Why Do You Need to Implement GA4 Immediately?

In my opinion, there are at least three crucial reasons to set up the new service as soon as possible.

First, UA (Universal Analytics) and GA4 work with different methodologies. This leads to various challenges, and sometimes even the inability to compare certain data between the two services. Specific examples have been detailed by Google Support in their help center. Delaying the configuration of the new Google service shortens your data continuity.

Second, GA4 offers a highly attractive feature in the form of predictive metrics. This means that Google Analytics, using machine learning, enhances your dataset with predictions about user behavior. For example, you can create an audience segment likely to convert within the next 7 days. However, to take advantage of such advanced options, you must provide the service with a large dataset and maintain the quality of the trained predictive models over time. You can find details and requirements for predictive metrics here.

Third, everyone needs time to get to know and understand GA4. The new service comes with a completely different user interface, featuring diverse functions and capabilities. Importantly, the reporting interface is not as extensive as it is in UA. However, the creators of GA4 have provided users with the ability to build their own custom dashboards (in the Exploration section). It’s worth spending some time exploring this option to ensure quick access to detailed data.

What to Focus On When Setting Up GA4

Over the past few months, I have conducted numerous GA4 implementation audits. From experience, I can identify two common scenarios:

• The service panel is well-configured, but many errors occur in the tag settings that send data to GA4 via Google Tag Manager (GTM).
• Key service settings in the GA4 panel are overlooked, while extreme care is taken to configure GA4 on the GTM side.

It’s important to emphasize that proper implementation of Google Analytics 4 always involves two inseparable stages—configuring the service panel and configuring data transmission to GA4.

What should you keep in mind when setting up GA4? Below are the key tasks:

• Review the settings in every available tab in the GA4 panel and adjust them to your needs.
• Familiarize yourself with Google’s official documentation to understand what data and in what form is being sent to the new service.
• Configure data transmission according to Google’s guidelines or use pre-built integrations and plugins.
• Check the accuracy and completeness of the data being collected.

What Are the Most Common Implementation Mistakes and Their Consequences?

Below are some basic oversights I’ve encountered during various GA4 configurations. Unfortunately, such errors can significantly impact the quality of the data being collected.

Check if any of these cases apply to your configuration. If the implementation is still ahead of you, learn how to avoid unnecessary problems.

Missing Industry Category in Service Settings

By skipping this setting, you lose the ability to compare your data with aggregated data from other companies available to Google. Agreeing to benchmarking and selecting your industry category also ensures that Google will use competitive data to improve the quality of models and enhance predictive metrics.

Lack of Data Filtering

GA4 currently lacks the advanced data filtering capabilities available in Universal Analytics. However, the GA4 panel still offers two basic settings worth utilizing: defining internal traffic and excluding it, as well as creating a list of unwanted referral websites. Otherwise, your data will be distorted by spam or technical traffic on your website, as well as by false traffic sources, such as payment gateways for e-commerce stores.

No Connection to Merchant Center

This is a critical setting for the e-commerce sector, enabling data on free search results in Google Merchant Center (users, sessions, events, clicks, conversions, and revenue) to appear in the GA4 panel. Additionally, GA4 exports purchase and in_app_purchase conversion events to Merchant Center, with the data available in Merchant Center reports. Failing to establish this connection results in the loss of valuable data.

Failure to Adjust Data Retention Settings

The default data retention period in GA4 is set to only two months! This setting only affects reports created in the Exploration tab. But isn’t this one of the most important sections for you? If you don’t extend this period to 14 months, you won’t have historical data for year-over-year comparisons.

Failure to Register Tag Parameters in the GA4 Panel

When sending additional information/parameters with events (e.g., the color of shoes added to the cart or the type of completed contact form) via GTM, you must enter these in the GA4 panel as custom definitions. Otherwise, you won’t be able to use this data in the reports you create and analyze in the GA4 panel. It’s important to refer to Google’s official documentation here, as you don’t need to add custom definitions for parameters already predefined by GA4 developers.

Missing Currency Code in Transmitted Data

In Universal Analytics, the currency code is automatically retrieved from the data layer. If the data layer doesn’t include this information, UA automatically inserts the currency code selected in the service’s view settings. In GA4, however, the lack of currency code data results in incomplete reporting—you’ll see the number of transactions, but there won’t be any associated revenue data.

Conclusion

Implementing Google Analytics 4 involves numerous settings, and mistakes are easy to make. In this article, I’ve mainly focused on configuration issues within the GA4 panel itself. Data transmission settings from the website to GA4 can be just as challenging. Remember the four key principles outlined above, and you’ll significantly reduce the potential for errors.

1. Review all tabs in the GA4 panel and adjust the settings to suit your needs.
2. Familiarize yourself with Google’s official GA4 documentation—the more you know and understand, the fewer mistakes you’ll make.
3. Configure data transmission from your website to GA4. In particular, remember that event parameters must be registered as custom definitions in the GA4 panel.
4. Give your settings 1–2 days, and then verify whether the data collected is accurate and complete.

If you’re unsure whether your implementation is correct or you need help setting up the new service, feel free to reach out to us!

We’d be happy to audit your settings or flawlessly implement GA4 from start to finish!