Google Analytics 4

What Google Analytics 4 is

It replaced Universal Analytics, which stopped collecting data in 2023. Where the old version counted sessions and pageviews, GA4 counts events: every page view, scroll, click and purchase is an event with details attached.

It matters because it is where most businesses learn whether their marketing works.

GA4 is free, connects to Google Ads and Search Console, and, set up properly, answers which channels bring customers and where visitors drop out.

How it is organized

Setting it up properly

1. Create the property with your reporting time zone and currency; changing them later doesn’t fix past data.
2. Add a web data stream and turn on the enhanced measurement events you want. Leave form interactions off if they fire on every field focus, and track forms through Tag Manager instead.
3. Install the Google tag once, through Google Tag Manager if you use it, and check the page source and Tag Assistant for a second copy left by a plugin.
4. Raise data retention to the longest your property allows before you need it.
5. Filter internal traffic and add your payment and booking domains to the list of unwanted referrals.
6. Send your key events: leads, sign-ups and purchases, with ecommerce events carrying items and values, and mark them as key events.
7. Link Google Ads and Search Console, so ad costs and search queries sit beside behavior.

Before and after: a purchase event

gtag('event', 'purchase_complete', {
  total: 49
});

gtag('event', 'purchase', {
  currency: 'USD',
  value: 49,
  items: [...]
});

Example for illustration; not a client's data.

Attribution

GA4 credits key events to channels with data-driven attribution by default, which shares credit across the touchpoints in a path based on your own data. The “first user” and “session” dimensions answer different questions: how someone first found you, and what brought them this time. When a report seems to undercount a channel, check which of the two it uses before drawing conclusions.

Reports worth reading

Traffic acquisition shows which channels bring sessions and key events. Landing page shows which pages start visits. Monetization shows revenue and products when ecommerce events are set up. Explorations let you build funnels and paths for specific questions. Compare periods with the same weeks a year earlier to remove seasonality.

How to check it yourself

1. 1
   Check four things in Admin.

   Open GA4's Admin and check four things: data retention, internal traffic filters, which events are marked as key events, and whether Google Ads and Search Console are linked.
2. 2
   Test in DebugView.

   Then use DebugView while you complete a purchase or a form on your own site: each event should appear once, with its parameters.

Connect Google Analytics to SMARTSEO and see your traffic in plain words: organic visits in a typical week against the same weeks a year earlier, the channels and landing pages that bring people, and your sales if you sell online. If your site sells online and GA4 receives no ecommerce events, the SMARTSEO Score marks the gap.