Google Analytics 4 or GA4 properties provide you with the users’ insights and the events between your websites or a mobile app. The latest reiteration in Google Analytics platform and property type helps you with predictive insights, integrations with Ads, multi-device measurements, and more data control. Above all, it allows you to create and send customized events to analytics.

GA4 Events

Google Analytics 4 events provide you an in-depth view of user actions, errors, and other metrics from your website and apps. It can log events automatically without coding as long as you use SDK or gtag.js such as first_visit, session_start, user_engagement, page_view, etc. The biggest difference between GA and GA4 events is the event parameters. With Universal Analytics, an event has a 3-level hierarchy: category, action, and the label. In GA4, the events can have up to 25 parameters, in addition to 5 default parameters set by Google:

• language
• page_location
• page_referrer
• page_title
• Screen_resolution

An example of custom-built parameters for a content_view event would be article_id, article_title, author_name, author_id, and so on.

Important: like in the previous version, GA4 events are case-sensitive – two logged events whose names differ only in the case will result in two different events.

Recommended Events

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) offers recommended events that come in handy with every business vertical, alongside which it provides you the edge on creating custom events in line with your business needs.

They are called recommended Google Analytics 4 events because they integrate well with the relevant Google products like Google Ads and Google Marketing Platforms. Another reason for these suggested events is that it works on all business verticals, apps, and websites.

Recommended events are designed for common scenarios such as user actions, system events, or errors. Though it is not necessary to enable recommended events for a particular property, enabling them can be helpful in learning about the peculiar behavior of your users. 

So, if your website or app provides common actions that correspond to these recommended events, integrate them to get more detailed insights and reports. These integrations also let you enjoy the updated and latest features as and when they become available.

Custom Events

If you wish to measure events that are not automatically collected or don’t appear in recommended events, you can track them via custom events. These events don’t show up in standard reports. Therefore, you need to add the ones that matter the most. Moreover, you will have to set up custom reporting to monitor their performance.

Creating GA4 Events

To create an event, please follow these steps:

1. Sign in to Analytics.
2. Select a property.
3. Click on All events in the left pane.  
4. Click on Create Event.
5. Click on Create, and then click in the Configuration panel to activate the fields.
6. Custom event name: Enter a name for the event (e.g., purchase).
7. Find the event you want to set as the trigger for the new event.
8. Under Matching conditions:

• Parameter: Choose the parameter of the triggering event (e.g., page_title).
• Operator: Choose the operator (e.g., equals).
• Value: Choose the value (e.g., check_out).
• Click on Add condition, if you want to add another condition.

1. You can copy the parameters from a triggering event to a new event, you can do so by selecting Copy parameters from the source event. 
2. Modify the copied parameters or add new ones by clicking on Add modification.

• Parameter: Type to find the event parameter you want to modify (e.g., page_title).
• Value: Enter the value you would like to use for the modified parameter (e.g., checkout).
  • OR
• Enter the name of the other parameter in double brackets, to use the value of the other parameter as the new value
  • (e.g., [[other_parameter]].
  • Click on Add modification, to add another parameter modification. 

1. Click on Create.

You can also access the above-mentioned options from Admin > Property column > Data Streams > Web > web stream > Tagging Settings.

Mark New Events As Conversions:

Conversions show how many users converted into sales or leads, depending on your set conversion parameter. Some events like first_open, purchase are auto marked as conversion by default.

If you want to mark a particular event as a conversion, you can refer to the following steps:

1. Sign in to Analytics
2. Click on Conversions in the left pane 
3. Click on the New conversion event
4. In the New event name option, enter the name of the new event you have created (Make sure that you enter the name precisely as configured during the event creation process).
5. Click on Save

Important: changing the name of an event that is already marked as conversion will change the conversion status. However, if the event parameters are modified, but the name is not changed, the event still will remain a conversion. 

But what if we want to look into the complete sales conversion cycle? Google Analytics 4 provides you with a full set of e-commerce conversions to understand the complete conversion cycle. For Example: view_item, add_to_cart, begin_checkout etc.

Conclusion

Google Analytics 4 makes it easier for you to figure out the users’ intention and plan your next marketing strategy keeping the users in view. Knowing your targeted audience and corresponding with them in line with their interests, journey on your website, and other behaviors can help you grow your brand and apply it to convert the users into loyal customers. So, if you are a small business, a startup, or an enterprise, moving or starting with GA4 is a way to get along with the technological run.

It’s quite understandable that all this information and integrations can be overwhelming. You can consult experts like SmartMetrics analytics experts/team, who, with highly professional staff and experts, remain at your service 24/7. SmartMetrics analytics experts/team helps you integrate your websites and apps with google analytics 4, create custom events and tags in line with your business needs, and be your eyes in analyzing the insights.

To be on top of your game and beat the competition in 2021 with proactive insights and planning, contact TODAY to make your business case a success story.