Google Analytics 4 explained for business owners

What is Google Analytics 4 and how does it work?

GA4 works with events. An event is anything a visitor does: viewing a page, scrolling, clicking a button, submitting a form. Each action is stored as a separate event.

That's different from before. Universal Analytics mainly thought in sessions and page views. GA4 looks at what people do. That makes it easier to measure what really counts for your business, such as a quote request or a phone call.

A few terms you'll come across often:

• Users: the number of people who visited your site. This is an estimate, not an exact count.
• Sessions: a visit. One user can have several sessions.
• Engagement rate: the share of sessions in which someone really did something, such as staying longer or viewing several pages.
• Key events: the actions that matter most to you. These used to be called conversions.
• Channel or source: where a visitor came from, such as Google, social media or an ad.

Installing Google Analytics 4: the steps

Installing GA4 isn't difficult, but it is precise work. Here's how to go about it:

• Create a Google Analytics account with a business Google account, not your personal address.
• Create a property for your website and choose the right time zone and currency.
• Add a web data stream and copy the measurement ID, which starts with G-.
• Place the code on your website, through your CMS, a plugin or Google Tag Manager.
• In the settings, set data retention to the longest period available. By default it's short.
• Exclude your own visits, so your own clicks don't skew the numbers.
• Check in the realtime report that your own visit comes through.

If you're having a new website built, ask whether Google Analytics is set up as standard. With our websites it's part of the basics, just like the SEO basics.

Cookies, consent and the GDPR

GA4 uses cookies and processes visitor data. That means in the Netherlands you often need consent through a cookie banner. Google has Consent Mode for this, a setting that tracks whether someone gave consent or not and adjusts the measurement accordingly.

Exactly how you set this up depends on your situation. Read our article on a GDPR-compliant cookie banner for the practical side. For legal questions you can turn to a lawyer or to the guidance from the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens).

Which GA4 reports do you really need?

GA4 has a lot of reports, and that's off-putting. For most business owners only a few are truly useful:

• Acquisition, Traffic acquisition: which channels visitors come in through. Does most of it come from Google, from ads or from social media?
• Engagement, Pages and screens: which pages are viewed most and for how long.
• Engagement, Events: which actions visitors take, such as clicking a phone number.
• Key events by channel: which channel really brings in enquiries or sales.
• Tech: whether your visitors are mainly on mobile or desktop.

Look at the same reports once a month and compare with the month before. That way you spot trends without drowning in numbers.

Setting up GA4 events and key events

By default GA4 already measures a number of things, such as page views, scrolling and clicks to external sites. But the actions that are worth money to your business you often have to set up yourself. Think of:

• A submitted quote or contact form.
• A click on your phone number or WhatsApp button.
• A booked appointment or trial lesson.
• A completed order in your webshop.

You then mark those actions as key events. That way you see what each channel delivers. Read how to approach this properly in our article on measuring conversions.

An example: an installation company sees that most visitors come from Google, but that quote requests mainly come from ads. Then you know your ads are working and that your organic pages could match what people search for better. Without events set up, you wouldn't have seen that.

Do you also use Google Ads? Then link your Ads account to GA4. That way you see in one overview what a click costs and what it brings in.

Common mistakes with Google Analytics 4

• The code is on the site twice, so every visit counts double.
• The account is in the name of a former agency or ex-employee, and nobody can get in any more.
• No key events are set up, so you only see visitors and no results.
• Data retention is still on the short default.
• Your own visits and those of your developer are being counted.
• You only look at the number of visitors instead of at what they do.

A tip: make sure you're always the administrator of your own Analytics account. An agency or freelancer gets access, but the account stays yours.

Help with setting up and reading GA4

GA4 is a means, not an end. It helps you see whether your website and marketing are doing what they should. At Violexa we set up Google Analytics on every website or web application we build. A custom website starts from €1,799 excl. VAT (€2,177 incl. VAT) per project, including the SEO basics, Google Analytics and CMS integration. See what's included on our page about websites and apps.

Would you also like someone to review the numbers monthly and act on them? We do that as part of online marketing, from €599 excl. VAT (€725 incl. VAT) per month, cancellable monthly.

Not sure your tracking is right? Book a free quickscan. In 30 minutes, online or on site, we look at your website and tracking. Afterwards you get short written advice with a price indication, with no obligation.

Frequently asked questions