This claim can be a bit misconstrued, as Google Analytics 4 still uses cookies, but many of the cookies and tracking as we know it will soon fade by the wayside. 

A crucial component of GA4’s tracking mechanism is the use of cookies. We’ll dive into how GA4 utilizes cookies to enhance website analytics.

1. Identifying Unique Users with _ga Cookie

First things first, how does GA4 identify unique users? It can’t simply bucket all users together, as this would make reporting completely useless.

To identify unique users, GA4 sets a cookie named _ga. 

This cookie is created when a user first visits a website and assigns a unique identifier. This identifier is essential for tracking the user’s future visits, allowing website owners to understand repeated interactions on their site.

You can look into each user by using an exploration. This particular exploration is called the User Explorer.

While this User Explorer doesn’t contain the _ga, it does contain the full User ID. 

You can look at this in real-time by inspecting the page element, going to application, and filtering down the cookies by _ga.

Users can still opt out of this cookie tracking if given the option on the website via a cookie consent banner.

2. Tracking User Sessions via _gid Cookie

One of the most significant changes in GA4 was how it tracked sessions and new metrics such as engagement time and engaged sessions.

For this, GA4 uses the _gid cookie. Sessions are the bread and butter of web analytics reporting, helping us view insights and overall traffic trends.

The _gid cookie, which expires after 24 hours or when the user closes their browser, is vital in monitoring these engagement periods. 

Its other uses include:

• Pageview counting
• Distinguishing current users
• Session tracking

3. Enhancing Measurement with Advanced Features

GA4 goes beyond basic tracking with enhanced measurement features supported by cookies. These include cross-device tracking, enabling the monitoring of users across multiple devices (e.g., desktops, laptops, mobile phones), and user IDs, which link user behavior to specific accounts. These advanced features provide a more holistic view of user interactions.

Cross-device tracking is essential in today’s day and age. Rarely will one user stick to one device when visiting a website over time, often switching between a mobile and desktop device. 

GA4’s cookies allow web analysts to track a user’s behavior over multiple devices, which helps us better understand the conversion path, attribution modeling, and overall user behavior. 

These cookies also allow for more advanced analysis, such as a customer’s lifetime value, enhanced targeting, and predictive analytics. 

4. Compliance with Privacy Regulations

Last but certainly not least is the pressure and necessity for GA4 to adhere to privacy regulations worldwide. GA4’s first-party cookies are more privacy-conscious than third-party cookies since they’re directly set by the website you are visiting. 

On the other hand, third-party cookies are set from external websites and can track your activity throughout different parts of the web. 

GA4 has also made sure to adhere to stricter privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

Conclusion

GA4’s use of cookies is integral to offering a detailed and accurate understanding of website visitor behavior. GA4 is equipped to be the next analytics tool that will consider the average user’s privacy concerns.

If you’re looking for additional analytics help, feel free to reach out!

How Does Google Analytics 4 Use Cookies is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

IP Address Collection in GA4 

To align with the most up-to-date data privacy laws, IP addresses are not stored in GA4. IP anonymization is automatically turned on in Google Analytics 4 and can’t be changed.  

However, despite the IP anonymization features of GA4, you can still block specific IP addresses from internal traffic. Blocking an IP address will not allow any website actions from a user to show up in GA4. 

The Steps 

There are several ways you can exclude an IP address. The method below details how to block an IP address using the settings within GA4. 

Part 1: Define Internal Traffic 

1. Admin > Data streams > Click on the data stream for your website

2. Configure tag settings > Show more > Define internal traffic 

3. Create >  Fill out all the fields in the Configuration window > Create

Fields to complete include the following: 

Rule Name: [any unique name you want to use to define the IP address you are excluding] 

• traffic_type value: internal 

• Match type: IP address equals 
  • Use IP address matches regex if filtering multiple IP addresses 
• Value: [the IP address number] 
  • You can use a site like What is my IP address to find your IP address number. 
  • You can string multiple IP addresses together in the value box by creating a regular expression. If you are not a regex expert, you can ask ChatGPT to combine multiple IP addresses together as a regular expression. 

Part 2: Create a Data Filter 

Now that you have defined what internal traffic should be excluded, you want to follow the steps below to create a data filter so this internal traffic is actually blocked. 

1.Admin > Data filters > Create filter 

2. Internal Traffic > Fill out the Filter details > Create 

Fields to Complete include the following: 

1. Data filter name: [any unique name to define the filter] 
2. Filter Operation: Exclude 
3. Parameter Value: [whatever value you put for traffic_type value in Part 1] 
4. Filter State: Active 

Conclusion 

After following the above steps, you should notice a drop in the number of users in GA4, which indicates that you correctly blocked the IP addresses. Excluding IP addresses gives you the freedom to open and click on websites all you want without worrying about messing up data integrity. 

How to Exclude IP Addresses in Google Analytics 4 is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

CRO, a strategic process of fine-tuning your website or landing page, is dedicated to elevating the percentage of visitors taking desired actions—whether it’s making a purchase or completing a form. It’s not a one-time fix; it’s a continuous journey of vigilant monitoring, analysis, and agile adjustments to enhance conversion rates. The ultimate goal is transforming mere website visitors into loyal customers or valuable leads by cultivating an environment that is both effective and user-friendly.

CRO is not just a component but an indispensable foundation of a thriving business. Beyond its cost-effectiveness in converting existing visitors, CRO propels revenue growth, boosts ROI, secures a competitive advantage, and enhances the overall user experience of your site.

This checklist is your all-encompassing guide designed to propel you toward the pinnacle of CRO success.

Understand Your Audience 

Gaining insights into your audience involves a comprehensive analysis of demographics and psychographics. Demographics encapsulate quantifiable data, including age, gender, location, income, education, occupation, and marital status. Meanwhile, psychographics dig into the psychological and lifestyle aspects behind purchasing decisions, such as attitudes, values, interests, and behaviors.

