Tag Archive for: ga4 fundamentals

Google Analytics vs. Tag Manager

[Updated 3/22/24] Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager are tools that can be connected, but are nonetheless very different from each other. Here’s how to draw the distinction between Google Analytics vs. Tag Manager:

At the core, Google Analytics is a “web analytics” tool for analyzing your website. Google Tag Manager is a “tag management” tool for managing code snippets on your website. Let’s dive in to see what that means and how you can use both.

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GA4 Data Streams: A Simple Guide

GA4 data streams are what gets data into Google Analytics. This article explains how to work with data streams and has some cautions.

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GA4 Events Fully Explained: Video Tutorial (2024)

If you fully understand GA4 events, you can understand Google Analytics 4.

Google Analytics has an event-centric data model. Configuration, customization, and reporting are all geared around events. If you watch this embedded video events tutorial, the whole platform makes sense in a new way.

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GA4 Event Parameters: A Practical Guide

Updated: 1/23/24 Parameters are the additional pieces of data that add more context to Google Analytics events. And GA4 event parameters are one of the most confusing and least intuitive parts about the new Google Analytics.

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GA4 Session Start Event Explained

Updated: 2/2/24 Google Analytics collects the session_start event every time a new session (a new visit) begins on your site. The event is used to counts total sessions.

Not only can you use the session start event to keep tabs on your total site visits, but you can use the event to create segments and audiences from your users based on how many visits they’ve made. You’ll learn how in this article.

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Google Analytics Source Medium: Session Source/Medium in GA4 Explained

The Google Analytics source medium traffic dimension is one way to analyze your website traffic. The source tells you the specific “place” the traffic came from. The medium tells you about the “type” of traffic. Put them together and you have source / medium.

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Google Signals Explained: What You Need to Know

Google Signals provide enhanced functionality in Google Analytics. It also presents some potential downsides that marketers should understand.

Here’s the information you need.

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Automatically Collected Events in GA4

Automatically collected events are the foundation of GA4 event tracking. Unlike other events, there is nothing you need to do to set them up. They are collected – you guessed it – automatically.

Let’s review the three automatically collected events and how you can use them in your analysis.

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GA4 Views: How To Create a “View” in Google Analytics 4

Updated: 8/8/23 When it comes to Google Analytics views, there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that technically Views no longer exist in GA4. The good news, however, is that we can use report filters to replicate much of the same functionality that we liked about views from the days of Universal Analytics.

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GA4 Problems: What Can You Do About Them?

UPDATED: 8/11/23 Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is now the only option for collecting data with Google Analytics. But there are problems with GA4, at least for those of us who used and loved Universal Analytics (UA). In this author’s opinion, the new platform is still not yet as good as UA was. Let’s review 4 common GA4 problems and explore what options we have.

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