How to Use Content Grouping in Google Analytics

A standard Google Analytics report can feel like looking at a phone book of your website. The "Pages and screens" report often shows an endless list of individual URLs, query parameters, and fragmented post names, making it nearly impossible to see the bigger picture. This article will show you how to use Content Grouping to organize that chaos into a clean, actionable report that actually tells you a story about your content performance.

So, What Exactly is Content Grouping?

Content Grouping in Google Analytics allows you to bundle your website's pages into logical, high-level categories based on their function or topic. Instead of analyzing hundreds of individual URLs, you can compare the performance of entire sections of your site at a glance.

Think of it like organizing a messy closet. Your "Pages and screens" report is the giant pile of every piece of clothing you own thrown on the floor. Content Grouping is an organized system of shelves and drawers labeled "Shirts," "Pants," and "Socks." Suddenly, you can see exactly which category you have the most of and which ones you use the most, without having to inspect every single item individually.

For a business, this could look like:

• Blog Posts: All articles, guides, and tutorials.
• Product Pages: Individual pages for each product you sell.
• Landing Pages: Pages dedicated to capturing leads from marketing campaigns.
• Support Docs: All your help center articles and FAQs.

By setting this up, you can finally answer critical strategic questions like, "Do our blog posts attract more new users than our product pages?" or "Which category of content leads to the most conversions?"

Before You Start: Plan Your Categories First

Before you touch a single setting in Google Analytics, the most important step is to plan your content groups. Jumping in without a plan is a recipe for a confusing setup that you'll have to fix later. Your goal is to create categories that align with your business strategy.

Grab a piece of paper or open a spreadsheet and map out your website's primary sections. Here are a few common ways to structure your groups:

• By Content Type: This is the most popular method. Group pages by their function, like Blog, Product, Case Study, or Landing Page.
• By Website Section/URL Structure: If your site has a clean URL structure (e.g., yoursite.com/blog/article-name), you can group everything under the /blog/ directory.
• By Funnel Stage: You could group pages by where they fall in the customer journey, such as Awareness (blog posts), Consideration (case studies, webinars), and Decision (pricing, contact pages).
• By Product Category: An e-commerce site might group products by category, like Men's Apparel, Women's Footwear, and Accessories.

Choose one primary grouping strategy to start. A simple plan might look like this:

• Content Group Name: Main Site Sections
• Categories:

Once you have this blueprint, you're ready to implement it in Google Analytics.

How to Set Up Content Grouping in Google Analytics 4

In Google Analytics 4, Content Grouping works a bit differently than it did in the older Universal Analytics. You no longer configure it in the Admin settings directly. Instead, you'll define the content_group parameter for your page view events, typically through Google Tag Manager (GTM). While this might sound technical, it's quite straightforward with a bit of planning.

Let's walk through the most common and flexible method: using Google Tag Manager with rules (no extra code required!).

Step 1: Create a "Regex Table" Variable in GTM

This sounds complex, but it's just a way to create simple if/then logic. We will tell GTM: "If the page URL contains this text, label it with this group name."

1. Log into your Google Tag Manager account and select your container.
2. In the left-hand menu, go to Variables and under "User-Defined Variables," click New.
3. Give your variable a descriptive name, like "GA4 Content Group Regex".
4. Click on "Variable Configuration" and choose Regex Table as the variable type.
5. For the "Input Variable," select {{Page Path}}. This tells GTM to look at the part of the URL that comes after the domain name (e.g., /blog/my-post).
6. Now, click + Add Row to start creating your rules based on the plan you made earlier.
7. In the "Pattern" column, you'll enter the identifying part of your URL. In the "Output" column, you'll enter the name of your content group. For instance:

That little bit of ^/blog/.* is a regular expression. It just means "any URL that starts with '/blog/'". This is a clean way to capture all your blog posts in one rule. You can create as many rows as you need.

Finally, check the box for Set Default Value and type in a name like (not set) or Other. This ensures that any page not matching your rules still gets a label.

Click Save.

Step 2: Add the New Variable to Your GA4 Configuration Tag

Now you need to tell your main GA4 tag to use the powerful rules you just created.

1. In GTM, go to Tags in the left-hand menu.
2. Find and click on your main Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration tag. (It might be named something like "GA4 Base Tag" or similar)
3. Under "Fields to Set," click + Add Row.
4. For the Field Name, type content_group.
5. For the Value, click the small Lego block icon and select the {{GA4 Content Group Regex}} variable you just created.
6. Click Save.

You're almost there! This modification tells GTM to add your custom content_group label to every page view event it sends to Google Analytics.

Step 3: Register the Parameter as a Custom Dimension

Google Analytics won't recognize content_group automatically. You have to tell it what it is.

1. Go to your Google Analytics 4 property.
2. Click on Admin (the gear icon in the bottom left).
3. In the "Property" column, find Data Settings and click on Custom Definitions.
4. Select the Custom Dimensions tab and click Create Custom Dimensions.
5. Fill out the fields as follows:
6. Click Save.

Be patient! It can take 24-48 hours for new data to start appearing in your reports with this custom dimension.

Step 4: Preview, Test, and Publish in GTM

Before making your changes live, it’s always best practice to test them.

1. Back in GTM, click the Preview button in the top right.
2. Enter your website's URL and click Connect.
3. As you navigate your site in the new window, your GTM Preview tab will track the tags. Click on a "Container Loaded" or similar event in the recap sidebar.
4. Select your GA4 Configuration tag and look at the "Fields to Set." You should see content_group and the correct value based on the page you're viewing (e.g., "Blog" if you're on a blog post).
5. Once you're confident it's working, close the Preview mode and click the Submit button back in GTM to publish your changes.

How to Use Your New Content Grouping Report

Once data starts flowing in (after 24-48 hours), you can find your shiny new dimension in your reports.

1. In GA4, go to Reports > Engagement > Pages and screens.
2. The default primary dimension is "Page path and screen class." Click the little dropdown arrow next to the dimension name.
3. Search for and select your new custom dimension, "Content Group".

Your report will transform from a list of URLs into a high-level overview of your content categories. You'll see key metrics like Views, Users, Engagement rate, and Conversions for each group, letting you easily compare performance.

From here, you can start digging for insights:

• Add a secondary dimension like "Session source / medium" to see which channels are driving traffic to each content group. Are paid ads effectively bringing users to your Product pages? Does organic search mostly lead to the Blog?
• Sort by "Conversions" to see which section of your site is most effective at driving your business goals. You might notice your Case Studies group has a low traffic count but a very high conversion rate.
• Filter the report to include only one content group (e.g., "Blog") and then add "Page path" as a secondary dimension to see the top-performing individual articles within that group.

Final Thoughts

Setting up Content Grouping shifts your analysis from a granular, URL-by-URL view to a strategic, big-picture perspective. It cleans up your reporting and helps identify which content drives traffic, engagement, and most importantly, conversions, allowing you to make smarter decisions about your content strategy.

While organizing your analytics data is a huge step forward, we believe getting insights shouldn't require clicking through layers of menus and reports. That's why we built a way for you to connect tools like Google Analytics and ask for what you need in plain English. With Graphed, you can ask questions like, "Which were my top 5 content groups by conversions last month?" and instantly get a chart, saving you the time you'd otherwise spend hunting for that data.