Applying demographics and psychographics in conversion rate optimization requires a multifaceted approach. Comprehending your audience’s motivations and values allows you to tailor strategies to meet their needs. This includes crafting relevant content, adjusting messaging and tone to resonate with target groups, and personalizing web designs, content, and product recommendations to enhance the likelihood of conversions.

Furthermore, this level of understanding informs strategic initiatives such as campaign segmentation and device optimization. Beyond transactional interactions, it establishes a foundation for cultivating trust and fostering a genuine connection with customers on a personal level.

Leverage Analytics and User Behavior Data

Understanding your users extends beyond basic demographics like age, gender, and location. A genuine user persona evolves through a meticulous examination of user behavior, often requiring direct methods such as requested feedback. 

Leveraging web analytics, like traffic channels, conversion tracking, heatmaps, exit pages, and session recordings, connects the dots between seemingly disconnected elements in the user journey. This approach enables you to observe users authentically in their online environment.

While user feedback may seem less accessible, it offers invaluable qualitative insights into user pain points and preferences. There’s no more direct route to identifying roadblocks than listening to the users themselves. Combining analytical tools and user feedback ensures a holistic understanding of user interactions and paves the way for more informed optimizations.

Outline Clear Goals

Establishing objectives is essential, whether to boost sales or increase newsletter sign-ups. Clearly defined conversion goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) serve as the framework for assessing success and monitoring progress over time.

Micro and macro conversion tracking is crucial for comprehending the user journey, particularly in pinpointing drop-off points and uncovering areas of potential improvement. For e-commerce sites, a macro conversion might manifest as a completed sale, while a micro conversion could be as straightforward as adding an item to the cart. On the other hand, lead-generation sites might qualify a newsletter sign-up as a micro conversion, while a submitted lead form marks a macro conversion.

Once your primary and secondary conversion goals are defined, it is crucial to establish thresholds of success. These Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) serve as benchmarks for improvement and function as metrics for quantifying success in your conversion rate optimization journey.

Improve Website Design and User Experience

Prioritize a seamless user experience with a mobile-responsive design, an intuitive site structure, and strategically placed call-to-action buttons to ensure an engaging and frustration-free visit.

Optimizing your website’s mobile experience is essential in an era where almost everyone has a smartphone. Elements often overlooked in mobile UX design include font size, image positioning, navigation structure, and page load speed. Optimizing these aspects ensures readability, prevents page jumping, and creates a smooth, frictionless design that guides users seamlessly from landing page to conversion.

It’s crucial to note that the need for intuitive design extends beyond mobile platforms. A conversion-optimized website demands an intuitive menu design, clear call-to-action buttons, and a clean web page layout. Incorporating clear, concise messaging, maintaining consistent colors and themes, and utilizing self-explanatory link text all help minimize user frustration and enhance the overall web experience.

Optimize Landing Pages

Crafting an effective landing page involves creating attention-grabbing headlines, visually appealing content featuring high-quality images, and persuasive copy highlighting the distinctive benefits offered by your product or service.

To grab the brief attention spans of web users, leverage above-the-fold optimizations to showcase the most compelling headlines and subheadlines that capture users’ attention and entice them to scroll further.

Images play a pivotal role in enhancing the appeal of a landing page. Visual elements are more quickly comprehended than text and can evoke instant emotions from your users. Ensure your images are relevant and high-quality and feature human faces when applicable. 

Equally as important, prioritize presenting clear and concise copy that underscores your value proposition. Use language that emphasizes the benefits without unnecessary fluff to create a focused and compelling narrative for your audience.

Streamline Forms and Checkout Process

Optimize the user experience by streamlining the checkout process—minimize form fields, integrate auto-fill options, and foster trust through SSL certificates and recognizable trust badges.

Whether your site focuses on e-commerce or lead generation, it’s crucial to prioritize a seamless user journey by reducing friction and eliminating potential roadblocks in the conversion funnel. When designing forms, ensure a user-friendly experience by keeping the number of required fields to a minimum and, whenever possible, implementing auto-fill options. 

In cases where your site involves a checkout process or gathers highly personal user information, trust signals become a priority. Enhance user confidence by prominently displaying trust badges and securing transactions with SSL certificates, reinforcing a sense of security throughout their interaction with your platform.

Enhance Load Speed

Enhance your website’s speed and performance through strategic optimization techniques, including compressing images, minimizing server response times, and aligning your website’s performance with user expectations.

A slow website is a major deterrent for users. If a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load, users typically bounce back to their previous destination and explore alternative sites—resulting in a potential loss of conversions.

To effectively optimize page load times, pay particular attention to image optimization. Compress images to the maximum extent possible without compromising visual quality. Similarly, when dealing with scripts and files on your web pages, eliminate unnecessary code that could impede page speed, optimizing what is essential to lighten the load on your server. Prioritizing these speed optimization measures enhances user experience and increases the likelihood of retaining visitors and converting leads into customers.

Integrate Social Proof and Testimonials

Enhance credibility by incorporating customer testimonials and displaying social proof through reviews, ratings, and user-generated content, creating a sense of trust among potential customers.

Incorporating customer testimonials and social proof, such as reviews, ratings, and user-generated content, on a website is essential for building trust and credibility and influencing potential customers. 

Testimonials offer real-life examples of positive experiences, addressing objections and humanizing the brand. Social proof, on the other hand, provides broader validation through reviews and ratings, showcasing reliability and authenticity. 

Both elements contribute to a positive online reputation, engage visitors, and differentiate the brand from competitors. Displaying the genuine feedback and experiences of satisfied customers helps businesses build confidence in their brand and influence future purchasing decisions.

Perform A/B Testing

Harness the power of A/B testing to experiment with elements like headlines, call-to-action buttons, and color schemes. This process relies on data-driven decisions to continuously refine and optimize your website.

A/B testing compares different versions of a webpage or element to determine which performs better regarding user engagement or conversions. This approach involves presenting variations to separate groups of users, allowing businesses to make data-driven decisions on design, content, or functionality. 

