Google Analytics 4 Tutorial 2024 | Step by Step

Name: Google Analytics 4 Tutorial 2024 | Step by Step
Uploaded: 2024-05-17T00:37:21.691Z
Duration: 1 h 50 min 47 s

Introduction to Google Analytics 4

In this section, the tutorial introduces Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and explains how to get started with it. The steps include creating an account and property, using reports, and exploring configuration options.

Getting Started with Google Analytics

To begin using Google Analytics 4, navigate to the Google Marketing Platform site at marketingplatform.google.com.

Hover over "For Small Businesses" and select "Analytics."

If you already have a Google Analytics account, sign in. Otherwise, click on "Get Started Today" to create a new account.

Creating a Google Analytics Account

If you are setting up for the first time, you will be prompted to create a new Google Analytics account.

Name your new account after your business or organization.

Review and adjust data sharing options as needed.

Click "Next" to proceed.

Creating a Property

A property is used to report on an individual website or collect data from multiple websites/apps into one set of reports.

Name the property based on the website/app(s) you will be measuring.

Select the appropriate time zone for reporting accuracy.

Choose the primary currency for your business/organization's reports.

Advanced options allow creating a Universal Analytics property alongside GA4 (optional).

It is recommended to leave this option disabled since Universal analytics stopped processing data in mid 2023.

Business Information and Objectives

Select an industry category and indicate the size of your business/organization.

Choose business objectives that align with your goals for preconfigured reports in GA4.

Agreeing to Terms of Service

Accept the terms of service specific to your country.

Data Stream Creation

After creating an account and property, the next step is to create a data stream.

A data stream collects data into your property and reports.

Depending on your measurement needs, you can create one or multiple data streams (e.g., for websites, Android apps, iOS apps).

Choose the appropriate type of stream based on your requirements.

Conclusion

The tutorial concludes by summarizing the steps covered in creating a Google Analytics 4 account and property. It emphasizes the importance of accurately setting up time zones and currencies for reporting purposes.

Recap

The tutorial covered the process of creating a Google Analytics 4 account and property.

Key steps included naming the account and property, selecting time zone and currency settings, providing business information, choosing objectives, agreeing to terms of service, and creating a data stream.

Importance of Time Zones and Currencies

Carefully select the time zone to avoid gaps or overlaps in reporting data.

Choose the primary currency used by your business/organization for accurate conversion in reports.

By following these steps, users can get started with Google Analytics 4 and begin leveraging its features for tracking website/app performance.

Enhanced Measurement Settings

This section explains how to enable and configure enhanced measurement settings in Google Analytics.

Enabling Enhanced Measurement

Enhanced measurement automatically tracks important actions on your website without requiring any modifications to your implementation.

It tracks page views, scrolling, clicks on outbound links, searches, form submissions, and video interactions.

Enhanced measurement is enabled by default but can be turned off if desired.

To configure the actions that are tracked, click on the configuration icon and enable or disable specific options.

Installing Google Analytics

After creating a data stream in Google Analytics, installation instructions are provided.

These instructions help install Google Analytics on your website using either the Google tag or Google Tag Manager.

The measurement ID is essential for data flow into your property and reports. It can be copied from the top right corner of the instructions page.

Benefits of Using Google Tag Manager

It is recommended to use Google Tag Manager instead of the Google tag for added flexibility.

With Google Tag Manager, you can manage multiple tags beyond just Google Analytics.

It allows tracking a wide range of actions and elements on your website.

Exploring Reports in Google Analytics

This section provides an overview of navigating through different types of reports in Google Analytics using their demo account.

Accessing Demo Account

To access the demo account provided by Google for exploring analytics features, click on the link mentioned in the video description.

Clicking on any of these links will grant access to the demo property within your logged-in session.

Navigating Through Reports

The main menu on the left side allows navigation between different report types: Home, Reports, Explore, Advertising, and Admin.

Home: Provides a top-level summary personalized with recently viewed reports and automated insights.

Reports: Offers preconfigured reports on website traffic, conversions, demographics, and more.

Explore: Allows creating custom reports and visualizing data in different ways.

Advertising: Provides attribution reports to analyze the relationship between marketing channels and conversions.

Admin: Access additional settings for your account and property.

Choosing Relevant Reports

With numerous reporting options available, focus on using the reports that provide the most valuable insights for your needs.

