GA4 is SO different (looking & acting) that it can be really overwhelming to start digging in... So here are 5 tips to help you feel more comfortable and better use GA4, a 🧵. #measure#googleanalytics
1/Make the reporting UI work for you!
GA4 allows you to actually modify the UI, both the reports & the left nav! This means you can build out report collections for specific teams so they have a clear place to go for their reporting needs. Here’s a collection of my fav reports
2/Choose your favorite graphs
In GA4 reporting, you can change the chart type on each report. Out of the box, each table report comes with either a line chart or a bar chart, AND a scatter plot. I’m not a fan of the scatter plot, so I either change or remove it altogether
3/View event details in Realtime reporting
I bet you didn’t know you can click through to event parameter details in the Realtime widget for Event count by Event name! This is great for real time debugging, or just to see more detail as it comes in. More: krsta.me/3Iofsj3
4/Dive deeper with Secondary Dimensions
Take your analysis to the next level using Secondary Dimensions to breakdown each row of data in a table. For example, I could breakdown the Page by the device category someone visited the page by. More: krsta.me/3B7zA6Q
5/Details are hidden, but they're in GA4
In GA3, there were a TON of options to report on. Ex - the technology report had so many dimension! On the surface, GA4 looks sparse… but you can find more options in each table report & by clicking through widgets in Overview reports
If you’ve learned anything from this thread, or want to hear more from me about #GA4, #measure, and digital analytics in general, please consider giving me a follow @kristaseiden
You can also join my newsletter where I send out Quick Tips videos about GA4, analytics industry updates, and news about KS Digital course offerings 1-2x/month here: ksdigital.co/stay-in-touch/
If you'd prefer this content in blog post form, I've just posted it here: krsta.me/351hJ5K#measure
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For everyone who has complained that conversions are counted differently in GA4 than Goals were in Universal Analytics… GA4 has just released an update you will be interested in.
2/ In Universal Analytics, a Goal was only counted once per session.
This meant that if you had a Goal setup for a purchase, and a customer made 3 purchases in the same session, the Goal would only fire once.
3/ Love it or hate it, that’s how it worked. One could argue that it wasn’t exactly the most intuitive, essentially you should want to celebrate (aka fire a Goal) every time something as big as a purchase happens.
If you can’t say that, then it’s time to get serious.
‼️Universal Analytics will be deprecated in 99 DAYS ‼️
99 days from today, GA4 will be the only analytics tool from Google.
Are you ready?
If not, here are 9 resources to help 👇
1/ If you haven’t gotten started with GA4 yet, check out this mega thread of threads with tons of helpful articles and step by steps for how to get started:
Google is about to start auto migrating your Universal Analytics properties to GA4 for you ‼️
BUT
You actually DO NOT want to do this, for many many reasons.
Already setup GA4? You might still be subject to automigration.
Read on for more details about it and how to OPT OUT
2/ On Feb 9, Google sent an email saying that they will soon start configuring Google Analytics 4 for you - specifically, starting in March. Aka as early as THIS week…
3/ Breaking it down, what does this mean:
If you have a Universal Analytics property, but haven’t migrated to GA4, Google will create a GA4 property for you based on many of the settings you have in UA such as your goals, audiences, ads links, users, and more.
📢 GA4 has finally released a built in Landing Page report! 🎉
You no longer have to create your own, BUT, you can still edit this new built in report to make it even more useful to your organization.
Here's a few quick steps to make this report even better 👇
2) This report comes with the metrics of Views, New users, Avg engagement time/user, conversions, and total revenue.
You can add or delete metrics you want to see in your report. For example, this GA4 property is for a blog website which has no revenue. I can easily remove it.
3) Start by clicking the "Customize report" icon in the upper right corner
Did you know there is a new feature in GA4 that will help you 10x its usefulness?
It’s called “Report Filters” and it’s dead simple to use.
Here are 3 examples to show you how to make GA4 Report Filters your go to for quick data analysis, 🧵:
Report Filters are found in the Custom reporting UI. If you are unfamiliar with building custom reports in GA4, start with this thread first to learn to build one in < 30 seconds👇
Custom Reports are a super useful tool built into GA4.
You can customize any out of the box report, or build your own from scratch.
I’ll show you how to build a GA4 custom report in < 30 seconds 👇
2/ The fastest way to create a custom report is to start from a current report that is similar to what you want to build. For example, if you want to build a “Device Category” report, you could start from the Tech Details report.
3/ Quick note: As I showed in this previous thread, “Device Category” is actually available out of the box, you just need to change the primary dimension in the Tech Details report. But if you want it standalone, follow these easy steps.