Identifying elements for A/B testing involves strategically selecting webpage aspects to improve based on user behavior and conversion goals. Common examples include testing variations in headlines, call-to-action buttons, form fields, images, page layouts, pricing strategies, navigation, and product descriptions. These tests help optimize elements for better user engagement and increased conversions.

A/B testing is crucial for conversion rate optimization as it enables data-driven design, supports continuous improvement, optimizes user experience, reduces guesswork, and maximizes the ROI in marketing efforts. Testing and refining elements using authentic user responses enables businesses to iteratively improve their websites to ensure ongoing optimization for maximum conversions.

Conclusion

E-commerce is constantly changing and evolving, meaning it is essential to master CRO to unlock your business’s full potential. This checklist is your comprehensive guide, emphasizing the continuous process of refining your website to convert more visitors into customers or leads.

CRO is more than just a cost-effective strategy; it catalyzes revenue growth, improves ROI, and enhances user experience. Following this checklist, from understanding your audience through demographics and psychographics to setting clear goals and optimizing website design and user experience, should set you up for a successful short and long-term conversion rate optimization strategy. 

As you implement this comprehensive CRO checklist, remember that optimization is an ongoing process, encouraging continuous testing, learning, and improvement for sustained success in the competitive online landscape.

The Ultimate CRO Checklist is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

This post will explore the four categories of CRO tools, the step-by-step process for implementing a CRO program, and an analysis of the popular CRO tools. Applying the recommendations in this post can help you effectively use the capabilities of CRO tools.

Understanding CRO and Its Importance

Conversion Rate Optimization refers to increasing the number of website visitors who complete an action on your site. Whether that action might be making a purchase, submitting a form, or signing up for a newsletter, implementing CRO gives you the competitive edge. CRO allows you to understand the user experience on your site and identify reasons why users might not be converting. 

The key to success in CRO is leveraging the power of Conversion Rate Optimization tools. CRO tools collect data about your website and its users, enabling you to identify and test opportunities to increase conversion rates. Using CRO tools effectively can turn your website visitors into loyal customers. 

The Four Pillars of CRO Tools

CRO tools fall into four categories: 

• Web analytics tools
• Behavior analytics tools
• CRO testing tools
• Lead capture tools

Web Analytics Tools: 

Web analytics tools collect information, such as user demographics, traffic sources, webpage performance, and key engagement metrics like conversion rate. The data from these website analytics tools assist in the Conversion Rate Optimization process.

They allow a CRO specialist to identify the web pages experiencing low conversion rates. The tools also provide insight into your target audience’s interests, which can help guide the CRO strategies you create.

Trending website analytics tools include Google Analytics 4, Semrush, and Adobe Analytics. 

Behavior Analytics Tools:

Behavior analytics tools focus on user behavior and engagements on a site. They can help you identify common user patterns on your site, such as places where users encounter difficulties. Heatmap tools are a great way to understand the user journey on your site.

Using a heatmap tool like Hotjar, Crazy Egg, or Microsoft Clarity, you can learn where the most popular and least popular clicks occur, see how far users are scrolling on your website, and identify where dead clicks happen. 

All of this information can be instrumental in the CRO process as you can identify the best places to put calls to action and fix the roadblocks stopping users from converting. 

CRO Testing Tools: 

CRO testing tools allow you to discover the versions of your site that will lead to the most conversions. You can run an A/B test to compare the performance of two web pages. 

Webpage A is the original webpage, and webpage B is the new version of the page that is tested and evaluated to see if it performs better or worse.

A/B testing tools like VWO, Crazy Egg, and AB Tasty can help you identify conversion obstacles and determine the site setup that will convert the most.

Lead Capture Tools: 

Lead capture tools help you collect information about potential customers interested in your services. These tools use methods such as pop-up forms to gather leads and information about customers. You can use lead capture tools to determine which interested customers are most likely to convert and who you should focus on targeting. Popular lead capture tools include OptinMonster, Hello Bar, and Leadpages.

Step-by-Step Guide to Implementing a CRO Program

Here at Go Fish Digital, we developed a step-by-step process for implementing a CRO program. 

Step 1: Identify Factors Driving Visitors

The first step in finding the best CRO program for your business is to identify why users visit your site. Ask yourself: are there certain pages or sections of your site that users are drawn to?

Understanding user intent for your website can help facilitate CRO. Using the tools mentioned in the four pillars section, you can make website changes, such as strategically placing CTAs or optimizing a popular landing page, that will ultimately lead to conversions.

Step 2: Pinpoint Conversion Hindrances

You can use CRO tools such as heatmap and session recording tools to see the places during a user’s site journey where a user faces a hurdle in converting and decides to leave the site. 

You will likely start to see similar patterns where users are getting stuck, and you can develop improvements based on these patterns to increase conversions. 

Step 3: Discovering Persuasive Factors 

Since CRO tools allow you to understand users’ interests and behaviors on your site, you can use this information to discover the most effective ways to increase conversions. Website analytics tools like GA4 can show you the places that receive the most and the fewest conversions. 

From there, you can compare the differences between the places getting the most and least conversions. With the help of tools like heatmaps and session recordings, you can further identify why certain places receive higher conversion rates. Based on these discoveries, you can implement strategies to compel users to convert in areas that previously received lower conversion rates.

Step 4:  Implementing and Testing Changes 

Now that you have identified the changes needed to increase conversions, you are ready to complete the final step of testing and implementing these adjustments. 

You can use A/B testing tools to experiment with these changes and determine if they will lead to improvements. If you find the changes are successful, you can implement and monitor these changes using the tools that fall under the four pillars.

Comparing the Popular CRO Tools

While the CRO industry includes a variety of CRO tool options, here are some of the most popular CRO tools available. 

Adobe Analytics 

Adobe Analytics is a multi-dimensional website analysis tool that tracks real-time data for your site. The conversion tracking features of Adobe Analytics allow you to monitor users’ journeys from when they first click to when they complete a conversion. Its attribution features can help you to identify where conversions are coming from. Adobe Analytics also conducts predictive analytics. By using machine learning to find patterns in user data, Adobe Analytics predicts future user behavior, such as the likelihood of completing a conversion. 

