In this article, we will be looking at Getting Started with Google Analytics 4 for beginners.

So if you’re new to GA4 then you are in the right place to get started.

Now unless you have been living under a rock or on a desert island you’ll have heard that UA will stop collecting data in July 2023. 

But don’t fear the change.

If you’re just starting out with GA4 then you are in the right place in this article we will be covering an introduction to GA4. 

I’ll be showing you exactly what’s inside GA4 and how to get started using it and get you from beginner to winner.

We’ll be looking at:

  • Getting started with GA4
  • Interface
  • Reporting
  • Event Tracking 
  • Conversions
  • And more

Let’s GO

Now you may be new to GA4 or looking to migrate from UA to GA4. Avoid wasting time and get the knowledge you need to get collecting data today.

What is GA4?

GA4 is taking over from UA. On July 1st 2023 UA will stop collecting data. From this day forward your UA account will no longer process new data.

If you are watching this video before July 1st 2023, now is the time to make the switch!

But don’t fear GA4 is similar to UA in that the data being collected will help you to understand your website and what users are doing on your website in line with your marketing efforts to get them to your website… Invaluable information!

GA4’s an online platform that allows you to see if you are meeting the goals you set and what are you getting from the marketing you’re performing.

….Make sure you’ve set your GOALS and OBJECTIVES!

What’s the difference between GA4 and UA

GA4 is the next generation of Google Analytics. GA4 offers a more comprehensive and advanced set of features whilst compared to the old Google Analytics.

Universal Analytics focused on tracking user interactions on a website. And GA4 is taking more of a holistic approach, it’s using machine learning and AI to help provide you with a more complete understanding of customer behaviour across channels and devices.

Different Measuring Models 

The main difference is the measurement model they’re using. GA4 is trying to be more privacy-focused…

Universal Analytics uses a measurement model based on sessions and pageviews. A session’s a group of user interactions (hits) with a website which take place over a timeframe. This can contain multiple pageviews, events and eCommerce transactions. 

Whereas GA4 uses a measurement model based on events and parameters. So any interaction can be captured as an event. As a result, all Universal Analytics hit types translate to events in GA4.

GA4 also changed the way it labelled events.

In Universal Analytics (and all previous versions of GA) an event has a category, action and label and is its own hit type. 

GA4 has no category, action, or label. Every hit is an event and events can (but do not have to) contain parameters.

GA4 brings website and app data together for people that use both. Helping to better understand their audiences.

What’s In GA4

We’ll be diving into some of the features that GA4 has in later in this article. But here’s a quick overview:

You can see:

  • How did users land on your website?
  • View different actions people are taking on your site
  • Check out user demographics and device information
  • If you’re running an eCommerce store then there are plenty of insights for that.

How to set up GA4?

If you are using Googles products to measure your marketing performance, you’re going to need GA4! If you don’t use any type of analytics, then you’ll definitely need one in order to measure your marketing and make informed decisions.

In short, you want to create an analytics account and add any tags to your site. The tag part of this process is a little piece of code that makes it possible for your website data to go to GA4. We’ll take a further look at this down the line.

So don’t delay and get it set up today!

Create a Google Analytics 4 Account/Property

If you’re new to GA and never used it before then let’s head over to the Google Marketing Platform 

You can also access it via Google and search Google Analytics. Then click the first link like in the video and head on in!

If you have never logged in before then you will be asked to do so here. Once you have logged in you will then be asked to go and create a new account.

Enter your Business Name. After you have entered your Business Name scroll down and click next.

You will then be asked to create your new property. If for some reason you have worked on a Google Analytics property. Then head to the Admin section in the bottom left-hand corner of any Google Analytics

From here you can either create a new account. If you already have an account for your business. Then you can create a new property in that account. This is because GA4 is a type of property.

Click Create a Property, you then see this screen, where you’re asked to add the following details

  • Property name
  • Time Zone
  • ETC

Here’s a little tip… In most cases, a property represents a website or an app. But in a lot of cases, from what we’ve seen if a business is running multiple websites. But those websites are part of the same user journey. Then a property represents multiple websites.

