Google Analytics 4 and TDR: The Basics

WHAT IS GOOGLE ANALYTICS 4?

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is an analytics service that enables you to measure traffic and engagement across your websites and apps. It succeeds Universal Analytics as Google’s preferred analytics service.

WHAT DOES GOOGLE ANALYTICS 4 DO?

Google Analytics 4 is specifically designed for the future of measurement. Some of its features include:

· Collecting both Website and App data to better understand user journeys and habits.

· User-based data instead of session-based data.

· Adds privacy controls, such as cookie-less measurement and behavior and conversion modeling.

· Has predictive capabilities without complex models.

· Direct integrations to media platforms which help drive actions to your website and/or app.

WHAT HAS CHANGED BETWEEN UNIVERSAL ANALYTICS AND GOOGLE ANALYTICS 4:

Many things have changed between Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 (GA4). One noticeable difference is that they use a different type of measurement model. Universal Analytics used a model based on sessions and pageviews. A session is a group of user interactions with a website over a specified time. A session can contain a variety of pageviews, events, and transactions.

By contrast, GA4 uses a measurements model based on events and parameters. This means that any interaction can be captured as an event in GA4. This means that, in GA4, hit types look like this:

Hit Type in Universal Analytics	Converted to Google Analytics 4
Pageview	Event
Event	Event
Social	Event
Transaction/eCommerce	Event
User Timing	Event
Exception	Event
App/Screen View	Event

Some examples of how metrics changed between Universal Analytics and GA4:

Universal Analytics Metric	=Google Analytics 4 Metric
Users	Total users
New Users	New users
Sessions	Sessions
Number of Sessions per User	Sessions per user
Pageviews	Views
Pages / Session	Calculate as: Views / Sessions

The last two, Avg. Session Duration and Bounce Rate, don’t map directly to GA4. Essentially, there’s no bounce rate in GA4! Instead, GA4 automatically tracks a measure of engagement, which is more sophisticated than bounce rate ever was. This leads to measures of Engaged Sessions, Engagement rate, and Engagement time. I am still using bounce rate as a metric, though, as many users recommend it as helpful.

Universal Analytics Metric	=Google Analytics 4 Metric
Avg. Session Duration	Calculate Avg. Engagement Time as: User engagement divided by Sessions
Bounce Rate	Engagement rate

Acquisition

The standard traffic dimensions are available in GA4 as follows:

Universal Analytics Metric	=Google Analytics 4 Metric
Default Channel Grouping	Session default channel grouping
Campaign	Session campaign
Medium	Session medium
Source	Session source

Behavior

Since GA4 is designed to enable measurement across websites and mobile apps, it is now easier to report on web pages and app screens together. By contrast, pages and pageviews are a distinct concept from screens and screen views in Universal Analytics.

Universal Analytics Metric	=Google Analytics 4 Metric
Page Title Screen Name	Page title and screen name
Pageviews Screenviews	Views
Event Category Event Action Event Label	Event name Custom Dimensions
Total Events	Event count

Please note that in addition to the combined Page title and screen name dimension, there are still separate web-specific dimensions for Hostname, Page path, and Page title.

Conversions

The concept of goals from Universal Analytics has been replaced by conversions in GA4. A conversion is just a specific event that has been enabled with a “conversion” flag in a GA4 property. To report on conversions in Data Studio, use the Event name dimension along with the Conversions metric. To view just a specific conversion event (in a scorecard), apply a filter to your chart using the event name.

Universal Analytics Metric	=Google Analytics 4 Metric
Goal XX Completions	Conversions filtered by Event name
Goal XX Conversion Rate	Use data blending to calculate: Conversions filtered by Event name / Sessions

Derived from: https://www.clickinsight.ca/blog/building-a-google-analytics-4-dashboard-in-data-studio

ROLES IN GOOGLE ANALYTICS 4

To get started in Google Analytics 4, you need to have the Editor role assigned to your account so that you can make changes at the property level.

To assign roles in GA4:

Step 1: Click Admin

Step 2: Click Access Management in the Account or Property column.

Step 3: Assign roles to new or existing users.

The roles in Google Analytics 4 are:

Role	Explanation
Administrator	Full control of Analytics. Can manage users (add/delete users, assign any role or data restriction). Can grant full permissions to any user, including themselves, for any account or property for which they have this role. Includes permissions of the Editor role. (Replaces Manage Users permission.)
Editor	Full control of settings at the property level. Cannot manage users. Includes permissions of the Analyst role. (New name for Edit permission.)
Marketer	Can create, edit, and delete audiences, conversions, attribution-models, events, and lookback windows. Includes permissions of the Analyst role.
Analyst	Can create, edit, and delete certain property assets. Can collaborate on shared assets. Includes permissions of the Viewer role. (New name for Collaborate permission.) Property assets include things like Explorations.
Viewer	Can see settings and data; can change which data appears in reports (e.g., add comparisons, add a secondary dimension); can see shared assets via the user interface or the APIs. Cannot collaborate on shared assets. For example, shared explorations can be viewed, but not edited, by those with a Viewer role. (New name for Read & Analyze permission.)
None	The user has no role for this resource. The user may have a role for another resource.