Hotjar

Hotjar is a user behavior analysis tool. Its session recording and heatmap features can identify website design changes to improve user site experience. The tool also offers conversion tracking features like funnels and dashboards to help you identify low conversion rate areas on your site. 

Crazy Egg

Crazy Egg is another helpful user behavior analysis tool that can improve your understanding of site engagement. Its heatmap features can help you identify the most and least popular places users engage with on your site. It also offers an A/B testing tool to help you determine the version of your site that will lead to the optimal conversion rate. 

FullStory

FullStory is a digital intelligence platform with tools to understand user interactions on a website. Its auto-capture technology allows you to gain a detailed analysis of how users interact with your site. FullStory can help you identify and solve usability issues on your site that will improve your optimization efforts.

Go Fish Digital’s Contribution to CRO

Go Fish Digital is here to help you in your CRO journey. Our agency offers CRO services that will turn your website visitors into loyal customers. Using the tools across all four pillars, we develop a personalized CRO strategy for your business. We identify the obstacles that prevent users from completing site conversions. 

We also optimize key landing pages by establishing credibility with your site visitors. After discovering possible changes to improve CRO, we use comprehensive A/B testing to ensure we make the most effective changes. Our CRO services can increase your customer base and give you a competitive advantage. You can request a custom CRO proposal with us today for more information.

Conclusion 

Conversion Rate Optimization tools allow you to unlock strategies for improving user experience and ultimately increasing the conversion rate on your website. 

To implement an effective CRO program, you can follow our 4-step process of identifying factors driving visitors to your site, pinpointing conversion hindrances, discovering persuasive factors leading to conversions, and implementing and testing these changes. 

Our CRO team’s expertise here at Go Fish Digital can help you navigate this CRO process and enhance your website to achieve optimal performance. 

The Best Conversion Rate Optimization Tools is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

Step 1: Enable Enhanced Measurement 

The first step is to make sure you have enhanced measurement turned on. This setting will likely already be on; however, you can check this by going to Admin > Data collection and modification > Data streams > Click on the data stream for your website. 

You should then see a window called Web stream details. There, you can confirm that the enhanced measurement field is on. 

Step 2: Turn on Site Search and Add Search Term Parameters 

While you are in the Enhanced measurement panel, click on the gear icon. 

A pop-up window labeled Enhanced measurement will appear, and you will see a section called Site search. Ensure Site search is enabled and then click on Show advanced settings.

You will see a section called Search Term Query Parameter. Filling out this field will allow you to identify when a site search has occurred. GA4 already includes the default parameters of q, s, search, query, and keyword in this field. However, you will want to add the specific parameter that comes before a search term in your site’s URL.  

To find out what this letter or sequence of letters is, go to the search box within your site and enter a word. Next, check the URL at the top of the page to see what comes before the word you searched. For example, the sequence of _sf_s appears before a search term on this particular webpage. 

So, I added _sf_s to the Search Term Query Parameter box. If one of the 5 default parameters appears before a search term on your site, there is no need to add that parameter again. 

Remember to hit Save after you make any updates to the Site search section!

Step 3: Create a Custom Dimension

Like you often do with other event parameters you create, the next step is to register an event parameter for site search as a custom dimension. Adding a site search parameter as a custom dimension is essential if you want to see specific search terms show up in your reports. 

To create this custom dimension, go to Admin > Custom definitions > Create custom dimension. 

In the custom dimension box, fill out the dimension name, set the scope to Event, add a description, and label the event parameter as search_term. 

You can choose any dimension name and description you want, but I recommend using names that clearly relate to the topic of site search. Make sure to hit Save when you finish filling out all the fields.

This custom dimension search_term is a recommended dimension according to GA4’s guidelines.

Step 4 (Optional but Helpful): Create an Exploration for Search Terms 

After ~24 hours, your site search term data should populate in GA4. An easy and effective way to view this data is to create a search term exploration. To do this, go to the Explore section of GA4. Then, click on the blank exploration template. 

Under the variables tab, click the ‘+’ button next to Dimensions. Next, import the Event Name and the Site Search Term dimension you created in Step 3 by checking the box next to these dimensions and clicking Import. Your dimensions should now appear in the Variables tab. 

Now, you will repeat those same steps, but this time for metrics. Go to the Metrics section of the Variables panel and click on the ‘+.’ Check the Event count metric in the pop-up window that appears, and then click Import.

At this point, you should have all the necessary dimensions and metrics to build your exploration. 

Navigate to the Settings panel in your exploration dashboard and set your visualization type to Table. 

Next, go to the Rows section and drag and drop the Site Search Term dimension into that section. I recommend changing the Show Rows value from the default 10 to a higher number like 100. That way, you can see more of your search term data grouped together. 

Now, go to the Values section in the Settings panel. Drag and drop the Event count metric you added in the Variables panel. To add some visual interest to your exploration, you can change the Cell Type to Bar chart.

After making these changes, you might notice a (not set) value appearing as your top result. To get rid of this value, you can set a filter. At the bottom of the Settings panel, click on the ‘+’ button below Filters and then click Event name. Under conditions, select exactly matches and then type in the event name of  view_search_results. Make sure to click Apply after you complete all the filter fields. 

The (not set) item should now be gone from your list, and you should see a finalized exploration for your site search terms. 

Conclusion 

Analyzing your site’s internal search term data allows you to understand better your audience and the topics users are interested in learning more about on your site. You can use this information to identify new content to add to your site that aligns with user’s popular searches. 

How To See Search Terms in Google Analytics 4 is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

Keeping up with all the dimensions and metrics inside GA4 can be confusing. In everyday lingo, we need clarification on users and visitors. In Google Analytics 4, you might be looking at unique visitors to your website.

We’ve reviewed the different types of GA4 users, but what are unique visitors? While it’s yet another thing to keep up with, they are pretty easy to understand.

What are Unique Visitors?

Unique visitors are just like they sound: unique individual users who visit your website over a period of time. Google defines unique visitors as the “total number of unique users who logged an event.” 

