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In the old Google Universal Analytics, building reports felt completely natural… With the new GA4 Explore feature, though, you have more reporting options than ever. In this article we go deep into everything you need to know about it, how to use it and best practices.
In the previous version of Google Analytics, Universal Analytics, you built a custom report by going to Customization > Custom Reports and configuring it there.
That has changed. Google announced that it is ending support for UA and focusing on GA4 instead. You can find out more in another of our articles here.
Even so, every marketer needs reports. Fortunately, GA4 offers custom reports too, with quite a few new features. On top of that, you can build reports that go as deep as you like. In this article we cover everything in the new GA4 Explorations interface (yes, it has been renamed as well).
Once you open the GA4 property in your Analytics account, you will see the core data from your data streams. For many people that is enough, but if you want answers to specific questions, you need to go into custom reports.
To do this, go to your GA4 property and select “Explore” in the left-hand column.
The page that loads contains a few things: predefined techniques for building your reports, and a history of the reports you have created. You probably will not have any history yet, unless you have already tried building something yourself.
Personally, I find “Free form” the easiest technique. In this article I will use it to show you how things work, but feel free to experiment with the others. Find the one that is easiest for you to start with.
Once you choose a technique, you will see a page with three main columns: Variables, Tab Settings, and the output data you get by configuring the first two columns.
We will go through each of them separately so you get an overall idea of what each one is and what it is for.
This column holds the main variables you work with. This is where you set the date range as well as the different segments, dimensions and metrics you will use later on.
We will go through each of them separately so you get an overall idea of what each one is and what it is for.
Important: If you want to use segments, metrics or dimensions that are not listed, you need to add them using the plus icon next to the relevant component. Below we describe how to do this for each of them.
What are segments? Segments are an easy way to split the final data so that you are not just looking at totals (for example, all orders placed, all views of a given page and so on).
Example segments (and the ones GA4 provides by default) are traffic types. With traffic type, you can choose to see data ONLY from your paid Google ads. Or you can filter out paid traffic and look only at direct traffic, and so on.
Segments are extremely powerful. They let you go really deep in your analysis and find simple solutions to the complex problems that come up during advertising.
GA4 gives you traffic type as a standard segment, but you can add more using the plus icon next to the text “Segments”. From there you can set up typical segments, or you can use Google’s improved artificial intelligence (if there is enough data) to show you, for example, users who are likely to buy a product within 7 days. In short: endless possibilities. Almost.
Dimensions are the data you want to track for a given segment.
For example: you have a segment of paid traffic that has triggered a certain event. If you want to track the “age” and “interests” dimensions for that segment, you add them under dimensions and use them later on.
The dimensions available vary a lot. You can track information from Google Ads (for example: campaign, ad account name, traffic source), as well as demographics (interests, age), geolocation (city, region, country, coordinates), device (device language, device type, device brand) and more.
Metrics are the set of numbers in Analytics that you can show in the report’s output data.
For example: within the paid traffic segment, you want to see which country (the country dimension) has the most sales, which is the metric in this case.
Metrics are the final data you want to see in the finished report, filtered by the previous two variables: dimensions and segments. Metrics can be ecommerce events as well as ordinary events. You can see data on the revenue of the online shop you manage. You can also see various user details, for example just the number of people who have bought from you successfully exactly once. Again, the possibilities are endless. Almost.
Once you have chosen the variables you will work with, it is finally time to use them.
In the Tab Settings column you can do a few key things: change the report technique, change the visualisation, select segments and compare them, place your dimensions as columns or rows, and use metrics as the values you want in the final report.
There are several techniques: free form, funnel exploration, path exploration, segment overlap, cohort exploration and user lifetime.
Each one serves a different purpose, so it is important to choose carefully. To learn about each of them in detail, see the Netpeak Journal article here.
Report visualisation speaks for itself. This is where you choose how the final report will look.
In the Tab Settings column you can do a few key things: change the report technique, change the visualisation, select segments and compare them, place your dimensions as columns or rows, and use metrics as the values you want in the final report.
The example below is set to show which country has the most sessions across all traffic.
Important: Depending on the report technique and visualisation you have chosen, the interface and the options may differ. The description below applies to “Free form”.
Based on the segments you imported in the previous column, you can choose how the final data in the report is filtered. If, for example, you have added a “paid traffic” segment, that is what the data on the right will be broken down by.
You can compare segments and their data by adding two or more segments to a single report. See the example below:
Important: Depending on the report technique and visualisation you have chosen, the interface and the options may differ. The description below applies to “Free form”.
Again, as with segments, you can take the dimensions you added in the previous column and use them however you like.
Different visualisations let you place dimensions in different ways. For example, with the table visualisation you can choose (if you want more than one dimension) which one becomes a column and which a row in the final report.
There is quite a big difference between UA reports and GA4 reports. Even so, we have to adapt quickly so that we can offer our clients the best and the latest.
In this article we broke down the basics of GA4 Explorations that a marketer or manager needs in order to work with reports. The good news is that once you get the hang of it, there is nothing to be afraid of. There is plenty of room to go deeper, which in turn gives you more answers to the complex questions a client may raise, or that you ask yourself.