Example 

Since GA4 is capable of tracking mobile app data as well and storing it in the same property as the website data. If you run a business and have, say a website and iOS app you can create a single property for all of them, as long as it makes sense, and as long as they are part of the same user journey.

But for now, we are going to name this GA4 Demo Property. Select Time Zone and Currency. When setting this up it will only create a GA4 property.

If for some reason you want to set up a UA property then scroll down and click Show Advanced options. Then toggle this switch and enter your website. Here you can create both or just one property. Just do what’s best for you. So decide if you want to set up both or not.

In today’s article, we will be just setting up a GA4 property.

Click Next

Then look to answer the questions, these are optional so it’s up to you.

Then click Create

Now you have created your property you will see the following view.

So don’t delay and get it set up today!

Overview of Google Analytics 4 Admin Panel

Let’s navigate to the Admin section. This can be accessed by clicking on the gear icon in the bottom left.

Now you’ll see the Admin section in GA4.

In the first column, you will see the Account column. Piece of advice Accounts usually represent a business. So if you’re running an agency it’s recommended that you create Google Analytics properties for clients. Then you would not store properties under your agency account. Instead, create a separate account for each of your clients. This will help with the management and ownership of each client’s account.

Now let’s move on to the Property column.

A property can represent a single website or maybe multiple websites if they belong to the same user journey.

You may notice here if you’ve been a UA user, is the view column does not exist in GA4. There are no current talks of this coming back but GA4 is being heavily worked on and is constantly being changed and updated at the moment. I’ve even logged in from one day to the next and seen things move… 

But don’t panic straight away something may have just been moved to a new section in GA4.

Let’s jump back into the Accounts column and work our way through it.

In the top spot, we have Account Settings. In the Account settings, you can find your

  • Account ID number
  • Account Name, this can be changed at any time
  • You can change the location of your business
  • Change data-sharing settings
  • Lastly, there is a Move to Trash Can button if you want to delete your account

Now let’s head to Account Access Management. Here you can manage users at an account level. If you click the blue plus icon you can add new users, by adding their email addresses. Then you can select the role you want to assign them in GA4. This is defined under each role heading.

You can also restrict other data like cost metrics and revenue metrics. Then we have the filter section. Here we will see the Filters for Universal Analytics. Filters cannot be applied to Google Analytics 4 Properties.

Filters for GA4 are kept in the Property Column. But these work with a different logic than UA.

This is why they’re not available at the Account Level.

Moving on we have Account Change History, here you can see all the changes made to your account by users.

Property Column

Setup Assistant

This section will help you to get up and running with GA4. Let’s click in and take a look. This can be used as a checklist of things to implement if you wish.

For example:

  • You need to install your tracking code.
  • Next, you can configure custom events, user id, and enhanced measurements.

From time to time this may be updated with new items as new features get rolled out. Take your time working through these.

Property Settings

This section lets you amend and change: 

  • Property Name
  • Industry category
  • Reporting Time Zone
  • Currency

Property Access Management

Remember on the Account Level you could manage users. In the Property column, Property Access Management will only look at access to this property. Therefore if you want to add a user to a single property, you should click on Property Access Management. Very similar to the Account Access Management

Click the plus icon and here you can add users by email address and select a role that fits them. Again you can restrict users from seeing Cost Metrics and Revenue Metrics also.

Data Streams

One of the most important items on this list. Data streams are sources of data through which information will reach your Google Analytics 4 property. If you click on Data Streams you might see a view like this…

Or you may have one data stream already set up. Also to note is that one GA4 property can have multiple data streams set up. For example, you could have a data stream set up for your website, one for your Android app and one for your iOS app.

We’re just going to be looking at website tracking for now. So let’s click web. Now enter the URL of the website.

Then add the Stream name. You can now change your Stream name, whereas this was not previously available. But think about naming your stream name clearly

Enhanced Measurements in GA4

We’re in the Admin panel > Data Streams > Events > Enhanced Measurements. Underneath we have some new features you will not have seen in UA, which is Enhanced Measurements. GA4 allows you to track way more Events from the get-go. No more having to ask your developer to track these Events.