The number of unique visitors is a crucial metric for any website. Knowing how many unique visitors convert, visit your site through a paid campaign, or track channel success will help determine future marketing efforts. 

Where Can You Find the Number of Unique Visitors?

Thankfully, it’s incredibly easy to find unique visitors in your GA4 dashboard.

Right when you log in, you’ll see a card highlighting “Users” which is Unique Visitors.

You can adjust the date range in the bottom left corner of this card to zoom out or in for recent performance. 

Users is also a standard metric for many reports, including Traffic Acquisition, User Acquisition, Pages and Screen, and Landing Pages.

How GA4 Determines a Unique Visitor

Let’s talk about cookies.

Whenever a user visits a site, GA4 will store the client ID in a first-party cookie, _ga. With the client ID assigned, this helps Google Analytics determine the difference between a new and returning visitor. 

You can edit your cookie settings inside the admin section of your property.

Go to your Data Stream, Configure Tag Settings, and then Click on Override cookie settings.

The default timeout for this cookie is two years. This means that if a user returns to your site at any time within the next two years, they will not be tracked as a unique visitor.

You may have to adjust cookie settings depending on local regulations. Inside the options tab, you can set the cookie expiration date anywhere from immediately (expires when the session ends) to 25 months.

Where Can I View Client ID Information in Google Analytics 4?

To view client ID information inside your GA4 property, you will have to create an exploration. Explorations are powerful, customizable reports where you can view almost anything you want. 

When you go to Explorations, you will see several options at the top. Scroll over to the right until you find User Explorer.

When you open that, you can see the ‘Effective user ID’ immediately pop up for your specified date range. 

From there, you can drill down into their event activity over their visitor lifespan.

Unique Visitor Drawbacks

In a privacy-focused world, our GA4 data can run into some issues when looking at total unique visitors.

Here are some of the most common reasons.

Ad-blockers

Ad-blockers are known to cause a number of issues for other platforms, such as Shopify and eCommerce websites. Ad-blockers can also restrict GA4 from assigning a client ID to a user, thus potentially double-counting them over time.

Web Browsers

Some web browsers have built-in or customizable privacy settings, which also limits your ability to track unique visitors. 

Data Collection Regulations

While GA4 applies the standard 24-month expiration date for its first-party cookies, local or national regulations may force you to decrease that expiration window, meaning that users are likely to be recounted as unique visitors quicker. 

Conclusion

Tracking unique visitors is pretty easy inside your GA4 dashboard, but you may encounter some issues when trying to count the exact number of unique visitors across your site. 

Keeping track of these numbers can help you make critical decisions on marketing campaigns and follow your website’s progress and performance.

If you’re looking for analytics help, feel free to reach out and get started today!

Google Analytics 4: What are Unique Visitors? is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

It’s doubtful you’ll ever use all of those within the same GA4 property, but there are some dimensions and metrics you’ll want to use regularly.

One of these is Users. But wait! Google Analytics 4 has FOUR different types of users (technically more, but we’ll explain later). What are these different types of users, and how can you use them? Let’s run through them all. 

The Different Types of Users

Let’s quickly run through the different types of users in GA4 and how they work in your GA4 setup:

• Active Users
• New Users
• Returning Users
• Total Users

When looking at users, you might be thinking something like this:

Let’s break down each user with Google’s definition. 

• Active Users: the total number of active users.
• New Users: The number of users who interacted with your site or launched your app for the first time, triggering the event first_open.
• Returning Users: Users who have initiated at least one previous session.
• Total Users: The total number of unique users who have logged an event.

Now that we’ve got the basic definitions down, let’s jump into how to use them.

Active Users

Google’s definition breaks the golden rule of definitions: don’t use your own word to define the word itself. 

Active users is the primary user metric used in Google Analytics 4. Active users are any users who have an engaged session or when GA4 collects the first_visit, first_open, or engagement_time_msec event when interacting with your website or app. 

If you are looking for total numbers, it is under “Users” in all standard reports.

An engaged session is any session that completes one of the following:

• A session that lasts 10 seconds or more
• Involves 2+ page_view events
• Involves at least one conversion

Here is what qualifies as an active user:

• Someone who converted but only viewed one page
• Someone who viewed 5 pages but never converted
• Someone who stayed on the site for 2 minutes and only saw one page

Here is what does not qualify as an active user:

• Someone who left the site after 8 seconds
• Someone who viewed only one page under 10 seconds

For many, 10 seconds isn’t long enough to establish an engaged session. That means a user could visit a page on your site, stay there for 11 seconds, and be classified as an active user.

This is a setting we recommend changing. To do so, go to Admin→Data Streams. Once inside, click on Configure tag settings.

Once inside, click on the blue ‘Show More’ button. After clicking there, click on Adjust session timeout.

We recommend changing that to 30 seconds. This seems more realistic. Someone who spends less than 30 seconds on your website may not be really engaged or may not have the time to view more than one page. 

New Users

This one is a bit easier to understand. New Users are users who have interacted with your site or app for the very first time. New Users is the sum of users logging the first_visit or first_open event.

You can break down new vs. returning users in Looker Studio to get a breakdown.

New user numbers can be found in almost all standard reports. 

Returning Users

Similar to new users, returning users are users who have been to your site or app before. 

Unlike the other types of users, Returning Users have their own special section inside your Google Analytics 4 dashboard. 

In your standard life cycle report, you will see a lone wolf section titled “Retention”. 

Here, you can see the Retention Overview, breaking down New Users and Returning Users. It can provide some interesting insights into how often users are returning and any specific trends.

Here, we can see Returning Users are more likely to visit the site during the week while weekend activity drops off considerably. 

If you’re looking for additional insight into your returning users, you can always create a custom audience to track their activity. 

Total Users

Total users is a bit different from what you might expect. It WAS the primary user metric for Universal Analytics, but now that responsibility lies with Active Users. 

New Users, Returning Users, and Active Users may show up immediately under any Pages/Landing Page report. Total users is going to be found in your Conversions and Events report. 