The Home report offers an overview of website performance with metrics like users, conversions, events, and new users.

Trend lines and comparisons to previous periods help understand performance changes over time.

Report Snapshot in Google Analytics

This section explores the report snapshot feature in Google Analytics, which provides a summary of key metrics.

Key Metrics Overview

The report snapshot displays metrics such as total users, new users, average engagement time, and revenue.

Similar to the Home report, it also shows the number of users active on the website in the last 30 minutes.

Automated Insights

Insights and recommendations are provided based on Google's machine learning algorithms.

These insights can highlight unexpected spikes or dips in important metrics.

Custom insights can be configured based on specific metrics and conditions.

The transcript does not provide further sections or timestamps beyond this point.

Retention and Real-Time Reports

In this section, the speaker discusses retention metrics and real-time reports in Google Analytics. The speaker also mentions a helpful resource, the Google Analytics glossary, for beginners.

Retention Metrics

Retention metrics provide insights into user behavior on a website.

Top pages viewed by users can be identified based on page titles.

Events collected in Google Analytics include conversions and product purchases.

The speaker recommends downloading the Google Analytics glossary for beginners.

Real-Time Reports

Real-time reports show details about current website visitors.

Data is processed within seconds to provide up-to-date information.

Real-time reports help identify landing pages and track email campaign effectiveness.

The report includes a bar chart showing activity over the last 30 minutes.

Additional insights include user location, audience inclusion, content viewed, events collected, conversions, and user properties.

Granular details of individual users can be viewed by selecting "view user snapshot."

Individual events triggered by users can be examined for more details.

Acquisition Overview

This section focuses on the acquisition overview report in Google Analytics. It explains how to view information about how people are finding a website and provides options to customize the report.

Acquisition Overview Report

The acquisition overview report shows how people are finding a website.

It provides information about the number of users and new users in real-time.

Different ways people find a website are categorized into default channel groups.

Users can modify what is presented in each card by selecting different dimensions from the drop-down menu.

For example, selecting "first user medium" shows how messages were communicated (e.g., CPC, organic search).

Cards also display sessions from Google Ads campaigns and average lifetime value of users.

Engagement Reports: Pages and Screens

This section explores the engagement reports in Google Analytics, specifically focusing on the pages and screens report. It explains how to analyze the pages people are viewing on a website.

Pages and Screens Report

The pages and screens report shows the pages viewed on a website.

Pages are reported based on their URL (page path dimension).

The report is ordered by the number of views.

It provides insights into user engagement with different pages.

New Section

This section provides an overview of the different reports available in Google Analytics, including events, conversions, and monetization.

Events Report

The events report shows all the events collected, including default page view events, automatic events from enhanced measurement feature, and recommended/custom events implemented on the website.

Clicking on an event name allows for a granular report view.

Conversions Report

The conversions report displays the total number of conversions based on marked conversion events.

Configuration of conversions will be covered later in the tutorial.

Monetization Overview

The monetization section includes e-commerce reports, in-app purchases, and publisher ads.

The overview report shows total revenue from all events and e-commerce transactions.

User-based metrics such as total number of purchasers and first-time purchasers are also displayed.

Top purchased items can be viewed.

E-commerce Purchases Report

This report provides detailed information about items purchased on the website.

Metrics can be viewed by item name or other dimensions selected from the drop-down menu.

New Section

This section explores user attributes and demographics reports in Google Analytics.

User Attributes Overview

The user attributes overview report provides a summary of people viewing the website.

Geographical location by country, city, gender, interests, age, and language preference are displayed.

Missing gender, interests, and age data indicate that Google Signals has not been enabled yet.

Demographic Details Report

The demographic details report offers a breakdown of metrics based on users' geographical location by country.

Selecting a specific country allows for further breakdown analysis (e.g., by city).

"Not set" indicates unknown city information for some users.

New Section

This section focuses on the technology reports available in Google Analytics.

Tech Overview

The technology reports provide details about the devices used to view the website.

Metrics include operating systems, device types (desktop, tablet, mobile), browsers, and screen sizes.

"Platform" indicates the type of data stream used for data collection.

Tech Details Report

The tech details report shows browser usage by default.

Selecting other dimensions from the drop-down menu allows for metrics breakdown by device category or other available options.

New Section

This section covers exploration reports in Google Analytics.

