Unlocking Insights: Google Analytics 4’s Reporting Experiences
Introduction:
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) provides users with four key reporting experiences that enhance the power of data by offering valuable insights.
GA4 enables users to overcome internal silos and gain increased access to data insights. With the new user interface, users can conveniently access unsampled data and gain valuable insights. Furthermore, the flexible interface allows users to create customized reports tailored to their specific needs.
Leveraging the capabilities of Google AI, GA4 empowers users to find answers quickly and efficiently, while also benefiting from AI-powered insights. This integration of artificial intelligence enhances the overall user experience and unlocks valuable insights from the data.
Another significant feature of GA4 is its ability to help users understand sales and conversions through cross-channel, data-driven attribution (DDA). By analyzing data from various channels, GA4 enables users to gain a comprehensive understanding of their sales and conversions, making data-driven decisions more effective.
By incorporating these features, GA4 ensures that users can maximize the value of their data, break down internal barriers, and gain valuable insights to drive informed decision-making.
In a report on analytics, media, and marketing business insights, it was found that 56% of decision makers expressed that analytics tools do not make it easy to uncover valuable insights.
Google offer 4 key reporting experiences for users to maximize value from their data within GA4
A. STANDARD + CUSTOMIZED REPORTS
- When to use:
These reports are designed to address key questions and provide the flexibility to export and share them across an organization. They encompass both Overview Reports, which summarize information about a specific topic, and Detailed Reports, which enable users to delve deeper into the data. Depending on permissions, Standard Reports can be customized to meet specific needs.
- Use Cases:
During the initial setup of GA4, all users with access will have access to a Homepage, Reports Snapshot, Realtime Report, and a range of predefined reports. This ensures that users have a comprehensive reporting foundation from the start.
- Considerations:
In addition to the predefined reports, GA4 allows users to create up to 150 custom reports per property. This feature empowers users to tailor their reporting experience to their unique requirements and extract maximum value from their data.
By maintaining the original intent, this revised description accurately captures the main reporting experiences offered in GA4 and the flexibility available to users for customization and analysis.
B. EXPLORE
- WHEN TO USE:
Enhance your understanding of users and their journeys by utilizing a flexible “scratch-pad” tool called Explore.
- USE CASES:
This powerful tool goes beyond standard reports and employs advanced techniques to uncover deeper insights from your data.
- CONSIDERATIONS:
With Explore, you can delve into your data in more detail and accomplish the following:
i. Perform ad hoc and one-time queries.
ii. Easily configure and switch between various techniques.
iii. Sort, refactor, and drill down into the data to gain a comprehensive understanding.
iv. Utilize filters and segments to focus on specific subsets of data.
v. Create segments and audiences based on your exploration findings.
vi. Share your Explore analysis with other users who have access to the same GA4 property.
viii. Export the exploration data for use in other external tools or platforms.
By leveraging Explore, you can gain valuable insights that transcend standard reporting and empower you to make informed decisions based on a deeper understanding of your data.
C. API
- WHEN TO USE:
The Google Analytics Data API is a powerful tool that enables developers to access GA4 reporting data programmatically, facilitating automation and integration with other business applications.
- USE CASES:
With this API, you can build custom dashboards to showcase GA data, automate intricate reporting tasks to save time, and seamlessly integrate GA data with various business applications.
- CONSIDERATIONS:
Key features of the Google Analytics Data API include:
i. Access to a comprehensive range of report data in Google Analytics.
ii. Capability to export data to external tools like Looker Studio, opening up possibilities for advanced analysis and visualization.
iii. Enhanced data limits and quotas for the Google Analytics 360, ensuring efficient utilization of the Google Analytics 4 data API.
Leveraging the Google Analytics Data API empowers businesses to streamline their analytics processes, extract valuable insights, and seamlessly incorporate GA data into their existing workflows.
D. BIG QUERY
- WHEN TO USE:
Leverage the power of BigQuery to conduct advanced analysis on unprocessed, unsampled data from GA4 events using a SQL-like syntax.
- USE CASES:
Utilize BigQuery to query the raw event data for in-depth analysis, combine it with additional first-party (1P) data sources, and then export the resulting data for visualization in business intelligence (BI) tools.
- CONSIDERATIONS:
BigQuery Data Availability:
i. Accessible to both Standard and Enterprise customers in GA4.
ii. The daily export functionality allows for a complete export of the previous day’s raw event data.
iii. The streaming export feature enables real-time export of event data for the current day.
iv. Standard properties have a BigQuery limit of 1 million events per day.
Why does data appear differently in Standard Reports, Explore, API, and BQ?