Total Users measures the number of users who performed any kind of event on your website or app. With everything being an event in GA4, any event will count towards your total number of users.

Total users is used to count Event count per user. For this account, we can see the average number of events per user is just under 8.

We can see here that most users average 2.84 page_view events. 

Total Users is also used for the User Conversion Rate metric, calculated by conversions by total users.

Conclusion

As we can see, the different user types may be confusing at first, but all serve unique purposes for tracking user and overall web activity. Understanding how they work can help you unlock insights into overall user experience and performance. If you’re looking for analytics help, feel free to reach out and get started today!

Google Analytics 4: Different User Types is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

Summer 2023 is just about over. It’s time for people to swap sunscreen for bug spray, bathing suits for light jackets, and maybe a good time to start saving on the AC bill.

This summer has also been a busy time for GA4. Even before the official July 1 launch, Google was busy pushing out some vital updates for the new analytics tool.

In this blog, we’re recapping the summer of updates and tell you how you can use them.

Business Objectives Collection

Date Released 

June 1st

What is it? 

The business objectives were a small surprise for many, becoming the default collection when users created a new GA4 property.

While business objectives didn’t bring anything new to the table, it does reorganize the regular reports you regularly see in your GA4 dashboard.

Many users were familiar with the standard acquisition, events, and monetization reports. Business objectives took those reports and put them in more “business” style language.

How can you use it?

Just like you would the regular reports section, except with cool, sweet business words. Here’s the breakdown:

• Generate leads
  • Audiences
  • User acquisition
  • Traffic acquisition
  • Landing page
• Drive online sales
  • Ecommerce purchases
  • Promotions
  • User purchase journey
• Raise Brand Awareness
  • Demographic details
  • Pages and screens
• Examine user behavior
  • Events
  • Conversions
  • Pages and screens

You can keep it, run it in tandem, or remove it. 

Personally, I think it makes the dashboard look cluttered.

To remove it, go to Library and find the Business objectives card. Press the three vertical buttons and hit unpublish. Voila, back to normal.

New Dimensions

Date Released

June 5th

What is it?

Five new dimensions and one new metric were added.

Dimensions:

• Country
• Manual term (UTM term)
• Mobile device info
• Minute
• New vs. Returning

Metric:

• Session duration

Probably the most notable thing here was the addition of session duration. A staple in Universal Analytics reports, users can now track session duration.

How Can You Use It?

Nothing special to note here. If those dimensions and metrics are important to you, go wild!

New Search Console Recommendation

Date Released

June 9th

What is it?

If GA4 notices that your GA4 and GSC accounts are not linked, a notification will appear telling you to link them. By following the instructions, you can link up a vital tool for organic performance. 

Once you do so, make sure to publish your GSC report so it can appear in your GA4 dashboard.

How Can You Use It?

If you don’t have the notice, you’ve already done this. If you want to link it up, feel free. It takes about 25 seconds to do.

Improvements to reusing analytics.js tags for GA4 Properties

Date Released

June 14th

What is it?

When you first set up your GA4 property, you likely just used your existing analytics.js tag to pass data to your GA4 property.

However, this tag did not provide tracking for items such as enhanced e-commerce, custom dimensions, and custom metrics. Now, this tag will be able to push those items through.

How Can You Use It?

If you’ve been paying close attention to your GA4 property, you might have noticed some additional dimensions or metrics appear in your account during this time. 

In case you haven’t used it yet, Google provides some lengthy instructions on configuring the tag to push additional information to your GA4 property.

If you’ve already set up your GA4 account, you likely won’t have to worry about such an issue. You do, however, need to make sure that you’re not double-tracking events across your site.

You can do this by entering GTM’s preview mode and navigating throughout your site to check for double event tracking.

GA4 Integration with AdSense

Date Released

June 15th

What is it?

GA4 already had a number of product links available in the admin section. This simply added another one. 

How Can You Use It?

For some products, you can link to them through the GA4 dashboard. For AdSense, you have to go through their dashboard. Here are the instructions on how to do so. 

Updates to Conversion Credits

Date Released

June 20th

What is it?

This Google Ads update allows you to change your attribution settings in either GA4 or Google Ads. In order to do so, you must link your Google Ads account to your GA4 account.

If you’re not using Google Ads, then you don’t need to worry about this update.

How Can You Use It?

GA4 conversions can be linked and imported to Google Ads. With these conversions, you can choose whether or not these they receive credit through other channels.

There are two options here:

• Google Paid Channels: Only Google paid channels can receive credit for a conversion.
• Paid and Organic channels: This means that conversions can be attributed to either paid or organic channels, but only the paid conversions will show up in your Google Ads dashboard. 

By focusing your conversion on Google Paid channels only, you can dive into the ROI of certain campaigns and better understand your ad spend and performance. 

Audience Export API

Date Released

June 26th

What is it?

This API allows you to export the user ID and device ID, whereas users were limited with such an option before.

How Can You Use It?

This one is pretty developer-heavy, you can find the lengthy instructions here. 

Import Conversions Recommendation

Date Released

June 28th

What is it?

A new recommendation will pop up telling you to import your GA4 conversions into Google Ads.

How Can You Use It?

If you haven’t done so, you’ll see the notification. If you have already done so, you won’t. Pretty novel, right?

New Ecommerce Metrics and Conversions

Date Released

July 20, 2023

What is it?

This was a HUGE update for those with ecommerce sites. Google finally added a number of metrics and dimensions that could be used in your custom report builder. 

The list is pretty long, but some of the biggest updates included:

• Item name
• Item revenue
• Purchase revenue
• Refund amount
• Tax amount
• Shipping amount

Having these broken out gives users a better understanding of the purchases and returns happening on their website.

How Can You Use It?

If you’re looking to build ecommerce reports of explorations, you’re going to need some of these metrics and dimensions. 

One of the biggest updates here was being able to create a detailed item report or exploration, looking at specific ecommerce metrics item by item.

GA4 Audiences in Google Ads

Date Released

July 27th

What is it?

