How to Measure with Google Analytics 4

Making sense of your website's performance is non-negotiable, and Google Analytics 4 is an incredibly powerful tool for the job. But its new, event-based model can feel like learning a whole new language. This guide will walk you through how to measure what truly matters in GA4, moving you from basic setup to uncovering insights that can actually grow your business.

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The Big Shift: Thinking in Events, Not Sessions

The single most important change in GA4 is the shift from a session-based model (like the old Universal Analytics) to an event-based one. If you're used to metrics like "Bounce Rate" and "Pages per Session," this is the core concept you need to grasp.

Think of it like this:

• Universal Analytics (The Old Way): Was like a store that only counted how many people walked in the door (sessions) and how many rooms they peeked into (pageviews). It was great at measuring entries and exits but missed all the action in between.
• Google Analytics 4 (The New Way): Is like a store with cameras tracking everything. It sees when a user picks up an item (an event), reads the label (another event), adds it to their cart (a key event), and checks out (a conversion event).

In GA4, everything a user does is an event. A page view is a page_view event. A scroll is a scroll event. A click is a click event. This model gives you a much richer, more granular understanding of user behavior beyond simple page views.

Setting a Strong Foundation with Enhanced Measurement

Getting useful data from GA4 starts with making sure it’s tracking the right things from day one. Luckily, GA4's Enhanced Measurement feature does a lot of the heavy lifting for you automatically. You just need to make sure it’s turned on.

To check, go to Admin > Data Streams > (Select your web stream). You should see a section for Enhanced measurement. Make sure it’s enabled.

With this one toggle, GA4 will automatically start capturing these essential user interactions as events:

• Page views: The page_view event, which fires every time a page loads. This is the bedrock of content analytics.
• Scrolls: A scroll event is triggered once a user has scrolled more than 90% of a page's height. This is incredibly valuable for seeing if users are actually reading your long-form blog posts or just glancing and leaving.
• Outbound clicks: The click event fires specifically when a user clicks a link that takes them away from your domain. Useful for tracking clicks to affiliate partners, social media profiles, or sister sites.
• Site search: The view_search_results event captures what users are searching for on your website, a goldmine for understanding user intent and content gaps.
• Video engagement: The video_start, video_progress, and video_complete events track interactions with embedded YouTube videos on your site. This tells you if your video content is actually engaging viewers.
• File downloads: A file_download event is logged when a user clicks a link to a common file type (like a PDF, DOCX, or ZIP). Perfect for tracking lead magnet downloads or resources.

Enhanced Measurement provides a fantastic baseline, but the real power of GA4 comes from tracking the specific actions that are unique to your business.

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Tracking What Matters: Custom Events and Conversions

Your business has unique goals. Maybe it's getting demo requests, email signups, or contact form submissions. While GA4 doesn't track these custom business goals automatically, it makes it surprisingly easy to set them up without writing any code.

Step 1: Create a Custom Event

Let's say you want to track every time a user clicks on your "Request a Demo" button. This button directs them to your /contact page. We can create a custom event to capture this specific action.

1. Navigate to Admin > Events.
2. Click the "Create event" button.
3. Click "Create" again on the next screen. This will open the event configuration panel.
4. Name your event: In the Custom event name field, enter a clear, descriptive name. Use snake_case (all lowercase with underscores). For our example, let's use request_demo_click.
5. Set the Matching Conditions: This is where you tell GA4 what user actions should trigger this new event. We want to capture clicks specifically on the demo button. So, we set two conditions:
6. Click "Create" in the top right.

That's it! GA4 will now start logging a request_demo_click event every time a user performs that specific action. You can use this logic to track virtually any button click, link click, or form submission on your site.

Step 2: Mark Your Custom Event as a Conversion

An event is simply an action. A conversion is an action that is valuable to your business. Marking an event as a conversion tells GA4, "This one is really important!" It makes tracking your key goals much easier throughout your reports.

To turn our request_demo_click event into a conversion:

1. Navigate to Admin > Conversions.
2. Click the "New conversion event" button.
3. In the text box, enter the exact name of the custom event you just created: request_demo_click.
4. Click "Save".

Your request_demo_click will now appear in all your reports as an official conversion, making it simple to see which marketing channels, campaigns, and content pages are driving the actions you care about most.

