Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

This study guide works best when working side-by-side with an actual Google Analytics GA4 account. This will serve as a guide as you go along.

Google Analytics property

Website, mobile application or web page that is associated with a unique measurement ID to enable metrics collection.

Attribution

Assigns credit for conversions from ads, last clicks or other touch points along a user’s path to conversion completion.

Admin

It controls your account, property, and user settings.

Realtime report

You can now monitor activity as it happens. Card-based layout report to shows you events that took place between five seconds and 30 minutes ago.

It is designed to quickly answer important questions about how users are currently interacting with your business. Each card represents a stage in the marketing funnel. In this report you can

Explore in Exploration

It uses advanced techniques beyond the standard reports to help you uncover deeper insights about your customers’ engagement. Let you easily configure and switch between a number of powerful techniques to better understand your your data.

• Drag and drop dimensions and metrics
• Filter, segment, sort and refactor data to have a clear insight.

Exploration Techniques

• Free form exploration – allows you to visualize your data with flexibility and ease. 
• Funnel exploration – lets you visualize the steps where users enter your funnels and where they drop.
• Path exploration – is free-flowing, it follows any number of undefined paths and uncovers the steps users take through your site or app.
• User exploration – lets you select specific groups of users, learn about their activities and behavior.
• Cohort exploration – it reports users who share a common characteristic and specific events. Also allows you to explore the behavior over time.
• Segment Overlap – lets you compare up to three user segments to quickly see how those relate to each other.

Search Tool

It works better if you be specific about the metric, dimension, and time frame to get the desired response. Use phrases for example, “Conversion last month from Canada”.

• Instant answers
• Reports, admin pages and insights
• Account or property configuration
• Help content

Google Analytics 4 Structure

Analytics Account

This can include multiple properties and property types, but a property can belong to only one Analytics account.

Analytics account  is your gateway to Analytics

Property

Containers for your reports based on the data you collect from your apps and sites, including processing data from other Google products like Google Ads and Search Console.

Property  lives within an account

Data Stream

Feature of GA4 properties that allow you to connect a single Analytics property to the various places where your users interact with your business. For example, a company that has both a website and an app would need a separate data stream for each platform to combine their reporting and insights into a single Analytics property.

• Web stream
• App stream

Data stream lives within a property and is the source of data from your app or website

Google Analytics Identity Spaces

User-ID

 It lets you associate your own identifiers with individual users so you can connect their behavior across different sessions and on various devices and platforms. To enable this feature, you must assign ID to each user and include the ID along with the data you send to Analytics. View related topic

Google signals

It collects from users on your site with the Google accounts of signed-in users who have consented to sharing this information. To enable Google signals view related topic.

Device ID

Device ID is automatic, uses device ID as an identity space. For web, device ID comes with the browser. On app, it uses an app-instance ID.

Data Collection

• User properties – Attributes about who is using your app or website that can help you better understand segments of your user base.
• Events – User interactions with a website or app that can be measured.
• Event parameters – Additional pieces of information that can further specify the action the user took.
• Conversions – User interactions with a website or app that you’ve assigned a specific value and can be used in Google Ads