When you have your GA4 and Google Ads linked, Google Data signals turned on, and ads personalization turned on, GA4 will automatically export audiences to Google Ads. 

How Can You Use It?

This was a long overdue feature that now allows you to take your GA4 audiences and examine their performance within the Google Ads dashboard. You can analyze their performance or use these custom audiences for targeting. 

Default Conversion Value

Date Released

July 27th

What is it?

Two updates in one day!

While ecommerce conversions will already have their value assigned by way of purchases, value for other sites, such as lead-generation, may not be so obvious.

This feature allows you to set a default value for a conversion, whatever that conversion may be. 

How Can You Use It?

Navigate to your admin section and go to conversions. On the same line as your conversion, click the three vertical dots.

From there, select “Set default conversion value”. 

You’ll then be able to set a value for each conversion.

To see the value of those conversions, go into your Conversions report. Click on the pencil in the top right corner and then click on metrics. You’ll need to add the metric “event value” to start tracking the total value.

You will have to work with your internal team or the client to determine the value of each individual conversion, but having this will be able to provide better insights into your marketing efforts. 

New Audience Report

Date Released

August 1st

What is it?

For those that have audiences, the audience report is a new way to look at them in the aggregate. This is a nice little addition to get a snapshot of your different audiences.

How Can You Use It?

The new audience report is a little hidden. To find it, go to the User Attributes section and open the report where you’ll see “Audiences”.

Just like other reports, you can edit the metrics in the report. 

RegEx in GA4 Reports

Date Released

August 4th

What is it?

Another long overdue update, GA4 finally introduced regex match types in reports. Before, users were stuck using a checkbox method which was fine if you only had to select a few values, but a huge pain if you were trying to filter down to a certain folder.

While regex was the big highlight, ‘begins with’ and ‘exactly matches’ were also added.

How Can You Use It?

If you’ve ever edited a GA4 report, you might have already noticed this change.

To see this in action, head to any report and click the pencil icon in the top right corner. For this example, I am in the landing page report and want to filter down by a few folders. 

You can read more about the various match types here. 

Modeling in Funnels and Path Explorations

Date Released

August 17th

What is it?

Behavioral modeling has been a part of GA4 since its launch. Used to combat those who opt out of analytics tracking, behavioral modeling will “fill the gaps” of data to give you a better idea of your overall website performance.

Now, behavioral modeling is available for a few explorations: funnels and path explorations. This also applies to the User Purchase Journey report and any custom funnels you create.

How Can You Use It?

Unfortunately, behavioral modeling is not available for all properties. There are a few thresholds you must hit before it applies to your account:

• Your property must collect at least 1,000 events per day with analytics_storage=’denied’ for at least 7 days (meaning people opted out of tracking)
• Your property must have at least 1,000 daily users sending events with analytics_storage=’granted’ for at least 7 of the previous 28 days. 

This means that smaller traffic sites likely won’t benefit from behavioral modeling.

You can check if your site is eligible by going to your Admin section and choosing Reporting Identity.

By default, all properties have the Blended Reporting Identity selected. For this particular property, we can see that Modeling is inactive because it does not meet the minimum thresholds.

So if your site is eligible, you can start to see some of your explorations populated with additional data. 

Unfortunately, this is not retroactive.

View and Delete AdSense Links

Date Released

August 31st

What is it?

GA4 will now let you delete links between your property and AdSense. 

This can be done under the Admin page titled AdSense Links.

How Can You Use It?

You can now delete links, nothing much to see here. 

Wrapping Up

This certainly has been the summer of updates for GA4, and we don’t expect it to stop anytime soon. Remember, you can follow all GA4 updates by tracking their updates page. 

If you have any questions or need help with your GA4 setup, reach out today!

GA4 and the Summer of Updates is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

You might find exporting data from GA4 into spreadsheets beneficial for…

• Using data visualization tools like Tableau
• Conducting more in-depth data analysis using programming languages like R
• Data integration with other data sources 
• Data archives and backing up data 
• Data sharing  

With GA4, transferring data from reports and explorations to a spreadsheet is easy. In order to export data, you must have admin or editor access to a GA4 account. 

How To Export Data from Google Analytics 4 Reports

At some point, while using GA4, you will likely want to export data from a Google Analytics 4 report to Excel. In this example, I will explain how to export data using the built-in features of GA4. 

However, this is not the only way to export your data. You can also export data through tools like an API connector or BigQuery. If you are interested in using the free export features of GA4, then you can follow the steps below. 

1. Select the Google Analytics 4 report you want to export data from 

    For this demo, I chose the Landing page report. 

2. Select a date range 

    I chose the month of July. 

3. Click on the Share this report button located in the top right              corner

4. Next, click on Download File and choose Download CSV 

5. Now you have a CSV export of your Google Analytics 4 report data 

    You can then import the CSV file into Excel, Google Sheets, or another spreadsheet tool. 

Limitations

There are some limitations when it comes to exporting data from reports in GA4. 

Limitations: 

• You can’t download data from multiple reports into the same file. You have to download the data in separate files. 
• You can’t export your data directly into Google Sheets. Your only options are a CSV file or a PDF download. 
• GA4 has an export limit of 5,000 rows. 
• You have to select a specific date range for the data you export.  

Exporting Data from Explorations 

In addition to exporting data from reports, GA4 also provides features for transporting data from an exploration. 

1. Open the exploration you want to export data from

You can refer to our GA4 for SEOs: 4 GA4 Explorations all SEOs Need blog post to get some ideas for possible explorations to export. 

2. Select the correct date range

3. Select the Export data button located in the top right corner 

4. Choose the format you would like to export your data into 

Google Sheets users will be happy to know that in an exploration, there is an option to transport data right into a Google Sheet and avoid the extra step of downloading a CSV file. However, non-Google Sheets users can still download the data as a CSV file.

Conclusion 

Despite sometimes being a pain to look at, spreadsheets can be helpful for storing GA4 data and connecting GA4 data to other sources. Whether you are Team Excel, Team Google Sheets, or Team Other, transferring data from GA4 to your desired spreadsheet platform is easy.

