Google Analytics 4 (GA4) – Website analytics

What is Google Analytics 4 (GA4), and how can it benefit your business? If you want to understand your website visitors, track marketing performance, and improve your website based on data, Google Analytics provides a wide range of tools to help you do so. In this article, we cover GA4’s key features and what to consider when using analytics.

Google Analytics is a free tool for measuring and analyzing website and app traffic and user behavior. It helps you understand where your visitors come from, what content they engage with, and which marketing activities deliver results.

Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

Google Analytics 4 was launched in 2020 to replace the previous version, Universal Analytics (UA). Standard Universal Analytics properties stopped processing new data on July 1, 2023, and the service was fully discontinued in 2024.

Google Analytics 4 allows businesses to track website usage, marketing performance, and customer behavior across different channels. To make the collected data useful, measurement should be planned around business goals, ensuring that important events such as contact form submissions, quote requests, and purchases are recorded correctly.

Simply installing an analytics tool does not tell you how well your website or marketing is performing. The key is to determine what should be measured and how the collected data can support decision-making.

How does Google Analytics 4 work?

Google Analytics 4 uses an event-based measurement model to track how users interact with websites and applications. For example, page views, button clicks, file downloads, contact form submissions, and purchases can all be measured as individual events.

GA4 helps you understand where visitors come from, how they engage with your content, and which actions lead to events that matter to your business. Measurement can also cover multiple devices and platforms when the necessary identifiers and user consent are available.

GA4 also uses machine learning to predict user behavior and model missing measurement data when the eligibility requirements for these features are met.

Key features of Google Analytics 4

GA4’s key features include event-based measurement, privacy controls, and machine learning capabilities for analysis and prediction. Reporting can also be customized to meet your company’s specific goals.

Google Analytics 4 collects data as events

Google Analytics 4 collects data through events. For example, a page view, an internal site search, a file download, or an online purchase can be recorded as an event.

GA4’s Enhanced Measurement feature automatically tracks certain events, including page views, clicks on outbound links, and file downloads. However, not all actions relevant to your business are tracked automatically.

For example, successful contact form submissions, quote requests, or clicks on important buttons may need to be configured separately. Google Tag Manager can be used for this purpose, allowing tracking events to be managed without constantly modifying the website’s source code.

The events most important to your business can be marked as key events in GA4. These may include contact form submissions, quote requests, and purchases. Previously, these actions were commonly referred to as conversions in Google Analytics. The term “conversion” is still used, particularly when measuring Google Ads performance.

Key events help identify which marketing channels and campaigns generate valuable actions for your business rather than simply driving website visits.

Data privacy and retention

Google Analytics 4 provides settings for managing and retaining user data. GA4 does not store users’ IP addresses for analytics reporting, and the retention period for user-level and event-level data can be limited.

In standard GA4 properties, data retention can be set to either two or 14 months. This setting primarily affects detailed exploration reports and does not mean that all historical data in standard reports is deleted after this period.

However, using analytics still requires appropriate cookie consent management and compliance with applicable data protection regulations.

AI-powered predictive metrics

Google Analytics 4 also uses machine learning to analyze data. For example, it can estimate users’ purchase probability, churn probability, and predicted revenue from purchases.

Predictive metrics can be used to create audiences and improve Google Ads targeting. However, these features require sufficient high-quality measurement data and must meet certain technical requirements, so they are not automatically available to every website.

GA4 can also identify anomalies and changes in data, helping businesses better understand trends in website and marketing performance.

What should you consider when setting up Google Analytics 4 measurement?

Google Analytics 4 provides a wide range of ready-made reports, but the metrics most relevant to your business goals should be defined separately. For example, tracking visitor numbers alone does not tell you whether your website generates inquiries or sales.

When planning measurement, it is important to identify the most valuable user actions and configure tracking for them. This allows you to determine which channels generate inquiries, which content supports the buyer’s journey, and where visitors leave your website. Microsoft Clarity can also complement Google Analytics with heatmaps and session recordings that help you understand how visitors interact with your website and where they encounter difficulties.

It is also important to understand how GA4 counts events. The same user may trigger an event multiple times, and key events can be counted either every time they occur or once per session. The appropriate counting method depends on the action being measured.

When interpreting reports, you should also consider the impact of cookie consent, potential modeled data, and the technical implementation of tracking. If measurement is configured incorrectly, reports may provide an incomplete or misleading picture of marketing performance.

GA4 can also be connected to other Google services, such as Google Ads and Search Console. Reporting can be further enhanced using tools such as Google Data Studio, allowing your company’s most important metrics to be brought together in an easy-to-follow dashboard.

Read also: User journeys and AI: Building user-centered, intelligent digital experiences

Use Google Analytics 4 data to improve your website

Google Analytics 4 provides valuable insights into website usage and marketing performance. To make the most of this data, your tracking must work correctly and your metrics must align with your business goals.

We help businesses implement GA4, configure Google Tag Manager, and set up event and conversion tracking. We can also review your existing analytics setup and improve reporting so you can easily access the information you need.

Explore our data and analytics services or get in touch to find out how analytics can deliver more value to your business.