How to Add Columns in Google Analytics

The standard reports in Google Analytics 4 are a great starting point, but they rarely tell the whole story. To get actionable insights, you need to customize your view by adding columns for the specific metrics and dimensions that matter to your business. This article will walk you through how to add columns to your GA4 reports, explain the key concepts you need to know, and show you some practical examples.

Why Add Columns to Your Google Analytics Reports?

The default GA4 reports are designed for a general audience, offering a high-level overview of traffic and engagement. However, every business has unique goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). Customizing your reports by adding columns helps you move from generic data to specific answers.

For example, you might want to:

• Compare Acquisition and Engagement: The default traffic report shows you where users come from (the dimension) and how many there were (the metric). But what if you want to know if users from Google search are more engaged than users from Facebook? You'd need to add columns for metrics like Engagement Rate or Average Engagement Time.

• Analyze E-commerce Performance: The purchase report shows you total revenue and transactions. To understand user behavior, you might add columns for Items Added to Cart, Checkouts Started, and Item-view-to-add-to-cart rate to identify drop-off points in your funnel.

• Track Landing Page Effectiveness: You can see which pages get the most views, but which ones actually drive business goals? Adding columns for Conversions and Session Conversion Rate right next to your landing pages gives you a much clearer picture of what's working.

By adding columns, you bring the most relevant data front and center, allowing you to spot trends, compare performance, and make smarter decisions without having to piece together information from multiple reports.

First, a Quick Primer: Dimensions vs. Metrics

Before you can start adding columns, it’s essential to understand the two building blocks of any analytics report: Dimensions and Metrics. Google Analytics uses these categories to organize all of its data. To put it simply:

• Dimensions describe your data. They are attributes or characteristics of your users and their sessions. The dimension often answers the question "Who?", "What?", or "Where?". Examples include Country, Device Category, Campaign Name, or Landing Page. Dimensions usually appear as the rows in a report.

• Metrics measure your data. They are quantitative measurements - the numbers, percentages, and averages that fill out your reports. The metric often answers the question "How many?". Examples include Sessions, Users, Revenue, Conversion Rate, or Views. Metrics are your columns.

So, when you "add a column" to a report in Google Analytics, you are almost always adding a new Metric to see a different measurement for your existing rows (dimensions).

How to Add Columns in a Standard GA4 Report (Step-by-Step)

Google Analytics 4 allows you to customize its standard library reports. This is perfect for when you find a report that's almost perfect but just needs one or two more columns of data.

Let's use a common scenario: you want to see which traffic sources drive the most engaged users. We'll start with the Traffic acquisition analysis report and add the Engagement rate column.

Step 1: Navigate to the Report You Want to EditFrom your GA4 property, go to Reports in the left-hand navigation. From here, find the report you want to customize. For our example, we'll go to Acquisition > Traffic acquisition analysis.

Step 2: Enter Customization ModeIn the top-right corner of the report, you'll see a small pencil icon labeled Customize report. Click on it. This will open the report editor interface.

Step 3: Add Your Metric (Column)On the right-hand panel, find and click on the Metrics card. This shows you the list of metrics currently being used as columns in the report.

At the bottom of the list, click + Add metric. A search bar will appear. Here, you can type in the name of the metric you want to add. We'll search for "Engagement Rate" and select it from the list.

Step 4: Reorder and ApplyYou can use the drag handles (the dots on the left) to reorder the metrics. For example, you might want to move Engagement Rate right next to Engaged sessions. Once you’re happy with the order, click the blue Apply button in the bottom-right corner.

Step 5: Save Your Customized ReportAfter clicking "Apply," you’ll see your modified report with the new column added. To make this change permanent, you must save it. Click the blue Save button in the top-right.

You’ll have two options:

• Save changes to current report: This overwrites the default report. This is a good option if you’re sure you’ll always want this new column.

• Save as a new report: This creates a copy with a new name (e.g., "Traffic Acquisition with Engagement"). This is safer if you want to keep the original report untouched.

After saving, you can find your new report either where the original was or by adding it to the reporting menu via the Library section.

Practical Example: Analyzing Landing Page Conversion Performance

Let's try one more example. You want to identify which specific landing pages are best at turning visitors into leads or customers.

1. Navigate to Reports > Engagement > Landing page.

2. Click the Customize report (pencil) icon.

3. Click on the Metrics card.

4. Click + Add metric and search for and select Conversions. You could also add Session conversion rate to see the percentage.

5. Click Apply.

6. Click Save > Save as a new report and name it "Landing Page Conversion Report."

Now, in a single view, you can see not only which pages attract traffic (Sessions, Users) but also which ones directly contribute to your goals (Conversions). You might discover that a blog post with moderate traffic has a very high conversion rate, indicating you should promote it more heavily.

Using the "Explore" Section for More Advanced Analysis

While customizing standard reports is great for quick adds, the Explore section of GA4 offers a much more powerful and flexible way to build reports from scratch. This is where you can combine any dimensions and metrics you want in a drag-and-drop table, chart, or funnel visualization.

In "Explore," you don't use the pencil icon. Instead, you build the report from the ground up.

How it works:

1. Navigate to Explore in the left-hand menu and create a new Free form exploration.

2. In the "Variables" column on the left, you'll see sections for Dimensions and Metrics. Click the "+" icon in each section to import all the data points you think you might need for your analysis. For instance, you could add dimensions like Landing Pages, Traffic Source, Device, and Country, and metrics like Sessions, Conversions, Revenue, and Engagement Rate.

3. In the "Tab Settings" column, drag the dimensions you want from the "Variables" column into the Rows or Columns box. Then, drag the metrics you want into the Values box.

The main table on the right will instantly update to show your custom report. This method requires a bit more setup but gives you total control over every aspect of your analysis.

Final Thoughts

Adding columns in Google Analytics is a fundamental skill that transforms the platform from a simple C-suite dashboard into a powerful analytical tool. By mastering how to add metrics in both standard reports and explorations, you can create views that answer your specific business questions and reveal insights hidden in the default settings.

Of course, knowing which buttons to click is only half the battle. You still need to dig through menus, search for the right metrics, and stitch the data together to find your answer. At Graphed, we felt this manual reporting process took too much time away from actual analysis. That's why we built a tool that connects to all your data sources, including Google Analytics, and lets you build dashboards and reports just by describing what you need. Instead of navigating menus to add columns, you can simply ask, "Show me a chart of my top 10 landing pages by sessions and conversions for last month," and get an interactive chart in seconds.