Google Analytics 4

Tracking a Website

- add a small piece of Javascript tracking code to each page on your site - this code will collect anonymous info about how a user interacts with a page

What else can the tracking code collect?

- info from the browser (i.e. language, type of browser, device and operating system) - traffic source (what brought the user to the site, such as search engines, ads, or emails)

Property

- the container for your reports based on data collected from apps and websites -multiple can be applied to each account -each collects data independently of each other using unique tracking IDs that appear in tracking code

Google Signals

- uses data from users that are signed in to a google account - event data is associated with google accounts

Device ID

- websites: comes from users browser - apps: comes from app-instance ID - automatically used as an identity space

Views

-multiple can be applied to each property - narrow down where you want to see data from/focus on that data

Purchase Funnel

Acquisition - build awareness and acquire user interest Behavior - users engage with your business Conversion - user becomes customer and transacts with your business

Defining audiences

GA4 allows you to define audiences using data you collect from users (i.e. IDs that are sent to Analytics)

What is BigQuery?

a server-less, cost effective, multicloud data warehouse - designed to help analyze data through machine learning, geospatial analysis, and business intelligence

Conversion

a type of event that has been assigned a certain value (i.e. purchases or downloads) - often the most important events are marked as conversions - can be used in Google ads - contribute to the success of your business

Goals

a way to track conversions (aka business objectives) from your website - ex: how many users purchased a product or signed up for a newsletter

Google Tag Manager

add and update website tags without needing web development experience

Event Parameters

additional pieces of information sent with events that can further specify an action taken by a user, or add more context to an event

Analytics account structure

analytics account --> property --> data stream (an account contains 1 or more properties, and each property contains 1 or more data streams)

Unified website and app reporting

analytics allows you to measure apps and websites together in a common language across all reports - events and conversions are reported the same whether they happen in app or on the web

Full reporting across devices

analytics can measure a single user journey across devices based on user-identifiers

Attribution

assigning credit for conversions to different ads, clicks, and factors which helped the user complete a conversion

Ads-preferred model: Last click

attributes 100% conversion credit to the last Google ads a customer interacted with before converting - if there are no ads, cross channel model last click is used

User Properties

attributes about who is using your app/website that can help you understand your user base better

Cross channel model: Position-based

attributes conversion credit 40% to first and last interactions, and 20% evenly to middle interactions

Cross channel model: Data-driven attribution

attributes conversion credit based on data for each conversion type - your account data is used to calculate contribution of each interaction - each interaction receives some sort of credit

Cross channel model: Linear

attributes conversion credit equally across all channels the customer engaged with before converting

Cross channel model: First click

attributes conversion credit to the first channel the customer engaged with before converting

Cross channel model: Last click

attributes conversion credit to the last channel the customer engaged with before converting

Cross channel model: Time decay

attributes more conversion credit to interactions that happened closer in time to conversion - credit distributed using 7 day half life (i.e. an interaction 8 days before conversion gets half the credit an interaction 1 day before conversion would get)

What does a tracking code do when a page loads?

collects and sends updated info about the user's activity

Segment Overlap

compares up to 3 user segments - helps isolate specific audiences based on certain conditions

Roll-up property

contains data from 2 or more source properties - can include source data from ordinary properties and subproperties, but not other roll-up properties - used to combine products, brands, or regions (combines many source properties into a single roll-up property)

How can data be exported to BigQuery?

daily: full export of data takes place once a day streaming: continuous export of data throughout the day (some data isn't included right away due to processing times) - you can choose (geographic) location where you'd like data to be stored

What data model does GA4 use?

flexible event-based model - collects interactions as events (record things like pageviews, button clicks, user actions, etc) - processes each user interaction as a standalone event - good for measuring how people engage with your app or website

What type of reporting does GA4 use?

full cross-device and cross-platform reporting

Subproperty

gets its data from 1 other property called the source property - the data in subproperty is usually a subset of data from its source property - use for data and user governance (controls what data is included/what users can see the data)

Path exploration

helps you understand how users progress from one stage in customer journey to the next - unlike funnel explo., which follows a single defined path, path explo. can follow a number of undefined paths

Cohort exploration

lets you explore behavior of groups of users that share a common characteristic over time

What does BigQuery do?

lets you run SQL (sales qualified lead) queries - you can query large sets of data

What are tags?

little pieces of code that live on a webpage - when a user completes a certain action that you care about (i.e. adding a product to their shopping cart) the tag fires - aka pixels or snippets - helps you understand actions taken by users on a website

Data Stream

lives within a property and is a source of data from apps or websites

Global Site Tag

manage tags by coding javascript directly on your website

Metric

numeric value that represents your data

User ID

provides the system with a way of uniquely identifying a particular user amongst all the users of that system - data can be used to track user journeys across devices

Free form technique

represents data in a cross-tab layout

What does ROI mean

return on investment - a calculation that shows the value of return on investment related to that investment's costs

User Lifetime

shows how users have behaved since they first interacted with your site or app

Dimension

text-based label that represents your data - certain values are assigned

What happens when Analytics processes data?

the data is stored in a database where it cannot be changed - appears as reports

Conversion modeling

the use of machine learning to measure the impact of marketing efforts - used when a subset of conversions can't connect to ad interactions

Tracking in the Google Store

tracking code shows: - how many users visit a page (one product page vs another) - how many users bought an item by tracking whether they made it to the purchase confirmation page

Firebase

used to connect analytics to an app

Dynamic tagging

used to connect analytics with a website

Funnel exploration

visualizes the steps a user takes towards a key task or conversion - can see where users enter and leave funnels