Marketing With GA4: 6 Tips for More Efficient Data Analysis

The sky’s the limit when digital marketers have valuable data at their disposal. 

This is why advanced tools like Google Analytics 4 (GA4) separate winners from losers in the data-driven analytics world.  

But how do you ensure you’ve set it up perfectly to take full advantage of all its features?

Get ready to track web data in an all-new way with this guide.   

How to Get More Out of Your Digital Marketing With the Perfect GA4 Setup

Here are some helpful tips to set up your GA4 for better and faster analysis to pave the way for winning marketing decisions.

1. Let the GUI Guide You When Setting GA4 Reporting

Defining dimensions and event names in an analytics project may be overwhelming with GA4 because of the added flexibility and creative liberty. 

To get started, we suggest using the graphical user interface’s recommendations. Google has compiled a list of critical events and dimensions for different industries to make tracking easier. 

Adopt a series of specific events with unique names for best results instead of generic event names. When in doubt, picture the Events page and think of the actions you’d appreciate easy access to for data-driven analytics. 

Also, think about the dimensions you’d like for each event page and picture how they’d display. This should give you a clear idea when outlining your data capture.    

2. Use Analytics-Specific Page Titles

When setting up GA4, remember that most views have page titles as the default instead of URLs (which was the case with Universal Analytics).

With titles in the spotlight in standard GA4 reports, you must ensure yours make sense and won’t disrupt measurements when altered.  

The best way to do this is by assigning a unique naming variable to each page. For your site’s About Us page, a good example of this will be “company: about.” Follow a hierarchy to stay on top of your content. 

With proper coordination with your tag management system, you can track this title as the page title in the GUI.   

3. Be Proactive With URL Planning

Although URLs are a secondary measurement in GA4, taking some time to plan them is better than leaving them unmanageable. 

One thing that you may not dig about GA4 is that it takes away the options for cleaning query parameters in your view, automatically dealing with UTM markers, and using filters to solve a problem. 

With the new tool, you must plan and execute all these tasks in the tag management system. 

First and foremost, remove the UTM parameters from your URLs and make sure they have values as dimensions with a page_view event. 

Next, review the URL’s query parameters that you wish to track and remove the ones that should have values as dimensions. This will save you from personally identifiable data or data that can be considered personal health information.

Finally, create a dimension to back up the raw URL in the navigation bar.  

4. Plan User Journey Stops

This is a critical step in planning your GA4 measurement. 

While Universal Analytics prioritized pages and page paths, GA4 has events as the lead. This takes data analysis to a whole new level, allowing you to confirm, “Yes. It was a successful signup!” vs. “Yes. The user landed on the signup page”. 

See the difference? 

Pages, especially those without a defined name, don’t do much for data-driven analytics compared to well-named events with proper stops in the user journey. 

To make the most of this feature, you need to think about the event/activity you want to measure and define the start and stop events in the user journey.

Give a unique name to each stop along with the necessary dimensions to enjoy a better reporting flow and conversion rate analysis. Make sure all team members know what each event means when naming events like funnel_start and funnel_end.   

5. Tap into AI Insights

AI is one of the most powerful tools digital marketers can use to streamline tasks and save time and energy from mundane processes. 

GA4’s AI features allow you to ask specific questions during analysis. For example, you can ask, “From which part of the world did the most users visit our site’s home page between 12 PM and 3 PM?”

Such features are particularly helpful for cold outreach campaigns, saving you plenty of time and money.    

6. Explore Future Actions and User Churn Rate

The success of your future marketing campaigns depends on how accurately you predict customer behavior and potential churn. 

This information also helps decide where to allocate the largest portion of your marketing dollars. 

With GA4, you can gain valuable insights into the possible actions that customers may take on your website in the future. You can also maximize your efficiency when investing in retargeting and retaining customers by calculating churn probability. 

Time Is of the Essence: Improve Your Marketing With GA4 Today! 

Marketers worldwide are already capitalizing on the features of Google Analytics 4 and are excited to explore potential opportunities presented by this tool. 

By acquiring better insights in real-time, these professionals have optimized their speed of responding to customer interactions and made their decision-making process as efficient and foolproof as possible.    

Time is ticking when it comes to transitioning to GA4, you should learn about it and integrate it sooner rather than later. 

See it as an opportunity to stand out from the competition. 

That’s what forward-thinking businesses are all about, right?  

Reach out to our analytics consultants to explore how you can get more bang for your buck when marketing with GA4.