How to Create a Utilization Report in Google Analytics with AI

A utilization report is one of the most powerful ways to figure out how people actually use your website, revealing which pages they love, which features they ignore, and where they get stuck. This guide will walk you through exactly how to build a utilization report in Google Analytics 4, from the standard manual methods to a much simpler and faster approach using AI.

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What is a Utilization Report (and Why Do You Need One)?

Unlike standard traffic reports that just show you pageviews, a utilization report digs deeper into user behavior. Think of it less as a single, pre-built report and more as a framework for answering critical questions about your website:

• Which blog posts and landing pages are most engaging?
• Are users clicking on my main call-to-action buttons?
• How many people are actually watching the videos on my homepage?
• Which features in my app or on my site are most popular?
• What path do users take from a landing page to a conversion?

The goal is to move beyond simply knowing how many people visit and start understanding what they do once they arrive. Armed with these insights, you can double down on what’s working, fix what’s broken, and create a user experience that guides visitors toward your goals.

Key Metrics for a GA4 Utilization Report

Before building your report, you need to know which ingredients to use. A solid utilization analysis in Google Analytics 4 pulls from a few key categories of metrics and dimensions.

Engagement and Content Metrics

These metrics tell you how users are interacting with your content on a page-by-page basis.

• Views: The most basic metric. Simply the number of times a page was viewed. This is useful for identifying your most popular content at a high level.
• Engaged Sessions: A session that lasted longer than 10 seconds, had a conversion event, or had at least 2 pageviews. This helps filter out bounces and focuses on users who showed genuine interest.
• Average Engagement Time: The average duration your site was in the user's active browser tab. It’s a far better indicator of user attention than the old "average session duration" metric from Universal Analytics.

Event and Conversion Metrics

Events are the backbone of a utilization report because they track specific user actions.

• Event Count: The total number of times a specific event was triggered, such as a button_click, video_play, or form_submit. For feature utilization, this is your most important metric.
• Conversions: The count of any event you’ve marked as a conversion goal. This connects your utilization data directly to your business objectives, like lead generation or sales.

User Path and Flow Dimensions

These dimensions help you trace the user's journey through your site.

• Page Path and Screen Class: The URL of the page the user viewed. This will be the primary dimension for most of your page-focused utilization reports.
• Landing Page + query string: The first page a user "landed on" when they started their session. It helps you understand which content is best at drawing visitors in.

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Method 1: Building a Report in the GA4 'Reports' Hub

For a clean, reusable report on page or event utilization, the 'Reports' section in GA4 is your best starting point. This method allows you to create a permanent report that you can save and add directly to your navigation menu anytime you need it. Let’s build a basic “Top Content Utilization” report.

Step 1: Navigate to the Report Library

In your GA4 property, go to the Reports tab in the left-hand navigation. At the bottom of the list, click on Library. This is where customized reports are stored and managed.

Step 2: Create a New Detail Report

Click the + Create new report button and select Create detail report from the dropdown menu.

Step 3: Choose a Template and Add Dimensions

You can start from scratch or use a template. For this example, let's start with the Pages and screens template.

Next, click on Dimensions. The default dimension will be Page title and screen class. This is good, but page URLs are often more useful and unique. Click Add dimension and search for and select Page path and screen class. You can drag this to be the primary dimension if you want or remove the ‘Page title’ dimension.

Step 4: Select Your Metrics

Now for the utilization metrics. Click on Metrics. Here you can add the data points you want to analyze for each page. Let's add:

• Views
• Engaged Sessions
• Average engagement time
• Event count
• Conversions

Feel free to remove any default metrics that aren’t relevant. Click Apply to see your custom report take shape.

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Step 5: Save and Publish Your Report

Click Save in the top-right corner. Give your report a name, like "Page Utilization Report." After saving, it will live in your Library. To make it easily accessible, go back to the Library, find the collection named “Life cycle” or “Business objectives,” click Edit collection, find your new report on the right, and drag it into one of the topics in your navigation menu on the left.