It not only tracks pageviews but Scrolls, Outbound clicks, Site Search, Video Engagement (this applies to embedded YouTube videos), File Downloads and Form Interactions.

You can click in and turn these on and off as you, please. For example, if you chose not to track Scrolling then you can turn this off. Then click Save. For reference, the Scroll Event is triggered when a user scrolls more than 90% of a page. Meaning they almost reached the bottom of the page.

Outbound clicks are when a user clicks any link that takes her away from the website.

Site Search, if your website has a search box feature. It’s great to understand what people are searching for on your website. Clicking the show advanced settings, here you can see the Search Term query parameters. You can check these pre-populated ones with your website functionality. Here’s an example of how to check this.

Head to your website and type something into your search box and click search. Once you have done this, you should see the Search Term Query Parameter in your URL. Then you will see the search query itself, in this instance, it was ‘test’. You will notice that after the ? is the word query. This is the information that needs to be in the Search Term Query Parameter. Which as standard is in GA4. It’s good to check and test this, incase your website works differently and you need to add this manually.

Form Interactions. Warning, be careful with Form Interactions, as people are reporting things like Facebook Pixels playing havoc with the Form Interactions Event. I personally keep this turned off and choose to track form interactions with a different method.

Video engagement. This applies to embedded YouTube videos embedded on your website. If you have some other video players, GA4 will not be able to track them out of the box like this. This would require additional tracking with GTM.

File Downloads. Lastly, we have file downloads. Here you can capture a file download event each time a link is clicked with a common document, compressed file, application, video or audio extension. Pretty neat hey.

Other Settings In The Admin Panel

Click Create Stream. Now we are back at the Data Stream page, you will notice that there is a Measurement ID at the top right of the page. You will need this when it comes to installing the code on the website.

Under Enhanced Measurements is Modify Events, and Create Events, we’ll dive into these a little further in this article.

Then we have Measurement Protocol API secrets, this is a little more advanced so we’ll be leaving this for now in this beginner’s walk-through guide.

Configure Tag Settings. Click show all to see all the options. 

First up is Manage Automatic Event Detection, here you can turn on and off your Enhanced Measurements.

Configure your domains, this again is a little more advanced so we’ll leave this for now.

Allow user-provided data capabilities, this again is a little more advanced so we’ll leave this for now

Collect Universal Analytics events, here you can turn this on and GA4 will look to collect your UA events into GA4. I would take caution with this. We have created all Events manually in GA4 and or GTM. Doing this means that you can lose flexibility and the naming convention of those events you’re pulling from UA.

Define Internal Traffic. Let’s say you have coworkers working on your website, yet you don’t want to see their data GA reports. Here you can define rules for internal traffic.

Currently, you can only define internal traffic by IP address.

List unwanted referrals. This is useful if you have a website where people can make a transaction/purchase from you and this was a payment gateway like PayPal. You can go to this section and add paypal.com as an unwanted Referral. This means, before you did this you would have seen traffic sources coming from PayPal. Where this isn’t strictly correct as this was just the payment gateway being used.

Putting this in place means that PayPal.com will not be seen as the session that acquired the traffic to the website.

Adjust Session Timeout. Here you can adjust your session timeout. By default, this is set to 30mins. For example, if I land on your website and don’t do anything for 31 mins. My session will time out, and then the next time I click on something or make an action on site, this will be seen as a new session. In most cases the default sessions are fine and you won’t need to change anything here.

Override cookie settings. Here you can change how long cookies last and how they’re updated. But for now, I don’t think you’ll need to change these.

Then scrolling back to the top you’ll see there is History and Admin.

History shows you changes that have been made to the Google Tag. 

Lastly is Admin, 

This is for Google Tag you can:

Manage Google tag. Edit your Google tag name, combine your Google Tags or add or remove destinations.

Combine tags. Combine your Google Tags to share tagging configuration, website coverage and tag users.

Install this Google tag. Here you can install your Google Tag via your CMS it’s in the list. Alternatively, you Install it Manually.