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Key Metrics in GA4: What They Are and Where to Find Them

With your tracking set up, it's time to dive into the reports. One of the biggest tripping points for users moving from Universal Analytics is finding the new equivalents of old metrics.

Here are the key metrics to understand:

• Users: Represents the total count of distinct users who have visited your site. GA4 is much better at identifying the same user across multiple sessions and devices.
• Sessions: A session is a period of user activity. It starts when a user lands on your site and ends after 30 minutes of inactivity (by default). A single user can have multiple sessions.
• Engaged sessions: This is GA4's smarter replacement for Bounce Rate. A session is considered "engaged" if the user does one of the following:
• Engagement rate: This is simply the percentage of sessions that were engaged sessions (Engaged sessions / Sessions). It's a far more useful indicator of content quality and user interest than Bounce Rate ever was. A lower engagement rate shows that visitors aren't finding what they're looking for.
• Average engagement time: Shows the average length of time your site was in the user's active browser tab. This is great for understanding if people are actually reading or watching your content.
• Event count: The total number of times an event was triggered. You'll often see this metric alongside specific event names.

Building Your First Meaningful Reports

The standard "Reports" section in GA4 can answer most of your key business questions. Let's walk through a few common scenarios.

Which marketing channels drive the most traffic and engagement?

1. Go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition.
2. The main table shows your incoming traffic grouped by Session default channel group (things like Organic Search, Direct, Paid Search, Organic Social).
3. Look at the Users and Sessions columns to see which channels are bringing in the most volume.
4. Now, look at the Engagement rate column. Scan this column to spot channels that might not bring the most traffic but have a very high engagement rate. This could be a sign of a passionate, niche audience. Conversely, a channel with high traffic but low engagement is a red flag.

What pages and posts get the most engagement?

1. Go to Reports > Engagement > Pages and screens.
2. By default, this report is sorted by Views (the new pageviews). This tells you your most popular content.
3. Click the column header for Average engagement time to sort the report. Now you can see the content that holds users' attention the longest. These "sticky" pages are your stars. You should analyze what makes them so effective and replicate it.

Which channels drive the most conversions?

1. Go to Reports > Engagement > Conversions. You'll see a summary of all events you've marked as conversions.
2. Click on a specific conversion name (like our request_demo_click) to drill down into a dedicated report for that goal.
3. In this dedicated report, use the dropdown menu above the table (it likely says Event name) and change it to Session default channel group.
4. The table will now show you exactly which channels — Organic Search, Paid Social, Email, etc. — are driving your target conversion. This tells you where to double down on your marketing budget and effort.

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Going Deeper with "Explore" Reports for Funnel Analysis

When you need to answer more complex questions, the Explore section is your sandbox. It allows for highly customized, drag-and-drop report building. One of the most useful reports you can build here is a Funnel exploration.

A funnel report lets you visualize the steps users take to complete a task (like checking out or signing up) and see where they drop off.

Imagine a simple newsletter signup funnel:

• User sees the signup form (form_start).
• User completes and submits the form (form_submit).
• User lands on the "Thank You" page (page_view of /thank-you page).

Here’s how to build it in Explore:

1. Go to Explore and select "Funnel exploration."
2. Under the "Steps" section on the left, start defining your funnel:
3. Click "Apply" in the top right.

GA4 will instantly render a bar chart showing how many users started each step and what percentage of them moved on to the next one. If you see a massive 80% drop-off between viewing the form and submitting it, you know you have a problem with the form itself — maybe it's too long, has a technical bug, or asks for too much information.

Final Thoughts

Getting comfortable with GA4 is about embracing its event-based approach. Once you stop looking for your old metrics and start focusing on tracking user actions with events and conversions, you can unlock a far deeper level of insight. Start with Enhanced Measurement, create custom events for your key goals, and use GA4's reporting to connect your marketing efforts to real business results.

We know that even with these tips, navigating GA4's interface can feel complex and time-consuming, especially when you need to combine its data with your ad spend from Facebook or sales data from your CRM. That’s why we built Graphed . I wanted a way to skip the report-building headaches and just ask questions in plain English - like, “Show me a dashboard of a combined view of my traffic from Google Analytics and my Facebook Ads campaigns spend for the last 30 days,” and get an answer in a format that actually provides an insight - immediately, without digging through reports.