Google Analytics 4 (GA4): a guide for business owners

Google Analytics 4, often shortened to GA4, is Google's free tool for measuring what visitors do on your website. You see where they come from, which pages they read and how many send an enquiry, call or buy.

GA4 replaced Universal Analytics, the previous version of Google Analytics. The standard version of Universal Analytics stopped collecting data on 1 July 2023. So if you have an old tracking code with an ID starting with UA-, it no longer measures anything, and you need a GA4 property.

This guide covers what you need for GA4 to answer business questions: which channels bring customers and which only bring traffic.

How GA4 differs from the old Google Analytics#

Universal Analytics was built on sessions and pageviews. GA4 is built on events. Everything that happens counts as an event: a pageview, a scroll, a click on a link, a submitted form.

For you this means two things. You can measure almost any action in the same way, and you choose which events count as important. The reports also look different. Metrics such as bounce rate have been joined by engagement rate, which shows the share of sessions where the visitor actually did something on the page.

Account, property and data stream#

GA4 is built in three levels:

• Account is the top level, usually one per business.
• Property is where the reports and settings live. A website normally has one property.
• Data stream is the source that sends data to the property, for example your website or an app.

When you create a web data stream you get a measurement ID starting with G-. That is the ID you use when you install the tracking.

The data stream settings include enhanced measurement. If you turn it on, GA4 automatically measures scrolls, outbound clicks, site searches, file downloads and video views, among other things, without you having to add anything.

Installing GA4 on the website#

There are two common routes.

The Google tag (gtag.js)

Google gives you a code snippet to paste into the head section of every page. It is the simplest option if you only want GA4 and are not planning more tags. Many publishing tools have a field where you just enter your measurement ID.

Google Tag Manager

With Google Tag Manager you install a container on the site once and then add GA4 and other tags in the Tag Manager interface. It takes a little longer to set up, but you can add tracking of buttons, forms and ad platforms without changing the code each time. For businesses that advertise, it is usually the right choice.

Whichever route you take, check that data is coming in. Open the Realtime report in GA4 and visit your own site in another tab. Within a minute or so you should see yourself.

Key events: what you actually want to measure#

A key event is an event you have marked as important for the business. Google previously called them conversions in GA4, and in Google Ads they are still called conversions.

Typical key events for a service business:

• Submitted contact form
• Click on phone number
• Click on email address
• Booked appointment
• Completed purchase

How to mark a key event:

1. Make sure the event is already being sent to GA4. Forms and phone clicks often need to be set up in Tag Manager first.
2. Go to Admin and find the list of events under data display.
3. Mark the event as a key event with the toggle or the star next to it.

From then on it is counted in the reports. The marking applies going forward, not back in time.

Without key events, GA4 can only tell you how many people visited the site. With them you can see which channels and pages bring enquiries, which is the basis you need for conversion rate optimisation.

The reports you will use most#

GA4 has many reports, but two groups go a long way.

Acquisition

The acquisition reports show where visitors come from. Traffic acquisition splits sessions by channel, for example organic search, paid search, direct, referral and social media. Add key events as a column and you see which channel actually brings enquiries.

Engagement

The engagement reports show what visitors do. Under pages and screens you see which pages get the most views and how long visitors stay. Under events you see all the events being measured and how often they occur.

If you want to go deeper there are explorations, where you build your own tables and funnels. They use detailed event data and are therefore affected by data retention, described further down.

Want help with this? Get in touch →

Linking GA4 to Search Console and Google Ads#

GA4 becomes more useful when it shares data with Google's other tools. The links are set up in Admin under product links.

Search Console shows how the site appears in Google's organic search results: which keywords you appear for, how many impressions and clicks you get and in which position. If you link it to GA4 you can see search data and on-site behaviour in the same tool. Read more in our guide to Google Search Console.

Google Ads is linked so you can import your key events as conversions in the ad account. Google Ads can then optimise bidding towards enquiries instead of clicks. Without that link the ad system does not know which clicks led to business, which makes it hard to judge what Google Ads costs per customer.

UTM parameters: tag your links#

GA4 automatically recognises traffic from Google Search and from a linked Google Ads account. Links in newsletters, social posts or ads on other platforms, however, often end up in the wrong channel or under "direct". The solution is UTM parameters, short tags you add to the end of a link.

• utm_source states where the traffic comes from, for example facebook or newsletter.
• utm_medium states the type of traffic, for example cpc, email or social.
• utm_campaign states the name of the campaign, for example autumn-campaign-2026.
• utm_term states the keyword and is mainly used for paid search.
• utm_content separates variants, for example two ads with different images.

A link in a newsletter might look like this:

https://yourdomain.com/offer?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=autumn-campaign

You should use the first three parameters on every link. A few simple rules keep the data clean:

• Write everything in lower case. GA4 treats Facebook and facebook as different.
• Decide on the names once and write them down, so everyone on the team uses the same ones.
• Never use UTM parameters on internal links between your own pages. It overwrites the original source.

Google offers a free tool, Campaign URL Builder, that builds the links for you.

CTR: click-through rate#

CTR stands for click-through rate. It is the share of people who saw your link or ad who also clicked. The formula is the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions. If an ad is shown 1,000 times and gets 30 clicks, the CTR is 3 per cent.

You find CTR in two places:

• Google Search Console shows CTR for your organic search results, per keyword and per page. Low CTR on a page with many impressions often suggests that the title or description in the search result is not appealing.
• Google Ads shows CTR for ads and keywords. There it also affects the ad's Quality Score.

GA4 itself measures what happens after the click. CTR belongs in the tools that see the impressions. If you have linked Search Console, you can still see the organic CTR in GA4.

Data retention: change it from 2 to 14 months#

By default GA4 keeps detailed event data for 2 months. The standard reports are not affected, but explorations that go further back come up empty. In the free version you can change the retention period to 14 months under the data collection settings in Admin.

Do this as soon as you create the property. The change does not apply retroactively, so data that has already been deleted cannot be recovered.

Consent and cookies#

GA4 uses cookies, and within the EU the visitor's consent is normally required for analytics and advertising cookies under the GDPR and the Swedish Electronic Communications Act. In practice the site needs a consent banner that actually controls whether the tags may set cookies.

Google has a system called Consent Mode, which lets the tags adapt to the visitor's choice. Google requires consent signals to be sent via Consent Mode for certain advertising features, such as remarketing and conversion measurement, to work fully for visitors in the EEA. Most consent tools have built-in support for it.

Exactly how you should design consent and your privacy policy depends on your business. This is not legal advice, and if you are unsure you should ask a lawyer who specialises in the area.

Getting started in the right order#

1. Create the account, property and web data stream.
2. Change data retention to 14 months.
3. Install via the Google tag or Tag Manager and check in the Realtime report.
4. Set up measurement of forms and phone clicks and mark them as key events.
5. Link Search Console and Google Ads.
6. Start using UTM parameters on every link you share yourself.

Measurement at Solva#

We set up GA4, Tag Manager, key events and links to Search Console and Google Ads as part of our web and advertising projects. Read more about how we work with advertising and SEO, or contact us if you want us to go through your current measurement.