See all Google tags you have access to with Google Tag Manager. This will take you to GTM 

Google Tag Users 

Choose who can administer this tag. Specify the users who are allowed to manage users, add or remove destinations or combine Google tags

Choose who can edit this tag’s settings. Specify the users who are allowed to view or edit this tag’s configuration

Launch tag assistant. See how your Google Tag behaves on your website to verify and troubleshoot your installation

Tag coverage. See which pages of your website have the Google Tag Installed.

Taking a step back to the main screen for the Web Stream you will see the following.

Manage Connected Site Tags. Load tags for additional properties or products using this stream’s on-page Google tag. Learn more

View Tag instructions. There are also some Tagging Instructions below the Google Tag section. In the additional instructions, there are two methods on how to add the on-page tags.

One is with gtag.js and the other is through Google Tag Manager. 

GTM is my personal preferred method. GA4 has removed the GTM code from the GA4 interface. Therefore you’ll find this in Google Tag Manager.

Please remember that you may log in to GA4 and this article is slightly different to what your seeing. This is because GA4 is constantly changing and updating. So don’t fear if you see things move around a little.

Back to the main Admin screen, you’ll see the following.

Events. Next up is Events. Click on Events and you can see all the current Events that are live. You can modify and create Events here too. You can also mark your Events as conversions. Conversions are what Goals were to UA.

Conversions. As I just mentions Conversions are what Goals were in UA. Here you can create a New Conversion Event. 

Audiences. Audiences let you segment your users in ways that are important to your business. You can segment by dimensions, metrics, and events to include practically any subset of users. As GA4 gets new data about users, their audience memberships are reevaluated to ensure they still meet the audience criteria.

In this section, you can create Audiences. You can create them from Scratch if you know what you are doing! You can also create them from the Suggested Audiences panel below.

Custom definitions. In this section, we have custom dimensions and custom metrics. Custom dimensions are attributes or characteristics that you want to track. For example, an attribute describes an event, context, user etc. They can be event-scoped or user-scoped. 

What are custom metrics in GA4? 

Custom dimensions and metrics are very similar, but there is one difference: A custom dimension either has an event scope or a user scope, and a custom metric always has an event scope. 

Custom dimensions and custom metrics are like default dimensions and metrics in your Analytics account, except you create them yourself. You can use them to collect and analyse data that Analytics doesn’t automatically track.

Data Settings. Here let’s look at Data settings and Data Collection. First, you’ll see Google Signals. If you enable it, GA will start collecting more data about users on your website. You will start getting data like gender, age, etc.

But remember that you’ll only get data from those users that have a Google Account, and have the remarketing features enabled.

Ad personalisation. This means you can turn on and off any Google Signals for particular countries you don’t want to track in this manner.

If you want to use these features, as default they are disabled. You’ll need to click I acknowledge, this will mean you have the necessary privacy in place on your website. An example of this is that you ask for user consent before you start activating your tracking codes. 

Data Retention. Next on the list is Data Retention. As default, you can use 2 months of data, but if you want data from over that, say the past 6 or 12 months you won’t be able to do that from the off.  You’ll have to click here and change that to 14 months. Now this data retention is only relevant to the Explore section. But in the standard reports, they are not affected by this as they display aggregated data. This means if you wanted to check data in your standard reports from say 3 years ago then you can do that. 

Please remember this is only if you have been collecting data for this long.

Data Filters. When we were in the Data Stream we could set our Internal Traffic. Once you have set your Internal traffic for example. There will be a related Data Filter for this. 

In this example, our Internal Traffic is still set at Testing. This means that it will not be affecting and filtering out the data. To kick this particular filter off to not have this data in it, we will need to change the state from Testing to Active.

Data Import. Data Import lets you upload data from external sources and join it with your Analytics data. Click ‘Create data source’ to explore the types of data you can upload. This could be ads on non-Google platforms, information from your CMS etc.

Reporting Identity. Determines which methods Analytics uses to associate events with users. Here you can choose how would you like to identify your users.  This setting is actually retroactive. So if you choose another setting and save it you can look at past data that will be displayed by treating users by the reporting identity chosen.

