Introduction to Google Analytics 4 Reports
Google’s move from Universal Analytics (UA) to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) will give digital marketers a better way to capture and monitor web and app activity. But the sweeping changes mean marketers will need to relearn everything they once knew about the tool, from how and what data is collected to the reports that uncover insights from that data.
Today, we’re going to cover many of the new out-of-the-box reports available in GA4. We’ll also discuss the importance custom reports will play for many marketers, including those who want to bring call data into their Google Analytics instances to understand the impact of digital behavior on offline conversions.
Overview of Google Analytics 4 reporting features
In a world where so many people rely on their mobile devices, it’s no surprise that 90% of that time is spent in apps, rather than mobile web, because it often is a better experience. GA4 brings together web and app data together for the first time into one view.
That’s just one reason why the reporting in GA4 is so different from UA. Another (related) reason is that the organizing principle behind GA4’s data collection isn’t visits or sessions, like in UA. Rather, GA4 measures events—the specific interactions or occurrences on a webpage or app.
It may come as no surprise, then, that the reporting features have also fundamentally changed. Marketers just starting with GA4 will have a Reports snapshot report, a Realtime report, and a short list of predefined reports.
Where UA came packed with many ready-to-go reports, GA4 provides much more flexibility for marketers to track insights on the unique interactions and conversions they care most about.
Importance of tracking website data
Even though GA4 measures events instead of visits or sessions, tracking website data is still critically important to understanding campaign performance. It helps marketers gauge the effectiveness of their messaging and helps them better understand their audience.
However, GA4 reports go a step further, combining website data with other data to better reflect the multichannel nature of consumers. And with custom reports that include offline data from sources like Call Tracking, marketers can more confidently track the success of campaigns.
The purpose of GA4 reports
So, what can digital marketers do with GA4 reports?
First, there’s the predefined Life cycle collection, which helps marketers understand each stage of the customer funnel, including acquisition, engagement, monetization, and retention.
Second, there’s the User collection reports, which are designed to help marketers understand the demographics of the people visiting a site or app, as well as the technology they’re using.
Third, there’s the App developer collection, which gives marketers insights into the in-app user experience.
Lastly, there are the Custom Reports. What they do is totally up to you, but some marketers use them to re-create reports from UA or to monitor specific online and offline conversions.
Let’s explore each of these report collections in more detail.
Life cycle collection reports in GA4
Acquisition reports
Marketers who want to understand the ways consumers end up on their site can turn to the Acquisition reports. These reports will help marketers monitor the strengths and weaknesses of their advertising and campaigns at driving traffic and conversions.
User acquisition report
The User acquisition report gives insights into the touchpoints that precede first-time users to your site. This requires connecting your GA4 property to other data sources like Google Ads or Search Ads 360.
Some key metrics:
- Engagement rate: The percent of new user sessions that were engaged sessions.
- Session medium/source/campaign: The specific dimensions of each new user session tracked on your site.
- Events per session: The average number of events triggered per each new user session.
Traffic acquisition report
The Traffic acquisition report shows the last touchpoint for each new session, including returning users. It’s a more holistic view of your overall site performance.
Some key metrics:
- Engagement rate: The percent of sessions that were engaged sessions.
- Session medium/source/campaign: The specific dimensions of each new user session tracked on your site.
- Events per session: The average number of events triggered per session.
Engagement report
Once a consumer is on the site (or past the Acquisition phase of the Life cycle), the Engagement reports help marketers understand what they do while there.
1.) Events report
With GA4 focusing on events instead of sessions, the Events reporting is more important—and robust—than ever. Marketers can rely on the automatically collected events or create custom events.
Some key metrics:
- Event count: The number of times users triggered an event.
- Event count per user: The number of events triggered per user.
- Total revenue: The total revenue from purchases, in-app purchases, subscriptions, and ad revenue.
2.) Conversions report
Once marketers decide which events count as conversions, they can begin tracking them in the Conversions report. This report helps track conversion success and identify opportunities for website optimization.
Some key metrics:
- Conversions: The total number conversions for a given time frame.
- Event revenue: The revenue tied to discrete conversion events.
3.) Pages and screens report
Diving into the performance of specific pages was a cornerstone of UA, and that’s still possible in GA4, though with a twist. Now, the Pages and screens report shows which web pages and app screens people visit and engage with.
Some key metrics:
- Average engagement time: The average time a page or screen was the focus in a browser or in the foreground of a mobile device.
- Views/Views per user: The number of views each page or screen received in total or per user.
