An Introductory GA4 Dashboard Review – Helping Your Team Make Sense of the Update

Google Analytics 4 will be replacing Universal Analytics on July 1, 2023, ushering in the next generation of reporting. Once you’ve gone through the initial setup process, you’ll need to understand and customize the layout of your dashboard. If you’re a marketer who’s been using Universal Analytics for years, replacing it with something new can be intimidating. The good news is that Team True is here to help you through the transition.  

Keep reading to learn more about how you can customize your GA4 dashboard to ensure it provides you with metrics that align with your marketing goals.  

The GA4 Dashboard Basics

Before we dive into the details, it’s important to note that GA4 is more focused on tracking events (like form submissions or document downloads) rather than user sessions. Think of this as Google’s way of helping you dig deeper into what users interact with on your website, showcasing what’s most valuable to them.  

The default dashboard in GA4 is a pre-populated report with a couple of general data groups like users or conversions. For more detailed reporting, Google recommends using the new “Explore” section which allows you to create more customized reports with snapshots of important data. Let’s take a top-level look at the Path Exploration report as an example.  

The Path Exploration report shows your users' actions working forward from a specific event or page. By looking at the journey your users are taking, you can determine a variety of useful conclusions like:  

• Which web pages are causing users to jump off your site
• If your website has any back-and-forth loops that cause confusion  
• What web pages on your site are involved in the most conversions  

Customizing the Dashboard for Your Unique Marketing Goals

One of the most common questions we hear from our clients about GA4 is how they can customize the dashboard to track their marketing efforts more effectively. The first step to figuring out what to include on your dashboard is to identify the metrics that matter based on your primary goals and objectives.  

For example, if you’re a building products’ brand that wants to increase the amount of traffic going to your website, one way to accomplish this is through improving the overall SEO of the website by optimizing webpages, blog content, and other areas accordingly. To measure the progress and success of your efforts, you’ll want to track organic traffic metrics in your dashboard. By going to the “Traffic Acquisition” report you can look at the overall level of organic traffic.  

Be Sure to Use Google Tag Manager with GA4

Google Tag Manager (GTM) and the GA4 dashboard are complementary tools. While there are general event parameters that are set up by default, GTM enables you to get much more specific -- you can even manually add custom events that align with your marketing strategy. With GTM, you can add and/or remove tags as needed. So, once you fully implement GA4, Tag Manager can fill in almost any gaps in tracking.  

Remember, since the tracking method in GA4 is event-based, you need custom tags to track any activity that’s unique to your website. In fact, it’s a good idea to create a list of the high-impact custom events you want to keep an eye on. From there, you (or your marketing partner), can start building custom tags and add them to the GA4 dashboard.  

Make the Most of the GA4 Dashboard with a Digital Marketing Partner

If your brand is looking to get more out of the new GA4 dashboard to track your marketing goals, True can help. Our Digital team will help you identify key marketing goals, assist in optimizing your GA4 dashboard, and effectively track all your campaigns.  

Contact us today to talk more about your digital marketing needs. Whether it’s the GA4 dashboard, setting up paid campaigns, or optimizing your website, our team makes digital marketing simple.