Blended. This identity evaluates User ID, Google signals, device ID, and modelled data. 1 inactive method 

Observed. This identity evaluates User ID, Google signals, and device ID.

Device-based. This identity evaluates device ID only. Your reports may only reflect a subset of users.

If you have Google Signals activated you will have 3 options here.

Attribution Settings. Next up we have attribution. We can decide how GA4 will attribute data. Here are some of the options in the drop-down menu.

Property Change History. If there are a number of members of a team using GA4 you can use Property Change History. Here you can see the change history of the property.

Data Deletion Requests. A cool feature that has been rolled out in GA4. If you accidentally collect data, let’s say it’s personal data. And now you want to delete this information. You can do this by creating a deletion request. Click Schedule Data Deletion Request. You can then select the data that you want to completely remove

Debug View. Here we have the debug view. This is a new feature that GA3 or UA did not have. It allows you to live DebugView and enables you to see the raw event data logged by your app on development devices in near real-time.

Product Links. Now we have the product linking area. This has expanded over time and there may be more added in the future.

Currently, there are 9 product links. Make sure if you’re running Google Ads etc. that you have linked these correctly. The same with Google Search Console if you are working on SEO for your website. Go through the list and connect all relevant Google products that you use.

That rounds up the admin panel in Google Analytics 4.

Standard reports in Google Analytics 4

In this section of this article, we will be looking at some of the Standard reports in GA4.

Let’s log into our Google Analytics account and navigate to the Reports section. This can be accessed in the left sidebar.

Currently, we have 5 areas to click on in the left-hand sidebar. This has changed since GA4 launched and may change again in the future as new features are rolled out.

Let’s dive in and click Reports. You’ll see the following screen open up. Here you will see down the side the standard reports that are in GA4. Please note that there are reports being added over time. So you may drop in here and see something new appear.

If you want to want to customise your reports, you can do that here in the Library.

But let’s take a little walk around to give you an idea of what you can do in the standard reports.

Firstly you can compare a set of users against another set of users. You can do this in two ways. Click Add Comparison or click Edit Comparison over here. Here you can compare, let’s say All Users against say, organic users. Then click Apply and voilà you can compare different audiences.

You can see the two coloured lines denoting the different traffic types. These comparisons will stay in place and be applied to all these reports you can navigate to. 

To remove these comparisons, click the X and it will be removed.

You can change the date range for your data over here. Similar to UA you can select different date ranges and also compare date ranges.

If you are just starting out and you have no or very little data then I recommend that you try out the Google Analytics 4 Demo Account. This is the official demo account from Google. Here you can slice and dice the data to your heart’s content. Don’t worry you can’t break it, it’s also not your data you’re playing with. You can access the Google GA4 Demo account here!

Once you have access to this playground of data I recommend that you dive in and get exploring in the Report Snapshot. As you can see there are a lot of snapshot reports here. A number of these will also let you click in further and open a larger report.

Next, we have Real-time reports. This is pretty cool as it will give you a snapshot overview of the real-time activity on your website. The real-time report gives the last 30 mins of data. Whereas UA/GA3 was only from the last 5 minutes. Also similar to the previous reports we were looking at the Real-time report lets you add comparisons. 

Then under the Life Cycle, we have the Acquisition reports. This shows the traffic sources that your visitors are coming to the site.

There is an Overview, User Acquisition and Traffic Acquisition. They are as they say on the tin. One shows you how the website acquired the user. Then traffic acquisition referees to the session and not the user(s)

Engagement Reports

Next on the list is the Engagement Reports section. 

Here you have the Events report. These are the Events that you are sending from the website to GA4. Here you will see all Events that have been triggered. These Events include automatic Events that have been set up through Enhanced Measurements. Like scroll and page_view. And you’ll also see any custom Events that you are sending.

For example, we have added the additional percentages of a page scrolled. These were custom and added by ourselves and not out of the box.

Next on the menu is Conversions. Conversions are essentially the Goals of Universal Analytics. When looking at your Events you may feel that some are more important than others. For example, a user signing up for a newsletter or purchasing from your website.

Purchase is the only conversion that is set as Default. The rest of the conversion has to be set by yourself in GA4

Next on the menu are Pages and Screens. 