This table outlines key differences between Reporting platforms that contribute to differences in data.
| Report | Export | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| STANDARD REPORTS | EXPLORE | DATA API | BIG QUERY | |
| Data Scope | Aggregated | Raw & user-level data | Aggregated | Raw & user-level data |
| Thresholding Applied to prevent anyone viewing a report or exploration from inferring the identity of individual users based on demographics, interests, or other signals present in the data. |
Possible | Possible | Possible | Not Applied |
| High Cardinality | Can occur + show as the (“other row”) after filtering or applying a secondary dimension |
No | Can occur + show as the (“other row”) after filtering or applying a secondary dimension |
No |
| Sampling Used when the number of events returned by an exploration exceeds the limit for your property type. |
No | Yes | Data API methods for Standard Reports will never show sampled data |
No |
| Cross-Platform Reporting with Google Signals Google signals are session data from sites and apps that Google associates with users who have signed in to their Google accounts, and who have turned on Ads Personalization. |
Can be applied | Can be applied | Can be applied | No |
| Conversion Modeling Allows for accurate conversion attribution without identifying users. |
Included | Included | Included | Not Included |
| Behavioral Modeling Behavioral modeling for consent mode uses machine learning to model the behavior of users who decline analytics cookies based on the behavior of similar users who accept analytics cookies.s |
Included in Reporting Module + Realtime Not in Audiences, Segments with a sequence, Retention reports, Predictive Metrics |
Partially-included, only in free-form tables |
Can be applied if set up with a client-side tag either gtag.js or client-side GTM |
Not included |
| Data Limits | Each property can have up to 150 custom reports |
200 individual analyses per user per property Up to 500 shared analyses per property Import up to 10 segments per exploration Data will be sampled if more than 10M events are part of the exploration |
GA4 360 provides higher limits for GA4 data collection, reporting, retention and quotas. Upgrading properties to 360 can help you increase the amount of data accessed through the API |
Standard customers have a daily export limit of 1M events/day |
What are the differences in metrics between Universal Analytics (UA) and Google Analytics 4 (GA4)?
| DIFFERENT DATA COLLECTION MODELS | DATA ATTRIBUTION MODELS | KEY METRICS ARE DEFINED DIFFERENTLY |
|---|---|---|
| UA utilized a model that relied on pageviews for data collection, whereas GA4 employs a model that operates on the event and event-parameter paradigm. Behavioral modeling and Conversion modeling with Consent Mode are exclusive to GA4. |
UA uses a last-click cross-channel attribution model as its default, while GA4 utilizes data-driven attribution as its default. | In Universal Analytics (UA), hits are used for tracking, while in Google Analytics 4 (GA4), events are utilized. UA measures screenviews in distinct properties specifically designed for mobile, while GA4 consolidates web and app data into a unified GA4 property. |
GA4 tracking offers enhanced data insights by allowing up to 25 parameters to describe data within a unified framework for web, Android, and iOS data streams.
| UA | GA4 | |
|---|---|---|
| Users | Users The primary metric in UA shows the overall count of users. |
Users The primary metric in GA4 shows the number of currently engaged users. |
| New Users | New Users The number of users who interacted with your site for the first time. |
New Users |
| Views | Pageviews This total number of pages viewed. |
ViewsThe total number of app screens and/or web pages viewed. |
| Purchases | Purchases The Enhanced Ecommerce model retrieves data from a products array using JavaScript provided by Google Analytics, and this information is gathered during a purchase event. |
Purchases This implementation of the Enhanced Ecommerce model does not require any additional JavaScript code to collect arrays, but it does rely on you to provide the items array when collecting a purchase event. |
| Sessions | Sessions The period during which a user actively interacts with your website automatically ends if there is no activity for 30 minutes. |
Session Start The session begins when the Session_Start event occurs and lasts for 30 minutes of inactivity. The sessions do not reset at midnight. |
| Conversions | Goals It signifies that a specific action performed by a user should be recognized as a conversion. The UA system will record only one instance of conversion per session for each goal. |
Conversion Event GA4 records every instance of a conversion event, even if the conversion event occurs multiple times within the same session. |
| Bounce Rate | Bounce Rate Percentage of single page sessions in which there was no interaction with the page. Has a duration of 0 seconds. |
Bounce Rate Percentage of sessions that were not engaged sessions (a session that lasts 10 seconds or longer, has 1 or more conversion events or has 2 or more page or screen views) |
| Event Count | Hits Has a category/action/labels and is its own hit type. |
Events All hits are events in GA4, and they have no notion of category/action/label. |
Conclusion:
In conclusion, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) offers users a range of powerful reporting experiences that provide valuable insights and enhance data-driven decision-making. With GA4, users can access unsampled data, create customized reports, and leverage AI-powered insights for quick and efficient analysis. The cross-channel, data-driven attribution capabilities enable a comprehensive understanding of sales and conversions. Furthermore, GA4 integrates with Explore, API, and BigQuery, allowing users to explore data in-depth, automate reporting tasks, and conduct advanced analysis. By utilizing GA4’s flexibility and features, businesses can break down data silos, maximize the value of their data, and make informed decisions based on a deeper understanding of their analytics.
Source by Google
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