Exploration Reports

Exploration reports allow for creating custom reports and visualizations.

Different types of reports can be created, including free form reports, funnel exploration, path exploration, segment overlap, cohort exploration, and user lifetime.

Preconfigured templates are available for each option.

New Section

This section explains how to navigate through different report options and create new reports in Google Analytics.

Navigating Reports

The reporting menu includes preconfigured standard reports as well as an option to customize the menu and reports if you have editor or administrator access to the property.

The Library option allows customization but may not be available in all properties.

Explore Reports

Explore reports offer various customizable options for creating different types of custom reports and visualizations.

Each option provides a preconfigured template that can be explored further.

The transcript is already in English.

Creating Exploration Reports

In this section, the speaker demonstrates how to create two exploration reports in Google Analytics. The first report focuses on custom campaigns that drive traffic to a website, while the second report is a funnel visualization for conversion tracking.

Creating a Report for Custom Campaigns

To create a report for custom campaigns, start by naming the report as "Campaigns" and selecting the desired date range.

Add dimensions and metrics to the report. Dimensions are rows of information, and metrics are quantitative measurements.

For this report, add the "Session Campaign" dimension to show campaign names sending traffic to the website.

Import the "Sessions," "Total Users," and "Conversions" metrics.

Arrange the elements by dragging "Session Campaign" under rows and placing metrics under values.

Remove unwanted rows (e.g., direct, not set, organic) by applying a filter using regular expressions.

Filter expression: ^.*.*$ (excludes campaigns starting and ending with parentheses).

Creating a Funnel Visualization Report

Create another blank report named "Conversion Funnel."

Adjust the date range accordingly and select "Funnel Exploration" as the type of report.

Specify steps for users to complete on your website. In this example, focus on page-based steps.

Name Step 1 as "Billing and Shipping" with condition: Page Location contains yourinfo.html.

Add Step 2 named "Payment" with condition: Page Location contains payment.html.

Include Step 3 called "Review" with condition: Page Location contains revieworder.html.

Lastly, add Step 4 named "Checkout Complete" with condition: Page Location contains autcompleted.html.

Additional Options for Funnel Reports

Customize your funnel report further by enabling options like "Make Open Funnel" to allow users to enter at any step.

Switch between a standard funnel and a trended funnel to analyze user trends based on the funnel steps and date range.

Advertising Reports in Google Analytics

This section covers advertising reports in Google Analytics, which provide insights into the relationship between marketing channels and allow for different attribution models.

Advertising Snapshot

The advertising snapshot provides a summary of marketing channels that drove conversions.

Automated insights based on machine learning are displayed, along with top paths leading to conversions.

Model Comparison Report

The model comparison report lists marketing channels and displays metrics like conversions and revenue for each channel.

Two sets of metrics are shown: one using the last click attribution model and another using the data-driven attribution model.

Comparing Models in the Report

This section explains how to compare different models in a report to analyze significant changes and understand the impact of marketing channels.

Selecting a New Model

Use the dropdown menu to select a new model in the report.

Leave the defaults if desired.

Look for significant changes between models.

Positive percent changes indicate potentially undervalued marketing channels with the last click model.

Negative percent changes indicate potentially overvalued marketing channels with the click model.

Conversion Paths Report

The Conversion Paths report provides a visual representation of the marketing touchpoints that users engage with before converting.

Understanding Conversion Paths

Rows in the report show different paths that users take before converting.

Some rows indicate multiple engagements with organic search listings before conversion.

Paths can include multiple channels, helping understand their relationship and contribution to conversions on the website.

Customizing the Report

Change dimensions used for paths to customize the report.

Modify attribution models used for analysis.

Choose specific conversion events for table and visualization.

Configuring Google Analytics

This section covers steps to configure conversions, create audiences, and more in Google Analytics.

Navigating to Admin

Go to "Admin" to access configuration options.

Alternatively, select "Data Display" and then "Events".

Events Configuration

View all collected events in the property, including automatically collected ones like first visit, page view, and session start events.

Enhanced measurement may collect additional events like outbound clicks or scroll events.

Implement other custom events as needed (e.g., add-to-cart or purchase event).

Modifying and Creating Events

Marketer, editor, or administrator access allows modifying and creating events using respective buttons.

Modify event option: Change parameter values and event names.

Create event option: Create a new event based on an existing one in Google Analytics.