Here in this report, you can the pages by Title, that your visitors visited the most!

Then we have a newish report that has been added by Google.

Landing Pages, there’s a new report in town, and it’ll help you evaluate and optimise the effectiveness of your landing pages Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

The new report will compare the following metrics:

  • Sessions
  • Average engagement time per session
  • Conversions
  • New users
  • Total revenue

Monetisation

Now let’s look at the Monetisation reporting section.

If you make sales through your website then this is a critical area for you in GA4. Remember you’ll need to set up sales/e-commerce tracking for these to work.

If we jump into E-commerce purchases we can see popular products purchased. You can also see how many times that item was viewed, add to cart, purchased and the total revenue for that item

Overview Report

Next, we have the Overview report, which was entitled the Retention Report. This isn’t something I use too heavily at the moment. There are a couple of drawbacks with this report. Like cookie expiration etc.

Users Reports

Then under Users, we have demographics data. So if you’ve activated Google Signals in GA4. And it’s been running for a while to collect data. Then there will be information about your users on your website here.

First up we have the overview which is a series of cards, giving you an overview of your user demographics like country, town/city, gender, interests and more.

Then we have the details report. Here you can see a whole bunch of metrics and if you want to view this information from another dimension then you can do that here with the drop down. For example, I’ve just changed this to view Age and not Country. Then similar to UA you can add a secondary dimension by clicking the plus icon and adding a secondary dimension. Here we added age.

Tech Reports

Last up is the Tech report. Here is the Overview report which shows you a bunch of cards again. This time it shows Platform, device, browser etc. Pretty neat hey, if you want to see what devices are popular with your users and then you can look to see what experience they have on-site and if you can improve this. This is just one area that this information can be helpful to you.

That rounds up the Standard reports in Google Analytics 4.

Explorations in Google Analytics 4

In this section of the article, we will be looking at some of the Exploration reports in GA4. If you find you want to get more out of the standard reports that are in GA4 then you’ll likely want to be looking in the Explorations area.

Let’s navigate to the left-hand menu and click on Explorations.

Here you will see a few of the exploration reports that are available out of the box.

We have free-form reports and funnel exploration reports. These have come on leaps and bounds since the last version of GA. Then we have Path exploration, segment overlap, user exploration, cohort exploration and user lifetime. You can also click here on the Template Gallery.

But let’s have a little dive in to see what a few of these reports look like and what we can do with them.

Let’s click on the Free-Form report and see what we can do here. 

From left to right we have Variables, which house Segments. Dimensions and metrics and date range. These are all the variables you want to use in the Exploration you are creating.   

So if there is something you want to include in your report then make sure you have added it here. 

If you want to add products to your row, for example, you’ll see here that we can’t select this. This is due to the fact that we haven’t added it to the Variables column.

Under Dimensions, we can click the plus icon, and then type the product into the search box. 

You can also scroll down and look at all that’s available.

Select it and click import. 

Now you’ll see the dimension we just searched for has been added to the column.

This means that if we pull this across to the rows or columns we now have this available to do so. Again this works the same for segments, dimensions and metrics.

Then in the tab settings, you can change your technique from Free-Form to something else. But as we’re looking at free-form reports we won’t change this for now.

You then have visualisation, where you can change how the report is displayed by choosing one of these options. 

Under that, you can then create a segment. For example, if we just wanted to look at US traffic we can pull this over. 

Rows we can look at Events. And add values as Event count. You can drag, double click or Add it.

Now you have created your first Free Form report. 

Don’t forget you can rename the report here.

Once you have finished you can come out of the report and this will be saved here.

One thing to note is you can only see this report after creating it.

If you want your team to be able to see it you’ll need to click on the three dots and click share. 

This will make it accessible but read-only for other people who have access to this property.

Advertising reports in Google Analytics 4

In this section of the article, we will be looking at the Advertising section in GA4.

On the left-hand side below Explorations, you’ll see the Advertising tab. Here you can see which channels drive the most conversions.

Please note that you will have to set up conversions in some way on your website and GA4. For example, if you have an e-commerce website you’ll need that tracking in place for the purchase Event to work.

