We hope you enjoyed the webinar Mastering Google Analytics 4: Your Questions Answered. We had plenty of questions, however, we were not able to answer all of them live. Here are all your questions answered. If you didn’t manage to watch the webinar, you can watch it on-demand here.
Mastering Google Analytics 4: Your Questions Answered
Discover how to make the most of GA4 and how to use it to drive business growth with our on-demand webinar.
Q: Should I make the switch now?
A: Definitely! The sooner you make the switch, the more historic data GA4 has, and this helps with its machine-learning process.
Q: What is the difference between GA4 and Universal Analytics (UA) in terms of ease of use?
A: Although it differs greatly from UA in many respects, GA4 is not necessarily more difficult to use. The biggest challenge is getting used to a familiar but new layout and functionality that is recorded differently. There will likely be challenges in learning how to use the new platform for those of you who were accustomed to UA.
The lack of historical data in GA4 will surely make reporting difficult from a usability perspective. If you haven’t already, you should unquestionably create a GA4 property so that you may start gathering data!
Q: In GA4, what is an audience trigger?
A: You can set up events to start firing when new users join a defined audience by using an audience trigger. Each GA4 property allows for a maximum of 20 audience triggers.
Q: In what way does GA4 define users?
A: GA4 has several categories of users:
- New users – those who interacted with your website for the first time.
- Total users – number of unique users who have used your website.
- Active users – Any user who has an engaged session OR when GA4 collects the “first_visit” event.
- Returning (established) users – A user who has previously been on the website and is now returning.
Q: Can GA4 and Google Ads be connected?
A: Yes, it is possible to connect Google Analytics 4 properties to both individual and manager Google Ad accounts. You’ll gain a greater comprehension of your customer cycle by doing this.
Make a Google Ads management account if you haven’t already. If your present Google Ads property exceeds the limit, attach it to your Analytics property.
Q: Can you link Google Analytics 4 and Search Console?
A: Sure, you can link your Google Search Console property to your GA4 account. You may view data on things like inquiries, impressions, clicks, landing pages, CTR, etc. by integrating the property with GA4.
Your Google Search Console property can only be connected to one data stream.
Q. What are the best Google Analytics tools/tips for charities?
A: Using GA4 can help you analyse your website’s traffic, see where your users are coming from as well as what actions they take, as well as measure the success of a given campaign. This information can help you make changes to your website that can benefit your charity.
Q: I currently use google data studio templates for my monthly reporting. Will these be affected by the transfer to the new analytics? Do I need to do anything in advance?
A: You can integrate Google Data Studio with GA4. You will need to connect your GA4 property to Data Studio. Once you have set up GA4, you will need to log onto Data Studio and select the data source; this should be the Google Analytics connector. You then select the GA4 property and click connect.
Q: What is the most impactful way you can use Google Analytics to steer your marketing campaign decisions?
A: The website user data is one of the most important metrics. Analysing how a user navigates your website can allow you to make decisions. For example, if you have a high bounce rate on a page, you can visit that page to find out why. Could a landing page CTA be broken?
Q: How can you integrate old GA universal data into the new G4A analytics, so you can refer back to past results? I can’t see a way to do this now without downloading all the historic data.
A: You should download your historic data if you ever need to reference back to it. You can download the information using CSV, Excel or PDF file.
Q: Should I migrate to GA4 myself or just wait for Google to do it for me?
A: Google will soon be creating GA4 properties for anyone who has not opted out or migrated over. One of the benefits of doing it yourself is that you can choose what custom dimensions and goals you want to set. If you allow Google to automatically set up GA4, you will get standard metrics, and these may not be aligned with your business goals.
Q: Why are GA4 and UA results different?
A: GA4 measures things differently. UA was focused upon total users whereas GA4 looks for active users. An active user is one who has spent at least 10 seconds on your website. If you consider bounce rates, in UA, if someone clicks on your page, spent a long time on your page, went to no other pages and then closed the browser rather than clicking back, they would count as a bounce. In GA4, a bounce is someone who has spent less than 10 seconds on a page and performed no action (such as clicked a link).
Q: My acquisition reports tab only shows traffic – no users. How do we configure this?
A: You should have both User and Traffic acquisition as standard. You should contact Google Support if you don’t have both.
Q: Can you set up micro conversions for making phone calls etc?
A: Yes – you can set up an event that tracks the hyperlink of the phone number using the ‘Tel:’ HTML code. You’ll then be able to mark the event as a conversion. This only works for mobile devices and not desktops.
Q: I have difficulty in printing reports, if I save to PDF, it only ever saves the top graph/chart, how do I get everything?
A: The PDF report will only show what it can in the portrait page size – for a more complete data export download the .CSV file.
Q: When looking if I already have GA4, it says attribution project, is that right?
A: You can check your property ID to see if your using GA4. Universal Analytics starts with UA and a set of numbers (UA-XXXXXXXXX-1). Google Analytics 4 property IDs have only numbers (XXXXXXXXX).
Q: How do I delete conversions on GA4?
A: Go to Admin > Conversions… Here you can disable conversions by clicking on the flip switch. To delete an event that you created and then assigned as a conversion, visit Admin > Events, click on the ‘Create Event‘ button, within the list of events select the one you wish to delete, next to the ‘Save’ (top right) click on the 3 dot hamburger menu and hit delete.
Q: How can you set up micro conversions?
A: In GA4 you should have access to the funnel exploration which visualises data that has already been collected. Each of these steps essentially represents your micro conversions, since each step indicated that the user is approaching a conversion completion.
Q: How are exit rates calculated?
A: Exit rate is calculated as the total exits divided by total visits.
Q: Can we measure the effects/results of our school’s Twitter, FB and IG via GA4?
A: In GA4, you can learn so much about your social presence. You can see several things:
- How much traffic is coming to your website from your individual social media channels.
- Which social media platform drives traffic the best.
- What social media campaigns are converting the most visitors.
Q: Can we use the same Google Tag Manager (GTM) tracking on a new GA4 property?
A: You won’t need to create a new GTM container just for Google Analytics 4. Use your existing Google Tag Manager container for the new GA version as well. Google Analytics 4 requires completely different GA tags, but they can co-exist with Universal Analytics tags in the same container. You can visit Google Support for more information.
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Mastering Google Analytics 4: Your Questions Answered
Discover how to make the most of GA4 and how to use it to drive business growth with our on-demand webinar.
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