VP of Digital Strategy Jenn Thompson and Software Engineer Kord Hickson shared how to get the most out of Google Analytics 4 in our recent Fundraising Refreshments webinar. Watch the recording below to learn more.
GA4 is not Universal Analytics. Instead of analyzing premade reports, GA4 is all about event tracking and building your own reports. This gives you much more creative freedom when analyzing your data.
Here are a few tips and tricks when starting out with GA4:
Data retention: Event data retention has a default setting of two months, but you can (and should!) edit this to 14 months for annual comparisons. In addition, GA4 is pushing a user-centric approach, which means privacy is a top focus. This also means that you may not see one-for-one numbers in GA4 due to privacy restrictions of individual users. Keep this in mind when analyzing your data.
UTMs are critical for proper measurement: UTMs are URL parameters that you can add to links that push people to your website from social media channels, emails or other platforms to track where users are coming from. Which emails got the most people to your site? How long did users stay on your site? Did they donate? With UTMs, you can track this data and shift your content to specifically target your users.
From here, Jenn and Kord discuss how to track revenue correctly in GA4 and share which two reports you should create to start utilizing what this software has to offer.
Missed our recent Fundraising Refreshments webinar on GA4? Check it out above.