Individual events can be marked as conversions by clicking the switch.

Configuring Conversions

Use own demo property for configuring conversions.

Mark specific events as conversions if desired.

Enable an event as a conversion to count it in reports.

Differentiate between tracking all page views or specific pages as conversions.

Creating a New Event

Two options: create a new event inside Google Analytics or configure a new tag in Google Tag Manager (covered later).

Trigger a new event when a page view is reported for the thank you page, for example.

Set up conditions for triggering the event (e.g., matching page view events with URLs containing "thank you").

Real-Time Reports and Standard Reports

Real-time reports show triggered events within 10 to 15 minutes.

Standard reports, including the Events report, may take 12 to 24 hours to display data accurately.

Tracking Thank You Page Views as Separate Events

This section explains how to track thank you page views as separate events using Google Analytics.

Creating an Event for Thank You Page Views

Choose "Create Event" in the demo property settings.

Name the event (e.g., "generate lead").

Configure conditions for triggering the event (e.g., matching page view events with URLs containing "thank you").

Copying Parameters from Source Event

Select "Copy parameters from The Source event" to have all parameters from the original page view available in the new event when triggered.

Viewing Events in Reports

Triggered events will appear in real-time reports within 10 to 15 minutes.

Check back tomorrow to see them in standard reports, including the Events report.

For instructions on using Google Tag Manager, refer to the provided extra resources in the video description.

Setting Up Conversion Tracking in Google Analytics

In this section, the speaker explains how to set up conversion tracking in Google Analytics and provides information on the number of unique events that can be enabled as conversions.

Generating Leads as Conversions

To set up conversion tracking, create an event and name it "generator lead" in lowercase.

Save the event, and when triggered, it will be counted as a conversion.

Up to 30 unique events can be enabled as conversions in Google Analytics.

Creating Audiences for Reporting

Navigate to the "Audiences" section under "Data Display."

Audiences can be created to report on specific groups of users.

Examples include focusing on users who make multiple purchases or users who haven't converted yet.

Using Audiences for Remarketing

Audiences can also be used for remarketing in a linked Google Ads account.

Predefined audiences like "All Users" and "Purchases" are automatically available.

"All Users" includes everyone who has visited the website or used the app.

"Purchases" is for users who have completed e-commerce transactions or made in-app purchases.

Custom Definitions for Parameters

Custom definitions allow registering parameters sent with events as custom dimensions or metrics.

Default metrics and dimensions are available in Google Analytics reports.

Custom metrics and dimensions can be added using custom definitions.

Debug View for Testing Implementation

The debug view allows testing the implementation by providing a live view of events on the website.

Tag Assistant with Google Tag Manager can be used to access the debug view.

Property Details and Data Collection Options

This section covers property details and various data collection options available in Google Analytics.

Property Details

Property details allow changing the property name, reporting time zone, currency, and account association.

Property access management controls access to the property and account.

Data Collection and Modification

Data streams provide the measurement ID and tracking code for website integration.

Enabling Google Signals allows seeing age, gender, and interests in reports.

Data retention settings determine how long user identifiable data is kept in reports.

Data filters can be configured to exclude internal traffic from reports.

Product links option allows linking Google Ads, Google Search Console, and other Google products.

Adding Google Analytics to Your Website Using Google Tag Manager

This section explains how to add Google Analytics to a website using Google Tag Manager.

Getting the Measurement ID

Go to "Data Collection and Modification" > "Data Streams."

Copy the measurement ID for the data stream created earlier.

Setting Up Tags in Google Tag Manager

Create a new tag in Google Tag Manager named "Google tag ga4 page view."

Select "Google tag" as the tag type.

Set up the variable for G4 measurement ID using the copied measurement ID value.

Configure triggering with initialization on all pages.

Previewing and Testing

Use preview mode in Google Tag Manager by entering the website URL.

Verify that the G4 tag has been fired using Tag Assistant.

Open debug view in Google Analytics to see collected events.

Conclusion

The speaker concludes by summarizing what has been covered so far and encourages further exploration of additional resources on Google Analytics.

Recap of Covered Topics

Account creation process

Reports overview

Configuration options in Google Analytics

Installing Google Analytics 4

Recommended method: Using Google Tag Manager for flexibility

Additional Resources

Extra resources, tutorials, and courses are available for further learning about Google Analytics.