Google Analytics 4 (GA4): What It Is and How to Set It Up

Google Analytics 4, often shortened to GA4 or "G4", is the current version of Google Analytics. Google launched it in October 2020, and it became the only version when Universal Analytics stopped processing data in July 2023. If your website uses Google Analytics today, it uses GA4.

What is Google Analytics 4?

GA4 is Google's free web and app analytics tool. Google introduced it as a cross-platform, "privacy-centric" product with machine learning at its core. It measures websites and apps in one property, which the old version could not do well.

The biggest change is the data model. Universal Analytics was built around sessions and pageviews. GA4 records everything as an event: "a specific interaction or occurrence on your website or app". A page view is an event. So is a scroll, a file download or a form submission.

What happened to Universal Analytics?

Google shut it down in stages:

• 1 July 2023: standard Universal Analytics properties stopped processing data.
• 1 July 2024: Analytics 360 properties stopped processing data.
• From the week of 1 July 2024: access to Universal Analytics properties and the API ended, and the data is being deleted.

Google deletes Universal Analytics data as part of the shutdown, and GA4 reports only start from when your GA4 tag went live. For the full story, read the end of Universal Analytics.

How do you set up Google Analytics 4?

Google's setup has four steps:

1. Create an account in the Admin section, unless you already have one.
2. Create a property. Choose a name, time zone, currency, industry and business size.
3. Add a web data stream. Enter your website URL and a stream name. Turn on enhanced measurement, which Google recommends. It automatically collects page views and other common events.
4. Add the Google tag. Enter your Measurement ID in your CMS or website builder, paste the tag right after the <head> on every page, or deploy it through Google Tag Manager.

Google says data collection can take up to 30 minutes to begin. Open the Realtime report to check that visits are coming in.

Settings to change straight away

• Data retention. Check the setting and choose 14 months, the maximum for standard properties. It only affects explorations and funnel reports, not standard reports.
• Key events. Mark the actions that matter, such as a demo request, sign-up or purchase, as key events. Google renamed these from "conversions"; "conversions" now refers to the actions you use to measure ad campaigns.
• Google Ads link. If you run Google Ads, link the two accounts so you can use Analytics data to measure your ad campaigns.
• Consent mode. If you need visitor consent for cookies, use consent mode so Google tags respect each visitor's choice. In the advanced setup, tags send cookieless pings when consent is declined, which Google uses for behavioural and conversion modelling.

How is GA4 different from Universal Analytics?

Engagement replaces bounce rate as the main signal

GA4 counts a session as engaged if it lasts longer than 10 seconds, has a key event, or has two or more page or screen views. Engagement rate is the share of engaged sessions. Bounce rate is the opposite: the share of sessions that were not engaged. See bounce rate in our glossary.

Raw data export on standard properties

Standard GA4 properties can export raw event data to BigQuery, Google's data warehouse. The daily export is capped at 1 million events per day on standard properties, and BigQuery usage beyond its free sandbox limits is billed.

Which GA4 reports should marketers use?

• Acquisition > Traffic acquisition shows where new and returning visitors' sessions come from, by channel, source and medium, with engagement and key events.
• Acquisition > User acquisition shows how new users first found you. Because it counts users rather than sessions, don't compare its numbers directly with the traffic report.
• Engagement > Pages and screens shows which pages get views and engagement.
• Engagement > Events and key events show what visitors do and which actions count as success.
• Explore lets you build funnel and path explorations to see where people drop off.

To make the acquisition reports useful, tag campaign links with UTM parameters. Google recommends always using utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign. For a step-by-step approach to reading the data, see how to gain insights from your website traffic and how to measure social media marketing success. Compare analytics tools in our analytics category, or read about Google Analytics itself.