You can also set up other Events as conversions. This is regardless of whether you are an e-commerce site or not. If you are a lead gen website for example you may have a contact form as a Conversion.

This is where you can start to see which channels drive the most conversions. And what role they can play in the user journey.

In Advertising Snapshot you can click on View All Channels. Or head to All Channels in the side menu under Performance. 

This will show you, by channel which of them are driving conversions, the Ad cost, cost per conversion, Total revenue and ROAS.

Similar to the previous section of this guide we can search for specific channels, change from default channel groups and add secondary dimensions.

Conversion Paths. Under the conversion path, you can see the particular roles traffic sources have played in the user’s journey. 

You can change the attribution model by clicking here and selecting from Data-Driven, Last click, First click, linear, position-based and time decay

When you change through the different attribution models you will see the data here change accordingly. Then we have the most common conversion paths. You can change the view to see more over here, with the rows per page!

Install Google Analytics 4

In this section of the article, we will be looking at a basic installation of GA4.

Navigate and open your GA4 account.

Head to the admin section.

Click Data Streams in the Property column.

Click on the Data Stream and you will see this measurement ID.

Now head to View tag instructions.

There are a few ways you can add GA4 to your website.

There is an Install with a website builder or CMS

There is also installing it manually in the source code on your site or through Google Tag Manager

To install this through GTM, you’ll need to go to Google Tag Manager.

If this is your first time using GTM, you need to create an account.

  • Add your company details
  • Add your website
  • Select your target platform

Then click Create. 

If you want a full run-through please let us know as we’ll look to add this.

Once you have created your new container. You’ll see the Install Google Tag Manager.

You’ll then see two sets of code that you’ll need to add to the website. Or ask your developer to do this.

The first set of code has to be placed in the <head> and the second in the opening of the  <body> tag

Once you have been given the all-clear by the developer that the code has been installed you might want to double-check this is all working.

You can do this by clicking Preview.

Enter the name of the website you have just added the code to.

You’ll then see this appear and you’ll need to click Connect.

If you see connected displayed on your website and in Tag Assistant then everything is A-ok. 

And everything is installed

Now let’s move on to the next part of the installation.

We’re going to need to set up a tag to fire the GA4 code off.

Let’s click Tags and we’ll see this screen.

Here we want to choose the tag type you want to set up.

You can do that by clicking here or on the pencil icon.

Then select GA4 configuration from the list.

Next, you’ll need to get the measurement ID which we discussed earlier in this article.

To find that let’s jump back into GA4.

Click Admin > Data Streams

Then you’ll see the measurement ID here.

Click copy and head back to GTM.

Paste your measurement ID here.

Now we’ll need to decide when this will be Triggered!

We want this to be triggered on every page.

Click in the Triggering panel.

And select all pages.

Make sure you name your Tag.

Name it something like GA4 – Configuration.

This will help you to identify your Tags in the future.

Click SAVE

We’ll now need to check that this is working and test the Tag we have just created to ensure it it Triggering when we need it to. 

Before we submit it and make it Live

So let’s slide on back to PREVIEW to test this before making it live.

Now we have the tag assistant loaded we can check the Container loaded and see if our Tag fired.

We want to also check that this data is coming into GA4.

So let’s head on back to GA4.

Head to Admin.

And in the property column click DebugView.

Now you can see in the DebugView the data that is being pulled into GA4.

We can see our page_view and Session Start.

If you click on page_view you can see some additional information.

Parameter and User properties.

You can see the Page Title. 

Page URL and so on.

Everything looks like it’s working as it should be 🙂.

If you’d like us to dive deeper into the DebugView then let us know.

Now we have made the necessary checks and tests, we want this to be live.

So let’s head back to GTM and Submit this Tag and push it live.

Click Submit, and add a version name and description of what you’ve pushed live. This will help for future reference.

Click Publish and hey presto. You are tracking GA4 basic actions on the website.

So there we have it, a beginner’s guide to getting started with GA4.

Let us know if you found this useful!

If you need any help or want to speak to us about your GA4 set up then get in contact.