Landing page report
The Landing page report in GA4 provides insights into the pages that users first encounter, helping marketers optimize pages and keep people engaged and converting.
Some key metrics:
- Average engagement time per session: The average time a page or screen was the focus in a browser or in the foreground of a mobile device during each session.
- Conversions: The number of times users triggered a conversion event.
- New users: The number of new unique user IDs that logged the first_open or first_visit event.
Monetization report
Now that a consumer is on the site or in the app and doing things, the question marketers will have is how much of that activity is translating into revenue? The Monetization report combines e-commerce, subscription, and ad revenue reports, providing a total of your digital marketing revenue.
1.) E-commerce report
For brands that sell products or services in an e-commerce store, GA4 can provide insights into user behavior in it. Many events and parameters are tracked automatically for this report, but any custom e-commerce events or parameters will need to be tracked by customizing the report.
Some key metrics:
- Item revenue: The total revenue of an item sold.
- Items added to cart: The number of items added to cart.
- Items purchased: The number of items purchased.
- Items viewed: The number of items viewed.
2.) In-app purchases report
Like the E-commerce report, the In-app purchases report tracks the revenue of goods and services within an app.
Some key metrics:
- Average product revenue: The average revenue for each product ID.
- Quantity: The number of each product ID that is purchased.
- Product revenue: The total revenue for each product ID.
3.) Publisher ads report
For companies with apps where they publish ads, the Publisher ads report shows them how consumers engage with ads in the mobile app, including the number of clicks and which ad type is performing best.
Some key metrics:
- Publisher ad impressions: The number of times an ad is viewed.
- Publisher ad clicks: The number of times an ad is clicked.
- Total ad revenue: The amount of revenue generated by an ad.
Retention report
The Retention report shows marketers how sticky their site and app are. In other words, how often and for how long do people come back after the first visit?
Some key metrics:
- User retention: The percent of users who return each day in their first 42 days.
- User engagement: The average engagement time of users who return in their first 42 days.
- Lifetime value: The average revenue from new users over their first 120 days.
User Collection Reports in GA4
Marketers don’t just need to know what people are doing on their site or in their app—they need to understand who those people are and the technology they’re using. GA4 provides two reports out of the box to shed light on these topics.
Demographics report
Without doing anything extra, GA4 users can get details like age, location, language, gender, and interests of their audience. But for marketers who want another layer of insights, they can turn on Google signals, which provides more information from consenting users who are signed into Google accounts.
Some key metrics:
- New users: The number of new users according to each dimension (e.g. age, country, etc.).
- Engaged sessions: The number of engaged sessions according to each dimension (e.g. age, country, etc.).
- Conversions: The number of conversions according to each dimension (e.g. age, country, etc.).
Tech details report
By monitoring the device, browser, and app versions used by consumers, digital marketers can understand which screen resolutions to optimize for, which mobile OS to build an app for, and whether an app version is performing poorly.
Some key metrics:
- New users: The number of new users according to each dimension (e.g. browser, device category, app version, etc.).
- Engaged sessions: The number of engaged sessions according to each dimension (e.g. browser, device category, app version, etc.).
- Conversions: The number of conversions according to each dimension (e.g. browser, device category, app version, etc.).
App Developer Collection Reports in GA4
The App developer collection gives iOS and Android app developers insights into the in-app experiences of users. This collection by default includes the Firebase report, which requires the Google Analytics for Firebase SDK.
Firebase reports
The Firebase report provides the same information from the Firebase Dashboard within GA4, saving marketers from switching back and forth between the two and allowing the data to be combined with other web data.
In this report, marketers can track many similar events and user insights for the app as they do for the web. However, there are also events unique to apps—like push notifications—that can be tracked and tied to campaigns.
Custom Reports in GA4
For most marketers, Custom reports are where GA4 really shines in comparison to UA. With more events and event parameters available to track, custom reports can be incredibly tailored to each business’s unique needs. (Also important to note, any out-of-the-box report can be “customized” by changing a dimension or a metric.)
A Custom report, at its most basic level, is a graphic representation of one dimension (e.g. a datapoint like user age or deceive category) and one metric (e.g. sessions or conversions). For each custom report, you can choose one of four report types.
- Explorer: The standard Analytics report. This report includes a line graph and a data table that house dynamic elements like a search/sort option and secondary dimensions.
- Flat Table: A static, sortable table that displays data in rows.
- Map Overlay: Different regions and countries display in darker colors on a map of the world to indicate traffic and engagement volume.
- Funnel: A conversion funnel defined by you.
