Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a powerful tool that can provide valuable insights into your website’s performance. However, it’s important to set up GA4 correctly to ensure accurate data collection and reporting. In this article series, we’ll highlight some of the most common GA4 setup mistakes and oversights and how to avoid them.
Not Defining Conversions
One of the most powerful features of GA4 is conversion tracking. Failing to properly define what constitutes a conversion for your website can lead to less impactful data. It’s important to take the time and effort to clearly identify the actions you want to track, whether it’s form submissions, product purchases, or other key visitor interactions. Conversions are also an important metric to track for website performance and campaign analysis. Improperly defined and tracked conversions can lead to inaccurate reporting and misinformed marketing and business decisions.
To view which events in GA4 are currently being tracked as conversions, go to: Admin ⇒ Conversions. Events marked as conversions will be indicated by a blue check toggle.
Not Creating Custom Dimensions
Custom dimensions allow you to track specific data points that are important to your business but may not be covered by default tracking. These dimensions allow you to dive deep into user behavior beyond the standard metrics. For example, you can track user preferences, membership levels, or even customer segments. This information can be invaluable for tailoring your site content, products, and services to meet the specific needs and interests of your online users. Failing to set up custom dimensions means you could miss out on crucial insights about your audience and their behavior. Without these insights you’ll miss opportunities to enhance the user experience and ultimately drive conversions.
To view a list of custom dimensions currently being tracked, go to: Admin ⇒ Custom Definitions. Here you can view which custom dimensions as well as custom metrics that are currently being tracked.
Missing Events
Events are essential for tracking user interactions on your website, especially with GA4 because the entire data model is heavily dependent upon events. Recent migrators from Universal Analytics (UA) may be wondering where some of their events have gone. While Google has implemented the “simple” Setup Assistant to help with migrating to GA4, the truth is new GA4 users are finding out that many of the data points they were used to seeing are no longer being captured in GA4. It’s important to make sure your expected events from UA are being captured in GA4, otherwise, days or months could go by with missing data. In addition, because of the new data model in GA4, it’s imperative to strategically implement even more events to ensure the collection of as many user journey data points as possible. Ensuring that you have properly set up all events is critical for capturing user’s actions and is vital for understanding user engagement.
To view a list of all the events being tracked, go to: Admin ⇒ Events. Here you will see a list of your events with count and user metrics. Some may be marked as conversions with the blue check toggle. If you’re not seeing any of the expected or necessary events for your property here in this section you will need to configure the events to start collecting data.
Duplicate Events
While missing events create problems for analysis by providing too little data, duplicate events create even bigger issues for data analysis. Duplicate events and likely duplicate conversions, in your GA4 setup can skew your data and lead to inaccurate reporting and decision-making. If you have recently migrated over to GA4 with the help of Google or a third party and have noticed what seems to be abnormally high data points (ex: pageviews), it’s worth double-checking your tracking implementation to ensure that events are being sent only once per interaction.
Conversions, dimensions and events are cornerstones of an effective GA4 setup and critical for data tracking, analysis and decision making.The next article in our Common GA4 Setup Mistakes series will take a closer look at less known although common issues and errors including missing ecommerce data, not linking products, and incorrect attribution.