How to Create a Report in Google Analytics

Tackling reports in Google Analytics 4 can feel like you need a special decoder ring, especially when you’re just trying to get a simple answer about your website's performance. The good news is that beneath its complex interface lies a powerful reporting engine. This guide will walk you through exactly how to create standard and custom reports in GA4, skipping the jargon and focusing on the practical steps you can use today.

Standard Reports vs. Custom Reports in GA4

Before we start building, it's helpful to know the difference between the two main types of reports you'll encounter in Google Analytics 4.

Standard Reports are a collection of pre-built summaries you see when you click the "Reports" icon in the left-hand navigation. They cover the basics of user acquisition, engagement, monetization, and demographics. While useful for a quick overview, they are mostly fixed and offer limited customization.

Custom Reports, created in the "Explore" section, are where the real power of GA4 lies. An "Exploration" lets you build a report from scratch. You choose your own dimensions, metrics, and visualization styles (like tables, funnels, or path diagrams) to answer specific questions about your business, such as "Which marketing campaigns are driving the most e-commerce sales?" or "What path do users take before signing up for a newsletter?"

First, How to Find Your Reports

When you log into your GA4 property, you'll see a navigation menu on the left side of your screen. The two areas we’ll focus on are:

• Reports: This section contains all of your standard, pre-built reports. Think of this as your dashboard for high-level summaries.
• Explore: This is the hub for creating custom reports. It’s where you'll go to build something tailored to your specific needs.

Let's start by learning how to customize the standard reports before diving into building a new one from scratch.

Customizing Your Standard Reports View

One of the biggest changes in GA4 is that even the standard report navigation can be customized. If you find yourself constantly navigating through multiple clicks to find a report you use daily, you can add it to your main sidebar for easy access.

This is all done in the "Library," which is found at the very bottom of the "Reports" section.

Step 1: Navigate to the Library

Click on Reports in the left menu, then find and click on Library at the bottom. Here, you'll see "Collections" (groups of reports shown in your navigation) and "Reports" (all available standard and custom detail reports).

Step 2: Edit a Collection to Customize Your Navigation

Let's say you want to add a "Pages and screens" report to your main navigation for quick access.

1. Under Collections, find the "Life cycle" collection (the default group) and click the three dots, then click Edit collection.
2. On the right, you'll see a search bar for "Find report." Type "Pages and screens" and you'll see the report pop up.
3. Simply drag this report from the right column over to the left column, placing it under the "Engagement" topic where you want it to appear.
4. Click Save, then Save changes to current collection.

Now, when you look at your navigation menu under Reports > Engagement, you’ll see the "Pages and screens" report right there. You can use this method to rearrange, add, or remove reports from your standard views to create a workspace that fits your workflow.

How to Build a Custom Report in the Explore Section

When you have a specific question that standard reports can't answer, it's time to head to the "Explore" hub. This is where you can combine any dimension and metric to create your perfect report visualization.

For this example, let's create a common and incredibly useful report: a Content Performance Report. Our goal is to see which pages on our website get the most views, have the highest engagement, and lead to the most conversions.

Step 1: Open the Explore Hub and Select a Template

Click Explore in the left navigation. You'll see several templates. For this task, we will start with a blank canvas.

1. Click on the Blank template to start a new exploration.
2. Give your new report a name at the top left, like "Blog Post Performance Report." This helps you find it later.

Step 2: Add Dimensions and Metrics

The Explore interface is divided into two main parts: the Variables panel on the left and the Tab Settings panel next to it. Think of it this way:

• Variables: The raw ingredients for your report (the dimensions and metrics you want to analyze).
• Tab Settings: The recipe that arranges those ingredients into a meaningful report.

First, let's add our ingredients. In the Variables column:

Importing Dimensions:

Dimensions are the "what" or "who" – descriptive attributes of your data. Think country, traffic source, or page title.

1. Click the + icon next to DIMENSIONS.
2. A list will pop up. Search for and select the following dimensions. You can do this by checking the box next to each one:
3. Click the blue Import button in the top right.

Importing Metrics:

Metrics are the "how many" – they are the numbers and counts associated with your dimensions. Think views, sessions, or conversions.

1. Click the + icon next to METRICS.
2. Search for and select these metrics:
3. Click the blue Import button.

Now, your Variables panel is loaded with the dimensions and metrics you need for your report.

Step 3: Build the Report in Tab Settings

It's time to assemble your report. In the Tab Settings panel, you need to tell GA4 how to arrange the data. You do this by dragging your dimensions and metrics from the Variables panel into the appropriate fields.

1. For Rows: Drag Page title from your dimensions into the "Rows" box. This will list all of your page titles down the left side of the report table.
2. For Columns: You can leave this blank for a simple table or add a dimension like Session source / medium to see traffic sources across the top. Let's leave it blank for now to keep things simple.
3. For Values: Drag your metrics — Views, Engaged sessions, Engagement rate, and Conversions — into the "Values" box. This will populate the columns of your table with the data for each page.

Instantly, a table will appear on the right side of the screen, showing you a neatly organized report of your content performance. You can now see at a glance which pages get the most views and which ones are best at converting visitors.

Step 4: Use Filters and Segments to Refine Your Data

This report is useful, but what if you only want to see data for blog posts? Or compare how mobile users interact with your content versus desktop users?

Applying a Filter:

Let's filter this report to show only blog posts. Assume all your blog post URLs contain "/blog/".

1. In Tab Settings, find the "Filters" box.
2. Drag the Page path and screen class dimension into the box (you may need to import this dimension in the Variables panel first if you haven't already).
3. Set the filter logic to "contains" and enter "/blog/".
4. Click Apply.

The table will now update to show performance data exclusively for pages that live in the "/blog/" section of your site.

Adding Segments for Comparison:

Segments let you compare different groups of users. Let's compare mobile traffic to desktop traffic.

1. In the Variables panel, click the + icon next to SEGMENTS.
2. Choose User segment.
3. Create a segment for mobile traffic. Name it "Mobile Traffic". Set the condition to find users where Device category exactly matches "mobile". Click Save and apply.
4. Repeat the process to create another segment named "Desktop Traffic," setting the condition where Device category exactly matches "desktop".

GA4 will automatically apply these segments. Now you can analyze if your content performs differently on mobile versus desktop, helping you optimize the user experience for each device.

Tips for Better GA4 Reporting

• Start with a question. Don't just build reports for the sake of it. Start with a clear question (e.g., "Which traffic source has the best engagement rate?") to guide your report creation.
• Use descriptive names. You'll thank yourself later when "Q4 Marketing Campaign Performance" is much clearer than "Untitled exploration 3."
• Keep it simple at first. Master the basics of adding dimensions and metrics to rows and values before getting too deep into complex filters and segments.
• Share your findings. You can share a read-only version of your Explore reports with team members using the share icon in the top right. This keeps everyone aligned and informed without needing them to build the report themselves.

Final Thoughts

Creating reports in Google Analytics 4 gets much easier once you understand the core concepts. By learning how to customize standard report views and build tailored analyses in the Explore hub, you unlock the ability to get precise answers about your users and marketing efforts. Start with a clear business question, and build your report around answering it.

Pulling reports - especially for campaigns spanning across Google Analytics, your ad platforms, and your CRM - can feel like a full-time job. Instead of wrestling with interfaces like the Explore hub every week, we built Graphed to do the heavy lifting for you. You can connect all your data sources and then use simple, natural language to ask questions like "create a dashboard showing me traffic from Google Ads and how many of those users converted in Shopify last month." It builds the report for you instantly, keeping it updated in real-time so you can spend less time building reports and more time acting on the insights.