Session in order to keep one user from inflating these metrics by triggering them multiple times in one visit.
Setting Custom Alert Notifications
Universal Analytics offered users the ability to easily schedule Custom Alerts so you could know if there were any irregularities in website traffic via an automated email. This was helpful in the event that there was an update to your website that broke previously implemented tracking, or if a campaign started having fewer Conversions that it would typically deliver. GA4 does not have the exact same Custom Alerts functionality but it does have a similar functionality though it’s well hidden within the GA4 UI.
On the Homepage of GA4 there is a section called Insights and Recommendations which displays AI-generated observations about your recent traffic. Some common automated Insights might be an unexpected increase in views of a specific page, or visits from a certain traffic source.
To the right of the provided Insights is a link that says View All Insights. On that screen there is a Create button where you can choose from a list of Suggested Custom Insights or you can Start from scratch. If you Start from scratch you can choose the frequency that GA4 will check for increases or decreases in specific metrics and which emails should receive the alerts. You can be alerted if a metric is higher or lower than a given amount, or if it increased or decreased from the prior day, the same day the previous week or the previous year. You can also specify if the alert should apply to all website visitors or a specific subset of visitors.
Visualizing Data with Looker Studio
One common complaint from users is that GA4 is not very good at visualizing data, which was a similar drawback in Universal Analytics. Even though data is being captured across multiple pages and event types it is not easy to access that data or assemble it in a way that will be understandable by users less familiar with the GA4 interface. While the previously mentioned Explorations do allow custom report building they are still not visually appealing and are not easily shared between users.
Looker Studio, previously called Data Studio, has gone through many changes over the years and, while it still has some negatives, is an extremely helpful, free tool for visualizing data from GA4 as well as other platforms via an API connection. GA4 data initially wasn’t accessible in Looker Studio, and once it was, there were strict limitations placed on the number of API requests you could make in a given time. Those API limits still exist but have been loosened to the point that they should no longer affect your ability to build custom, meaningful reports.
Looker Studio allows you to import all Dimensions and Metrics, including unique metrics for each Key Event, and visualize them in a variety of chart types including tables, pie charts, bar graphs and much more. These reports can be filtered to only show traffic from certain dimensions including Organic Search visits, views on mobile devices or visits from certain cities. You can also import filters associated with the previously recommended custom Audiences.
Understanding the Journey to Conversion
If you’re using multiple digital marketing channels to drive traffic to your website it can be difficult to understand which sources are resulting in Key Events. While Key Events are attributed to traffic source dimensions like Organic Search and Paid Social, a user is likely interacting with your website via multiple touchpoints before they convert. Thankfully there is a report in GA4 that gives some insight into Key Events that occur across multiple visits from multiple sources. It should be noted that these reports are only available to GA4 properties that are linked to a Google advertising platform like Google Ads or Floodlight, though the data they contain is relevant to all traffic sources.
In the Advertising tab in the lefthand nav of GA4 there are two very helpful reports called Attribution Paths and Attribution Models. These reports will show how users visits your site from multiple traffic sources prior to a Key Event occurring. If a user visits the site from a digital marketing campaign and then visits later from Organic Search, this report will give partial credit to the marketing tactics. You can also see the average days and number of visits there were prior to a Key Event taking place.
The Future of GA4
Google Analytics 4 has been available for a few years and has seen consistent updates during that time. The features discussed in this article are just a few of the ways you can get the most out of GA4. We anticipate that Google will continue to roll out new features in the coming years, and ZAG remains focused on assisting our clients get the most out of their website tracking. Need help making sense of your data and tracking ROI? Contact us.