Google Analytics 4 FAQs

Google recently released a new analytics property known as Google Analytics 4, which is intended to replace Universal Analytics in 2023 and is a powerful analytics tool that tracks user activity on your site. By connecting your website with a Google Analytics account, you can collect and analyze data that helps you understand what is and isn’t working on your site allowing you to measure traffic and engagement and make better choices to improve visitors’ experiences.

Note: As of July 1, 2023, standard Google Universal Analytics (UA) properties will no longer process data. New data will only flow into Google Analytics 4 properties. You'll be able to see your UA reports for a period of time after July 1, 2023.

Universal Analytics uses only two User metrics: Total Users, and New Users. In GA4, there are three User metrics: Total Users, Active Users, and New Users. GA4 collects information a bit differently than UA did. Instead of interactions being captured in many different hit types such as page views, transactions, and social interactions, GA4 captures every interaction as an event. Events did exist in UA with associated categories, actions, and labels; but these classifications do not exist in GA4.

Google Analytics 4 uses a small piece of Javascript tracking code to collect data about your website visitors and their interactions on your website. This tracking code is already set up and built into Finalsite's CMS. Once it's set up, GA4 will drop a cookie in the user's browser for your website. It will help to track every interaction that user performs on your site. GA4 collects information a bit differently than UA did. Instead of interactions being captured in many different hit types such as page views, transactions, and social interactions, GA4 captures every interaction as an event. Events did exist in UA with associated categories, actions, and labels , but these classifications do not exist in GA4.

If you don’t know how to access your Google Analytics 4 account, the first place to check is on your admin site under the "Site Information" module. From the top Site Administration toolbar, click the “Site Information” link under the “Modules & Settings” section.

 

You can sometimes find the email address that is connected to the account there. If you have a general marketing or communications email address, try logging in directly at analytics.google.com. Communicate with your team to make sure none of them have access to the account. Finalsite Support may also be able to tell you what email addresses have access to the account.

If you’re certain no one at your organization is able to access the Google Analytics account, you may need to contact Google Support in order to reclaim it. Select the appropriate response and follow the instructions from Google to complete this process.

If you don’t have a Google Analytics account, follow the Instructions from Google to set up your account and create a property for your site.

See: "Set up Google Analytics 4 on a Composer site" to learn how to get started on your site. 

There are several ways to find the UA-ID for your site. In Composer, the UA-ID is located in the Domain Settings under the SEO tab. In Google Analytics, the UA-ID is located under “Property Settings” in the Admin section of the console. On the front end of your site, the UA-ID can be found by clicking “View Page Source” and searching for “UA-” using ctrl+F or command+F.

At this time, Finalsite does not support the ability to track analytics in the mobile app.

At this time, Finalsite does not support the ability to track analytics in the mobile app. In Composer, the GA4 Measurement ID needs to be added to each subdomain individually.

Using “external_link_click” as a custom event is meant to provide “click_text” as a parameter. Enabling enhanced measurement “Outbound clicks” results in this event firing twice; therefore, “Outbound clicks” is recommended to be disabled to avoid this event from being counted twice. When enabled, use that event for reporting though it will not be clear which click text led to the outbound click. The custom event we have set up in Composer won’t affect the accuracy of the native GA4 event when enabled. The following can all be used for the “element_text” dimension: constituent _pop_up_displayed, posts_pop_up_displayed.

Yes, CTA buttons can be tracked by providing two events "internal_link_click," which tracks any link clicked internally, and "external_link_click," which tracks any link to an external website.

You can use these events along with "element_url" and/or "click_text" to define events for any CTA buttons you would like to track on your site.

Create an event to track specific CTA buttons across your site by going to "Admin > Events > Create."
You can even track all of your CTA button events for a specific page by going to the same menu and creating a Custom event name for a page where you would then configure the CTA buttons accordingly. 

Tracking individual downloads via Analytics is much more difficult (and less reliable) than tracking individual pages. If you need to get a count of how many times a particular file has been downloaded, the easy way to do that is to put the link to that file on a site page, and then track visits to the page.

Video events

Resources are pulled through the resource title, allowing users to distinguish between different videos being played.There is a parameter for “resource_title” that is passed to GA4 as a custom dimension for “resource_video_played” and “resource_video_paused”, which pulls in the video file name.

For YouTube videos embedded on a page, a "video_complete" event can be tracked for users who watched the entire video. Composer-hosted videos don't send any event in the data layer when a video is completed; therefore, tracking "video_complete" is not currently available unless through the embedding of a YouTube video on a Composer page.

File downloads

In some cases there is a 3rd trigger, which will be updating in the container settings shortly and will be including any updates in Composer release notes to communicate this change.