GA4 is a bit like marmite, you either love it or you hate it.
Many of us had just gained our confidence with the Universal Analytics (the old website reporting tool from Google). Then along came GA4 with a whole new events-based method of tracking and a new interface, putting many people off.
While it’s been a bit of time since GA4 rolled out, I know many people have never been back or haven’t been exploring it as much as they could.
But understanding how marketing campaigns have performed and how supporters use your website is essential for all charities.
So, if GA4 still feels like a flavour you’re not quite ready for, don’t worry. These practical tips will help you find some of the most useful reports and regain your analytics mojo – no love it or hate it required.
Top tip
Keep in mind that Google Analytics will never be 100% accurate because it relies on cookies and so users should be given the option to opt in to analytics cookies before you track their website usage. Most websites have a 60 – 70% opt in rate so find out what yours is so you understand what percentage of data you are looking at.
Jargon buster
- Active users are the number of people who have engaged with your website.
- Engaged sessions shows the number and percentage of sessions where a user’s visit lasted longer than 10 seconds, includes a conversion event or includes two or more pages.
- Events measure conversions on or interactions with your website such as link clicks or scrolls.
- New users are the number of people who have never visited your website before within the date range.
- Revenue will show the income generated by your website if the tracking has been set-up.
- A Session is a period of time during which a user interacts with your website. This is capped at 30 minutes.
- UTMs are Urchin Tracking Modules, a code which is added to URLs to track marketing acquisition and performance in analytics.
- Views are the count of web pages (or mobile app screen views) seen by a user.
How do I see how my marketing campaign performed?
Answer: Traffic acquisition report
The traffic acquisition report will show you which channels drove the most traffic to your website and what actions (known as ‘events’ on GA4) they have taken.
If your campaigns are tracked correctly using UTMs and event tracking has been set up on your website, then this report will take the guesswork out of your marketing. This is because by looking this data you will know where to invest resource for the best return-on-investment.
How to find the traffic acquisition report
- Click on ‘Reports’.
- Then open the ‘Acquisition’ dropdown under the ‘Life cycle’ section.
- Click on the ‘Traffic acquisition’ report and scroll down to the table.
- The session source/medium will match the source / medium parameters used in UTMs as well as auto-tagged channels.
- Click the + next to this field and search ‘session campaign’ to also see this UTM parameter.
- The Events count column shows the number of user actions generated by each channel. Click on the drop-down arrow to filter by specific events.
How can I see which pages on my website are the most popular?
Answer: Pages and screens report
The pages and screens report shows how much traffic each page on your website is getting as well as traffic within your mobile app – if you have one.
How to view the pages and screens report
- Click on ‘Reports’.
- Then open the ‘Engagement’ dropdown under the ‘Life cycle’ section.
- Click on the ‘Pages and screens’ report .
- The session source/medium will match the source / medium parameters used in UTMs as well as auto-tagged channels.
- Again, if you click on the drop-down arrow next to the ‘Events count’ column, you can choose which specific conversion events you want to view.
- Click on the arrow to the left-hand side of a column to sort the data by that column.
How can I only look at certain traffic sources / campaigns?
Answer: Filter the report
Filtering a report allows you to customise GA4 and narrow in on what you are really interested in. For example, you can look at how many donations a particular campaign achieved or which pages users from a certain channel looked at during their visit to your website.
How to filter a report
- Click on the pencil icon at the top right of the screen under the date to customise a report.
- Under the ‘Report filter’ section, click ‘Add filter’.
- In the ‘Select dimension’ box you can scroll through different options or type in the dimension you want to filter by.
- For example, you can filter by different traffic sources by typing ‘Session source/medium’, putting ‘exactly matches’ as the ‘Match Type’, and then ticking the source/medium you would like to filter by.
- You can also filter by a specific campaign by typing ‘Session campaign’, ‘exactly matches’ and then ticking the name of the campaign.
- Click ‘Apply’.
How can I see who is visiting my website?
Answer: User attributes and Tech reports
If you want to know which country or city your users are from or understand their demographics or interests, then you’ll find this in the user attributes section.
The data is only available for users who consent to sharing demographic data. Data thresholds are applied to protect users’ privacy meaning that these reports will only show if there is sufficient data from consenting users.
Demographics and Interests reports are not enabled by default in Google Analytics so you have to first enable Google Signals.
How to access the user attributes report
- Click on ‘Reports’.
- Open the ‘User attributes’ dropdown under the ‘User’
- Click on the ‘Overview’
To view which devices users viewed your website on:
- Click on ‘Reports’.
- Open the ‘Tech’ dropdown under the ‘User’
- Click on the ‘Tech details’
- This will show which browsers users viewed your website through. To change this to device, click on the drop-down arrow next to ‘Browser’ and select ‘Device category’.
When should I use the search bar?
Answer: For everything else
Google Analytics 4 has an AI-enabled search feature which allows you to ask questions directly in the search bar. Try asking ‘how many new users did we get last month?’ or ‘what is the engagement rate for direct?’ and the answer will be shown directly underneath.
What’s great is that it will then also show a list of useful reports relevant to your search query.
More resources to help you
Keep going with GA4. The more you engage with it, the easier it will be to navigate the platform and make the most of the data. Here’s a list of resources and training to help you on your journey:
- Google offers free training for its marketing products including Google Analytics 4 through its Skillshop platform.
- Official Google Analytics 4 tutorials from Google on YouTube.
- Analytics Mania have lots of in-depth tracking guides and offer a free GA4 fundamentals mini-course.
- MeasureSchool is another great resource and also offer a free GA4 course for beginners.
Image credit: Photo by Negative Space on Pexels.
