How to Create New Property in Google Analytics

Setting up a new website or app on Google Analytics is the first critical step toward understanding how your audience interacts with you online. This guide will walk you through the entire process, step-by-step, for creating a new Google Analytics 4 property so you can start collecting valuable data right away.

What is a Google Analytics Property?

Before creating a property, it's helpful to understand where it fits within the Google Analytics structure. The hierarchy is organized in three levels:

Account: This is the highest level, representing your company or organization. Think of it as the main filing cabinet for all your business's analytics.
Property: This lives inside your Account and represents a specific website or app. It’s like a dedicated drawer in your filing cabinet for one of your digital assets (e.g., yourcompany.com).
Data Stream: This is the source of data that feeds into your Property. You'll have a data stream for your website, another for your iOS app, and another for your Android app, all inside the same Property. They are the individual files inside the drawer.

You’ll need to create a new property whenever you want to track a new digital asset independently, such as launching a new website, developing a companion mobile app, or setting up a separate tracking environment for a subdomain like blog.yourcompany.com.

What You’ll Need Before You Start

The process is straightforward, and you only need two things to get started:

A Google account (like your Gmail account).
Administrative access to the website you want to track so you can add the tracking code.

Step-by-Step: Creating a New GA4 Property

Ready to get started? Follow these steps, and you’ll be tracking data in no time.

Step 1: Go to the Admin Section

First, log in to your Google Analytics account. Once you’re in, look for the gear icon labeled Admin in the bottom-left corner and click it. This is your control center for all settings related to your accounts and properties.

Step 2: Start the Property Creation Process

You’ll now see a screen with three columns: 'Account', 'Property', and 'Data Stream'. In the 'Account' column, make sure the correct business account is selected, especially if you manage multiple ones.

In the middle 'Property' column, click the blue + Create Property button to begin the setup wizard.

Step 3: Enter Your Property Details

This section is all about basic information for your new property. It’s important to get this right for accurate reporting.

Property name: Give your property a descriptive name that’s easy to recognize. Something like "My E-commerce Store" or "Company Marketing Site" works well.
Reporting time zone: Select the time zone your business primarily operates in. This ensures that your daily reports reset at midnight in your local time, making day-over-day analysis much more accurate.
Currency: Choose the currency your business uses for sales. This is essential if you plan on tracking e-commerce revenue or ad campaign ROI.

Once you’ve filled this out, click Next.

Step 4: Provide Business Information

Next, Google will ask for some optional details about your business, such as your industry and the number of employees. Filling this out helps Google tailor your experience by providing industry-specific benchmarks and more relevant insights inside your reports.

Step 5: Define Your Business Objectives

GA4 personalizes your reports based on what you want to achieve. In this step, you’ll see several options like "Generate leads," "Drive online sales," or "Raise brand awareness." Check the boxes that align with your business goals.

Not sure what to pick? No problem. You can select Get baseline reports at the bottom to start with a standard set of reports. After making your selections, click Create.

Setting Up Your First Data Stream

With your property created, Google will prompt you to set up your first data stream. Remember, the property is the container, and the data stream is the specific connection to your website or app that feeds data into it.

Step 1: Choose Your Platform

You'll see three options: Web, Android app, and iOS app. Since we're setting up a website, click on Web.

Step 2: Enter Your Website Information

Now, you need to provide your website’s URL and a name for the stream.

Website URL: Enter the full address of your website without anything extra (e.g., use mywebsite.com, not https://www.mywebsite.com/home).
Stream name: Give the stream a clear name, such as "Main Website Stream." This helps you stay organized if you add more streams later.

You’ll also see a section for Enhanced measurement. This is a fantastic GA4 feature that automatically tracks common actions like page views, outbound link clicks, site searches, and file downloads. It’s enabled by default, and it's best to leave it on to collect richer engagement data from day one.

Click Create stream to finish this step.

How to Install Your Google Analytics Tag

After creating your stream, you'll be taken to the 'Web stream details' page. Here, you will find your unique Measurement ID (it looks like G-XXXXXXXXXX) and installation instructions. This ID is how Google Analytics funnels data into the correct property.

There are a few ways to add the GA4 tag to your website.

Option 1: Use a Platform Integration (The Easy Method)

If you use a popular website builder or CMS like WordPress, Shopify, Wix, or Squarespace, this is the simplest option. These platforms have built-in integrations for Google Analytics.

Simply find the 'Analytics' or 'Integrations' section in your website's settings, find the field for Google Analytics, and paste your Measurement ID. The platform will handle the rest - no coding needed. This is the recommended method for most users.

Option 2: Use Google Tag Manager (The Best Practice)

Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a free tool that acts as a central hub for all your website's tracking codes (called "tags"). Using GTM keeps your site's code cleaner and makes it much easier to add other marketing tags, like a Facebook Pixel, later on without developer help.

Inside GTM, you’ll create a new "Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration" tag, paste your Measurement ID, and set it to fire on all pages. This approach offers more flexibility and is considered the best practice for long-term tag management.

Option 3: Install the Tag Manually (The "Hard" Way)

If you're comfortable with code, you can install the tag manually. Google Analytics will provide a JavaScript code snippet (called the gtag.js). You’ll need to copy this entire snippet and paste it into the <head> section of every page on your website.

Be extra careful with this method. A small mistake could break parts of your site, so only choose this option if you know what you’re doing.

Verify Your Setup is Working Correctly

You're almost done! The final step is to make sure your tag is installed correctly and sending data.

After installing the tag on your site, open your website in a new browser tab.
Go back to Google Analytics and navigate to Reports > Realtime from the left-hand menu.
After a minute or two, you should see yourself appear as a visitor in the "Users in last 30 minutes" card and on the world map.

If you see activity, you’ve done it! Your new Google Analytics 4 property is officially collecting data. Just remember, it can take 24-48 hours for regular reports like your traffic acquisition reports to fully populate.

Final Thoughts

Creating a new Google Analytics property is the first step toward turning raw visitor data into smart business decisions. By following these steps to create your property and install the tracking tag correctly, you are now set up to understand user behavior, track conversions, and measure the success of your marketing efforts.

With data flowing into GA, the next challenge is quickly finding the insights you need. We know navigating dozens of standard reports can be overwhelming, which is why we built Graphed. You can connect your Google Analytics account in seconds and ask questions in plain English - like "Which landing pages get the most traffic?" or "Show me a chart of sign-ups by channel for last month" - to instantly create custom dashboards and reports without needing to become a GA4 expert.