Comparisons, Filters, and Segments
Marketers don’t have to start from scratch to get the reports they want or settle for what’s available. Customizing existing reports with comparisons, filters, and segments is a powerful way to adapt them to the unique needs of your business and unlock new insights.
Comparisons allow marketers to analyze the datasets of two related dimensions side by side. For example, marketers can compare their U.S.-based web traffic to their U.K.-based web traffic.
Filters allow marketers to hide certain dimensions of a report, so they can limit the view of a report to a smaller subset. For example, a retailer may want to only see purchases tied to a certain campaign name, rather than purchases from all campaigns.
Segments allow marketers to group like things (users, sessions, events) for quick drag-and-drop filtering or comparisons. Marketers can use segments to quickly view events from a certain country, or get more detailed to build an audience.
How To Create A New Custom Report in GA4
Creating a custom report in GA4 is simple. Once you’re signed into Google Analytics:
1.) Open the Reports tab.
2.) Click Customization > Custom Reports > +New Custom Report.
3.) Enter a Title.
4.) (Optional) Click +add report tab. This allows you to build a report with multiple report types (Map Overlay, Funnel, etc.)
5.) Select a report type: Explorer, Flat Table, Map Overlay, or Funnel.
6.) Define your dimension and metric(s).
7.) (Optional) Click +add filter to limit the report to specific dimensions.
8.) (Optional) Select the views where the report will appear.
9.) Click Save.
As digital marketers get more familiar with GA4 reporting, there are several reports that they will want to create or customize early and often. This is especially true for those marketers who want to extend the scope of GA4’s campaign insights by adding offline data from tools like CallRail’s Call Tracking.
- Events report
Custom events can be created using the Google tag and Google Tag Manager for web events or Firebase for apps. With a focus on custom events in GA4, digital marketers may spend a lot of time creating custom event reports.
Custom events can be tracked in the default Events report or using the Explore feature to create a new report with the custom event name as the main dimension. Offline events, like a phone call, can be tracked as a custom event and incorporated wherever events are an available dimension.
- Conversions report
Since many of the conversions a marketing team will care about won’t be predefined by GA4, they’ll need to customize their Conversions report by marking the key events in their customer journey as conversions. Custom conversions like a new lead from a phone call can be tracked once those events are properly imported from a source like Call Tracking.
- Google Ads report
The Google Ads report allows for marketers to see the relationship between their PPC ads and their web behavior. But not all PPC ads lead to the website—some are click-to-call ads, and this data is lost without customizing the report to include call data. With call data included, marketers can see a more holistic view of Google ad performance and conversion rates.
- Call Tracking reports
Custom events and reports can be used to track calls and offline conversions on their own. With call tracking reports including detailed data from a solution like CallRail, marketers can track what calls came from the website and tie any conversions back to that web activity. Without this data tied together, many marketers will make decisions to cut back or increase campaigns based on incomplete data.
Bring Call Tracking data into GA4
For marketers who want the most accurate view of their digital marketing performance, integrating call tracking data in GA4 is crucial. Without it, major conversion events in the customer lifecycle are being missed, even though the journey was influenced by digital ads or campaigns.
By integrating Call Tracking data with GA4 and setting up the custom dimensions and metrics, marketers can have access to new data, such as:
- Call duration
- First time caller
- Qualified status
- Tags
Benefits of CallRail’s GA4 integration
No marketer wants to deal with manually uploading call data, which is why CallRail’s GA4 integration is so handy. By integrating CallRail with GA4, marketers can improve their overall marketing efforts, including:
- Getting a holistic view of what behavior drives online visitors to call by viewing your CallRail call tracking data along with your other online and offline data.
- Seeing a caller's website activity before and after calling you, giving you a clearer view of caller behavior and the impact of each marketing campaign.
- Creating customized marketing reports using information from all of the channels and sources you'd like to track, including your phone calls, CRM data, and multiple other offline and online sources.
- Following a user’s journey across devices, allowing you to attribute activity on multiple devices to one individual user, and get insight into how different devices impact call behavior.
Get more from GA4
There’s no shortage of reports available to marketers and marketing agencies with GA4. While marketers will use GA4 to answer the same questions as they did in UA, there are substantial differences in the data and the reporting that require marketers to start mastering the new tool now.
To get the most out of your GA4 reports, you’ll need to:
- Understand the fundamental differences between UA and GA4
- Customize the events and conversions that matter most to your business
- Incorporate offline data from sources like Call Tracking to complement the web and app data available in GA4
Don’t wait to take advantage of GA4. Use it today to understand your campaigns and customers better -- and start tracking call data with a free trial of CallRail.