Method 2: Advanced Analysis with the 'Explore' Hub

Where the 'Reports' hub is great for standardized tables, the Explore hub is a sandbox for deeper, more custom analysis. It's perfect for when you have a specific, complex question that a simple table can't answer. Here are two explorations ideal for utilization analysis.

Using a Free Form Exploration for Feature Usage

Let's say you want to see which call-to-action buttons are most popular on different devices. A Free Form exploration lets you build a pivot table for exactly that.

1. Navigate to the Explore tab and click on Free form.
2. In the 'Variables' column, click the '+' sign next to Dimensions and import 'Event name' and 'Device category.'
3. Click the '+' sign next to Metrics and import 'Event count' and 'Total users.'
4. Drag Event name from 'Variables' to the 'Rows' section in the 'Tab Settings' column.
5. Drag Device category from 'Variables' to the 'Columns' section.
6. Drag Event count and Total users from 'Variables' to the 'Values' section.
7. Finally, in the 'Filters' area at the bottom of the 'Tab Settings' column, apply a filter for 'Event name' and select only the events that correspond to your button clicks (e.g., 'cta_click', 'subscribe_button_click').

You’ll now have a table showing exactly which buttons get the most clicks across desktop, mobile, and tablet users - a perfect feature utilization report.

Using a Path Exploration for User Flow

A path exploration helps you visualize the most common journeys users take. This is incredibly valuable for understanding how people "utilize" the flow of your site.

1. Go to the Explore tab and select Path exploration.
2. A new report will open. Click on Start over in the top-right corner.
3. Choose your Starting point. Let's select 'Event name' and pick your key conversion event, like 'purchase' or 'generate_lead'. This will show you the most common steps users took before converting.
4. GA will now render a flow chart showing the pages and events leading up to that conversion. You can click on any step to expand the path forward or backward, revealing a detailed view of user behavior.

Method 3: Create a Utilization Report Instantly with AI

As you can see, the manual methods are powerful but require a significant learning curve. You need to know exactly which dimensions and metrics to combine, where to find them in the menus, and how to configure each report type for your specific question.

This is where AI changes the game completely. Instead of being a GA expert, you can simply ask for what you want in plain English.

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The AI-Powered Advantage

An AI data analysis tool connects to your Google Analytics account and understands its structure behind the scenes. It knows what "page path" means, how "engagement time" is calculated, and what your custom events are named. This removes the entire burden of technical fluency from your shoulders.

Instead of clicking through menus, you just write a prompt like you’re talking to a data analyst:

• "Show me my top 10 most viewed pages from last month with their average engagement time."
• "What were the top landing pages for users from the United States this year?"
• "Create a bar chart of 'request_demo' click events, broken down by Traffic Source."
• "Make a line chart showing daily views for our /pricing page over the last 30 days."
• "Build a dashboard of my key website utilization metrics: views, engaged sessions, and total conversions for the past week."

The AI translates your simple question into a sophisticated query, pulls the live data from GA, and instantly generates the exact report, table, or chart you asked for. Drilling down is just as easy - you can ask follow-up questions like, "Which of those pages had the highest conversion rate?" or "Now show me that data for mobile users only." There's no rebuilding reports, no complex filtering, just a conversation.

Final Thoughts

Building a utilization report is a crucial step towards understanding how your website drives results, but navigating the depths of Google Analytics to get insights can be time-consuming. Whether you use the detailed reports, dive into Explorations, or adopt a new approach, the key is asking the right questions to understand what your users truly value.

At Graphed, we built our AI data analyst precisely to eliminate this friction. Instead of making you learn the complexities of Google Analytics, we let you ask questions in plain English. Just connect your GA account in a few clicks, describe the report or dashboard you need, and get real-time answers and professional visualizations in seconds - no tutorials needed.