How to Run a Report in Google Analytics

Wrangling reports in Google Analytics 4 can feel like trying to untangle a set of headphones you just pulled from your pocket. You know the data you need is in there, but finding it can be frustrating. This guide will walk you through exactly how to run, customize, and build reports in GA4, so you can stop clicking around and start getting answers.

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First, Let's Get Familiar with the GA4 Reporting Interface

Before pulling a report, it helps to know the layout of your GA4 property. When you log in, you'll see a navigation menu on the left side of your screen. There are three primary sections we care about for reporting:

• Reports: This is home to all the pre-built, standard reports. It's the best place to start for a quick overview of your website's performance. You’ll find collections like Acquisition, Engagement, and Monetization here.
• Explore: This is your a la carte reporting workshop. The Explore hub is where you can build custom reports and deep-dive analyses using different visualization techniques like funnels, path explorations, and free-form tables.
• Advertising: This section aggregates data related to your advertising campaigns, helping you understand attribution and campaign performance across different channels.

For this tutorial, we'll start in the standard 'Reports' section and then venture into 'Explore' to show you how to build a simple custom report from the ground up.

How to Run a Standard Report in GA4

The standard reports are your bread and butter in GA4. They answer the most common questions marketers have, like "Where is my traffic coming from?" or "Which pages on my site are most popular?" Let's run one of the most useful reports: the Traffic Acquisition report.

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Step-by-Step Guide to the Traffic Acquisition Report

This report shows you which channels are driving users to your website.

1. Navigate to the Report: In the left-hand menu, click on Reports. This will expand a list of report collections. Click on Acquisition, and then select Traffic acquisition.
2. Understand What You're Seeing: You'll now see a chart and a table. This is the standard GA4 report layout. The table is where the details live. It organizes your data using dimensions and metrics.
3. Change the Primary Dimension: The default view by "channel grouping" is a great high-level overview. But what if you want more detail? You can easily change the primary dimension by clicking the small downward arrow next to "Session default channel grouping" at the top of the table. You could switch it to Session source / medium to see the specific Google search traffic (google / organic) separately from the Bing search traffic (bing / organic).

That's it! You've successfully run a standard report. You can follow this same process to view any of the other pre-built reports, like the Pages and screens report under the "Engagement" collection, which shows you which pages get the most views.

Three Simple Ways to Customize Your Reports

Running a standard report is just the starting point. The real insights often come from tweaking the view to answer a more specific question. Here are three easy ways to customize any standard report.

#1: Changing the Date Range

By default, GA4 shows you the last 28 days of data. To change this, simply click on the date range in the top-right corner of the report. A calendar will appear where you can select from presets like "Last 7 days" or "Last 90 days," or you can set a custom range.

#2: Adding a Comparison

What if you want to see how two different segments of your audience behave? The "Add comparison" feature is perfect for this. Let's say you want to compare traffic from desktop users versus mobile users.

• At the top of your report, click + Add comparison.
• A pane will open on the right. Under "Select dimension," find and choose Device category.
• Under "Dimension values," select desktop. Click OK, then Apply.
• Repeat the process, but this time select mobile for the dimension value.

GA4 will now display the data for both segments side-by-side, making it easy to see which device category drives more sessions or converts at a higher rate.

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#3: Using the Search and Filter Bar

Just above the data table in your report, you'll see a search bar. This is a quick and powerful way to filter your report. For instance, in your Traffic Acquisition report, maybe you only want to see data related to organic channels.

Simply type "Organic" into the search bar and press Enter. The table will instantly update to show only the channel groupings that contain the word "Organic" (like Organic Search and Organic Social).

Going Deeper: Building a Simple Custom Report from Scratch

Sometimes the standard reports don't have the exact combination of dimensions and metrics you need. That's when it's time to head to the Explore hub to build a custom report. Don't be intimidated, we'll create a very practical and useful report right now: one that shows your top landing pages for organic search traffic.

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Step-by-Step Guide to a "Free Form" Exploration

1. Start a New Exploration: In the left-hand menu, click on Explore. On the next screen, click on the large plus sign labeled Blank to create a new exploration.
2. Import Your Building Blocks (Dimensions & Metrics): You're now looking at a blank canvas with two main columns: "Variables" on the left and "Tab Settings" on the right. You need to tell GA4 which pieces of data you want to use.
3. Build Your Table: To make the data visible, you need to drag your dimensions and metrics from the "Variables" column into the "Tab Settings" column.
4. Add Your Filter: At the bottom of the "Tab Settings" column, you'll see a box labeled Filters.

Your table will instantly update to show only the traffic from that specific source/medium. And there you have it - a custom report showing your most valuable organic landing pages, ready for you to analyze and act on. You can even name your exploration at the top of the page (e.g., "Organic Landing Page Performance") to save it for later.

Final Thoughts

Getting comfortable with Google Analytics reporting is all about knowing where to look and what question you're trying to answer. By starting with standard reports, applying simple customizations, and gradually experimenting with the Explore hub, you can move from feeling overwhelmed by data to feeling empowered by insights.

While mastering GA4 is a valuable skill, it's often just one piece of your analytics puzzle. Your campaign data lives in Google Ads, your sales data in Shopify, and your customer data in your CRM. At Graphed, we help you skip the manual reporting drudgery by connecting all your data sources and letting you build dashboards using simple, natural language. Instead of clicking through menus to filter for organic traffic, you can just ask, "Show me my top organic landing pages from Google Analytics," and get an answer in seconds, streamlining your entire reporting process.