Friday, March 12, 2021

Understanding Google Analytics 4


If you're like me, still trying to make sense of Google Analytics 4, I understand and feel your frustrations. What do these terms mean? What are these measurements? What should I be measuring?

I've spent a considerable amount of time studying Google Analytics 4 and trying to get an understanding of it. I feel like I've progressed very well. It takes a lot of time and studying. The jury is still out on whether I'm completely sold on it. There are some things with Google Analytics UA that I really like and vice versa with GA-4.

One thing is clear with GA-4, the analytics and the measurements are focused on site engagement, page clicks, page scrolls, form downloads, etc. Google's reasoning for this based on several resources I've read is things like "bounce rate" weren't a true reflection of a site's or page's performance. I can see that. The UA data setup didn't favor engagement, rather page visits/duration. For that, I think that's a good fix.

The way Google defines engagement is an event. And an event in GA-4 is being actively engaged with your website (doing something on a page or site for at least 10 seconds, "firing" a conversion event which includes a purchase or visit two or more screens/pages).

In one of the links below, you'll see engagement like these, for example:

For a content publisher, engagement may be scrolling slowly down the page, indicating the user is scrolling to read vs scrolling to find out length of article.

For an ecommerce site, engagement may be viewing product details, or spending a certain amount of time on a page.

For an online banking app, engagement may be check an account balance.

For a college site, engagement may be watching an informational video.

Here are some useful links I've found that have really helped me further understand GA-4, its influence and its value:

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