Google Analytics 101: A Beginner’s Guide

Digital Analytics, with tools such as Google Analytics (GA4), is the key to understanding and enhancing your website, app, or social media accounts' performance. Whether you're running a website, blog, retail business, app, or even managing a TikTok account, digital analytics can be a game-changer for your online presence.

Understanding Google Analytics (GA4):

What is GA4 and why is it used for?

Google Analytics (GA4) empowers you with the tools needed to comprehend and enhance your performance. Whether you're focused on sales, app downloads, leads, views/comments or the user purchase journey, GA4 equips you with actionable insights for informed decision-making.

By utilizing Google Analytics 4 (GA4), you can gain insights to:

• Understand: User behavior and interactions.
• Optimize: Strategies based on data-driven decisions.
• Elevate: Digital presence for greater impact.

In this guide, I'll try to simplify the essentials of GA4 and help unlock its potential for business success across various digital platforms.

Defining Your Business Goals:?

Before beginning with Google Analytics 4 (GA4), identify your main business goals. What are you aiming to achieve?

For example:

If You Own a Retail Shop:

• Aim: Increase sales, through heightened conversion rates, by comprehending and optimizing customer journeys.
• Strategy with GA4: Understand how visitors land on her page, identify critical touchpoints with high conversion potential, and optimize marketing strategies accordingly.
• Reports to Benefit From: User Acquisition, Conversion Path and Monetization Reports (E-commerce Purchases, Checkout Purchases, Purchase Journey)

If You Have an App:

• Aim: Track downloads and user behavior to boost 'pro' subscriptions.
• Strategy with GA4:? Identify top-used features, and pinpoint the most engaging aspects to increase your app's success.
• Reports to Benefit From: Engagement reports (Events, Conversions, Pages and screens) and User Attributes reports

If You're a Content Developer:

• Aim: Optimize your content strategy to boost view count and interaction.?
• Strategy with GA4: Deepen your understanding of your audience, gaining insights into the content that resonates most with different segments.?
• Reports to Benefit From: User Attributes, Events, Pages and Screens reports

Keep in mind that these are just a few examples provided to clarify the process and help you define your own objectives.

Getting Started:

First of all, you will need to create an account and a property. Here is a link where you can do that:

• Set up your own Google Analytics account.
• Or, you can use Google Analytics Demo Account with actual data from an e-commerce website to explore Google Analytics reports and features.

Google Analytics Setup:?

It is important to grasp how your account is structured. The basics revolve around three main layers: Account, Property, and Data Stream.?

In simple terms, your 'Account' covers everything, 'Property' narrows down the data for one user base and the 'Data Stream' is the source of data from an app or website. Let's break it down using real-life examples.

a) For Online Sellers (with Just a Website):

Imagine you're a retail seller with only a website, like using Shopify. Your Google Analytics setup would look pretty straightforward:

• Account (1) > Property (1) > Data stream (1 → for your website)

b) For App Developers (No Website):

Now, let's say you're into app development and don't have a website. Here's how your account will look:

• Account (1) > Property (1) > Data stream (2 → one for Android, one for iOS)

Firebase Integration for Mobile Apps:

To ensure a smooth flow of data from your app to Analytics you'll need to integrate Firebase. Don't worry it is not very complicated at all. Once you've set up the Firebase SDK and established your app data stream, it automatically collects essential events—such as first opens, in-app purchases, and screen views—across all apps. This configuration also enables comprehensive analysis by merging app and website data.

To learn how to set up Firebase SDK for your app, explore:

Firebase Integration?

c) Handling Business Diversity (B2B and B2C or Similar):

Now, let's talk about companies dealing with both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) aspects, like food delivery services such as Foodora or Wolt. ?In that case your GA4 setup might look like this:

• Account (1) > Property (2) > Data stream (6)

Collecting Data with Google Analytics

Now that your account is set up, the next step is to collect data. Google Analytics achieves this through short lines of Javascript or HTML code called tags. Placed on web pages, these tags gather data points triggered by specific events, such as a visitor viewing a page, clicking on a link, or playing an embedded video.

Great news! Google Tag Manager allows you to automate the tagging process. Without needing any web development experience, it enables you to efficiently add and update website tags through a user-friendly interface, simplifying the entire process. This helps in gaining insights into conversions, site analytics, and more.

Google Tag Manager:

1. Easily add and update website tags.
2. Compatible with various CMS and website builders. See instructions for each platform here.

Compatible platforms include:

• BigCommerce
• Blogger
• Drupal
• Duda
• GoDaddy
• Hubspot
• MonsterInsights for WordPress
• Shopify
• Site Kit for WordPress
• Squarespace (checked this one out and found it super user-friendly)
• Wix
• WordPress

Benefits of Using Google Ads Auto-Tagging:

• Saves effort by eliminating manual tagging of each final URL.
• Eliminates errors from manual tagging variations.
• Facilitates seamless import of Analytics goals and transactions into Google Ads Conversion Tracking.
• Google Ads auto-tagging offers more detailed data than manual tagging.
• This richer data is especially valuable in reports covering Hour of Day, Placements, Display Targeting, Video Campaigns, and Shopping Campaigns.

Set Up Your Google Tag:

• Find a short tutorial video here on how to set up Google tags.

Data Import:

You can also import external data and combine it with or override existing Google Analytics data.

Data Import Features:

• Cost Data: Bring in non-Google campaign data (e.g., email marketing, social media advertising).
• Item-data: Integrate a complete product catalog into Analytics, especially useful for eCommerce. Measure user behavior, site traffic, eCommerce revenue, and conversions with item-specific data, such as size, color, style, or any item dimensions relevant to your business.
• User Data: Import user metadata from outside Analytics, including loyalty rating, date of last purchase, or customer lifetime value from a CRM system.