How To Export Google Analytics 4 Data To Excel is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

Custom audiences allow you to categorize users by dimensions, metrics, and events. With many ways to create subsets of users, you can track audiences relevant to your business and goals. 

Helpful Articles:

• Website Analytics Agency
• Google Analytics 4 Agency
• Conversion Rate Optimization Services

Adding a New Audience

The setup of custom audiences occurs in the Audiences section located in the Admin settings. GA4 allows you to create up to 100 custom audiences in one property. Audiences you create in GA4 can also be used when setting up campaigns in Google Ads, but that’s not all they’re for.

1. New audience → Create a custom audience

If you don’t want to start completely from scratch, you can also create audiences from GA4’s premade templates.

2. Name and briefly describe your audience  

If you are unsure what type of audience you want to create, you can return to this step after exploring the filter options. 

3. Establish the scope 

When setting up your custom audience, you can choose from three different scopes:

 Across all sessions, Within the same session, and Within the same event. 

The Across all sessions scope is the most inclusive scope and will account for user data across multiple sessions.

The Within the same session scope only collects user data for one session. And finally, the narrowest scope, Within the same event, only looks at user data from a single event. 

4. Select Add new condition, explore the events/dimensions/metrics you can filter your audience by, and then select the relevant condition. 

5. Add any parameters or additional conditions 

With one condition, your custom audience will likely be too broad. To narrow down your audience even more you can add parameters and additional conditions. 

 To add additional conditions, you can use the OR/AND functions. 

As you add additional parameters and conditions, be sure to monitor the summary box on the right side of the screen to see how much you are narrowing down your audience. 

6. Edit additional audience settings (optional) 

The audience builder defaults the time frame users stay in the audience to 30 days. A user will be removed from the                    audience if they do not meet the audience criteria again in the span of 30 days. The maximum membership duration allowed is 540 days. 

You can also add audience triggers. This feature allows you to trigger an event when users match the criteria of an audience.          For example, if your audience criteria is set to spend at least 5 minutes on a page, you can create a trigger that will record an event name of your choice every time a user spends 5 minutes or more on a page. 

The event is then available for you to access in all GA4 reports. 

7. Save your new audience

Another possible way to build an audience is through a sequence. This feature can be helpful if you want to analyze audiences that complete a specific order of actions. 

Setting up a sequence: 

1. Add sequence to include 

2. Add a condition/parameter 

3. Add step 

4. Decide if you want the step to directly or indirectly follow the previous step 

5. Continue adding the number of steps you want 

6. Save new audience 

Examples of Custom Google Analytics 4 Audiences 

Returning Users 

A key audience you likely want to track is returning users to your site. Understanding who comes back to your site can help you distinguish users with high interest in your company and discover which pages users often come back to. 

Steps for this audience: 

1. New audience → Create a custom audience

2. Name/describe the audience

3. Add new condition → session_start 

4. Add parameter → Event count

     a. Condition = greater than (>)

     b. Value =  1 

     c. Apply 

5. Add additional conditions/parameters 

If you want to get more detailed, you could add the name of a specific page you want to monitor returning users on. 

AND → Add new condition → page_view → page_title → Condition → exactly matches → (enter your page title name). 

6. Save your new audience  

High Page Views No Conversions 

An audience you might want to track is users who view multiple product pages on your website but do not complete a conversion. Analyzing this target audience can help you uncover common places where no conversions happen and allow you to discover new strategies for driving more conversions. 

Steps for this example:  

1. New audience → Create a custom audience 

2. Name/describe the audience 

 3. Add new condition → page_view 

 4. Add parameter → page_location → contains → ‘product’ 

5. Select AND 

6. Add new condition → page_view  

7. Add parameter → Event count  

                 a. Condition = greater than (>) 

                 b. Value = 3 

                 c. Apply 

8. Add a group to exclude 

a. Once you have your condition set up, you want to make sure you are excluding all user actions that are considered                              conversions. To do this you first select Add group to exclude.  

b. Then, you select Add new condition and search for the name of your conversion event

c. Next, select OR 

d. Repeat adding new conditions until all your conversion names are added to the exclude box. 

9. Save your new audience 

Cart Abandonments 

If your site is for an ecommerce business, cart abandonments is a key audience you will likely want to track.

1. New audience → Create a custom audience 

2. Name/describe the audience 

3. Add new condition → add_to_cart 

4. Add group to exclude 

5. Add new condition → Event name

6. Add parameter → Condition → exactly matches → ‘purchase’ 

7. Save new audience 

Audience Explorations 

Exploration reports are another great way to analyze the performance of audiences. Using an exploration such as Path exploration allows you to learn more about the user journey of your target audiences. 

Steps for adding audiences to your explorations: 

1. Explorations → Choose an exploration type 

                     I chose Path exploration.

2. Segments → ‘+’ button  

Segments are only available to use in explorations. If you want your audience to also be available to use in the standard report types, you can select Build an audience.

3. Create a custom segment → User segment 

4. Complete the steps for adding a new audience (as outlined above) 

5. Save and apply 

6. Add your segment in the Segment column to filter your exploration by your custom audience 

Audiences Report

At the beginning of August 2023, GA4 unveiled the Audiences report which can be found under User Attributes in the Reports section. 

This report is the hub for all your custom audiences. The Audiences report allows you to easily compare and evaluate the performance of your different audiences. 

You can also filter other standard report types by custom audience. For example, I could filter a Landing page report to just show landing pages of my custom audience. 

To do this, first open the Customize report tool (the pencil icon in the top right corner). Then, click Add filter → Dimension →  Audience Name →  exactly matches → (choose the name of a custom audience from the drop-down menu) → Apply. 

Conclusion

Using Google Analytics 4 audiences is an easy way to elevate your reporting. Based on audience analysis in GA4, you can develop audience-focused marketing strategies, improve the customer experience on your site, and personalize your content for your target audiences.  

A Guide To Google Analytics 4 Audiences is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.