Events:

• Events form the core of how Analytics collects and processes data, providing insight into website or app activities. An event can be a page or video view, button click, purchase, or form submission.?
• Events are transmitted with additional data, known as event parameters (such as video name and duration), each interaction triggers an event and parameters sent to Analytics via website tags we discussed earlier.
• In addition to events and event parameters, user data, including geographic location and device information (user properties), is sent. Analytics utilizes these elements to generate reports.
• To visually represent this data, GA4 employs dimensions and metrics.
• Dimensions are textual attributes, answering questions like what, who, and when. For example, the name of an event is considered a dimension.
• Metrics, on the other hand, are quantitative measurements (e.g., average, ratio, percentage), providing answers to questions like how much, how many, and how long. For instance, event count is a metric indicating the total number of times an event occurred.

Explore More:

• See a detailed list for: Automatically Collected Events?
• For tracking of key events like pageviews, scrolls, file downloads, and video views enable enhance measurement. Learn how to enable: Enhance Measurement Events?
• Explore the list of additional events you can add to your GA4 account: Recommended Events
• To learn how to create an event from scratch -I hope you will not need it at the beginning as it requires some manual configurations, but I will leave the link here just in case: Custom Events?

Audience Triggers Events:

Using audience triggers in Google Analytics lets you create events based on criteria you choose. For example, you can form an audience for 'high-value customers' with a lifetime value exceeding 100. When a user meets this criteria, becoming an audience member, an event like 'new_high_value_customer' can be triggered. Check the guide for step-by-step help with audience criteria and triggers.

Measuring Events:

You can mark up to 30 events as conversions. To mark an event as a conversion, go to Admin > Display > Events > Mark as conversion.

If you need assistance with marking events, watch this video: Marking Events as Conversions

You are all set! Let’s discover reports:?

Ready-to-Use Reports?

1. Reports Snapshot: A quick overview of key data points and insights.
2. The Realtime Report: Events within the last 30 minutes, ideal for monitoring instant effects from social media posts or tweets.
3. Acquisition: Understand what drives the most user acquisition and website traffic, such as organic search, referral, direct, email, etc.
4. Engagement: Identify top-performing pages and content engaging your customers.
5. Monetization: Insights into customer shopping activity and eCommerce metrics.
6. Retention: Evaluate customer return rates and loyalty.
7. User Attributes: Details about your customer demographics and characteristics.
8. Tech: Information on customer technology usage, including devices and screen resolutions.
9. Conversion Paths Report: Analyze how different ads collaborate on the path to conversions.
10. Model Comparison Report: Compare last-click attribution with data-driven attribution to assess how each values your channels and campaigns in conversion reporting.

Data-Driven Attribution is a model that leverages AI algorithms to distribute credit for a conversion across various touchpoints, providing a more realistic representation of the impact of different channels and campaigns.

Explore the comparison between data-driven conversion and last-click conversion models below:

Create Your Own Reports:

Google Analytics provides you with the flexibility to thoroughly analyze your data. Within the 'Explore' section, you'll discover diverse report options, including ad hoc queries, cohort analysis, and user lifetime explorations.

Explore Different Analyses:

• Free-Form: Explore your data using the highly customizable and flexible free-form exploration technique.
• Funnel Analysis: Track the user journey on your site or mobile app, pinpointing areas where users drop off during actions like making a purchase.
• Cohort Analysis: Visualize users who share common attributes, such as the date of acquisition.
• Path Analysis: Map your users' journey through your app or website, revealing potential weak points.
• Segment Overlap: Use a Venn diagram to understand how different user segments interact, like comparing users of different ages or genders.
• User Explorer: Dive into detailed data about specific user groups, exploring information about each individual user.
• User Lifetime: Gain insights into user behavior over their entire interaction with your site and apps, identifying campaigns that contribute to long and active user lifetimes.

Free-Form Reports in GA4:

Let's explore Free-Form Reports—the initial reporting technique. It's incredibly useful, offering the freedom to improvise and free-style your way through reports, for practical insights.

Breaking down Free-Form Reports into three sections:

1. Variables: This section is static and includes a date widget, segments, dimensions, and metrics. To import metrics or dimensions, simply click the '+' icon, search for the desired value, and add it to your report.
2. Tab Settings: Here, you can select how you want to display the data. Options include:

Also, to create reports using the values you added in the first section ('Variables'), you need to move these selected values to their designated areas (row, column, value) in the second section ('Tab Settings'). You can do this by either sliding and releasing the values or double-clicking on them in the 'Variables' section to transfer them to the 'Tab Settings' area.

3. Report View: This section renders the report for visualization and decision-making.

You can combine these features to create diverse reports. For example, to track sessions by country, device category, and page title, add filters for refined analysis. Customization, segmentation, visualizations, and collaboration features help answer specific data questions and gain unique insights. Explore more about Free Form Reports.

Coming up, I'm excited to delve deeper into:

• Further insights on GA4 reports, including funnel analysis, cohort analysis, and user lifetime exploration.
• Understanding Google Ads and maximizing its effectiveness.
• GA4 - Integration with Google Ads.
• Exploring the concept of BigQuery and its integration with GA4.

References:

https://support.google.com/analytics?sjid=13850449124465019538-EU#topic=14090456

https://support.google.com/tagmanager/answer/12002338?sjid=9258912227872881569-EU#Setup_Ads

https://www.simpleanalytics.com/blog/how-does-google-analytics-collect-data .?

https://martech.org/most-of-you-have-google-analytics-4-set-up-but-are-still-learning-how-to-use-it/

https://metriclabs.com.au/an-overview-of-free-form-exploration-reports-in-ga4/