In case you had an opportunity to learn earlier guides we’ve revealed on Google Analytics 4 (GA4), you most likely know that it’s not a plug-and-play analytics device like Common Analytics was.
There may be a whole lot of info one wants to soak up so as to have the ability to arrange GA4 correctly, and time is ticking.
With GA4 being a extra advanced device, it’s simple to make errors that may hinder the accuracy and reliability of the information collected.
On this article, we’ll discover 5 frequent Google Analytics 4 errors that may simply occur and supply sensible tricks to keep away from them.
1. Not Setting Knowledge Retention Interval
GA4 comes with a two-month information retention interval by default, and you’ve got the choice to set it to 14 months. The retention interval is utilized to customized stories in explorations, whereas information in the usual stories by no means expire.
As soon as the retention interval has handed, information shall be routinely deleted – which suggests in case you don’t change that setting as you arrange GA4, you won’t be able to run YoY customized stories and can lose invaluable historic information.
With the intention to change the retention interval, navigate to Knowledge Settings > Date Retention, and within the dropdown, select 14 months.
Additionally, you will discover a checkbox studying “Reset consumer information on new exercise,” which suggests the 14-month information retention interval is counted from the second of the consumer’s final go to onwards.
In different phrases, every time a consumer engages in a brand new exercise, their information retention interval will get prolonged for an additional 14 months.
Truthfully, I can’t consider a use case whenever you would select to show that choice off, so I hold it switched on.
2. Dimensions With Excessive Cardinality
Excessive-cardinality dimensions are dimensions that comprise greater than 500 distinctive values inside a single day. This may current challenges and limitations in information evaluation inside GA4.
Cardinality in GA4 can negatively have an effect on information accuracy and reliability.
For instance, whenever you monitor the precise phrase depend as a customized dimension on each article web page, you might find yourself having excessive cardinality in case you have 1000’s of articles as a result of the phrase depend will be totally different for each article.
How To Repair Excessive Cardinality
To mitigate the impression of excessive cardinality in GA4, think about making a bucket of values.
With the instance above of phrase depend customized dimension, it actually doesn’t matter that a lot whether or not the article may have 500 or 501 phrases. You may bucket values into ranges like:
<500. 500-1000. 1001-1500. 1501-2000. +2000. And as a substitute of pushing too many distinct values, you should have solely 5 totally different dimensions. Additionally, as a greatest follow, at all times outline customized dimensions correctly. Be sure that customized dimensions align along with your evaluation aims and think about their potential impression on information accuracy and useful resource consumption. 3. Not Linking To BigQuery Account Linking to BigQuery was out there in Common Analytics 360 however not within the free model. With GA4 now, all customers have entry to that premium function. Since it's exporting information to BigQuery from the second you join, it’s essential to set it up originally with the intention to have as a lot historic information as doable. BigQuery has an enormous benefit over GA4 customized stories as information isn't sampled, whereas in customized stories, information shall be sampled if there are greater than 10M occasions within the exploration report. With the intention to hyperlink GA4 to BigQuery, navigate to BigQuery Hyperlinks in your GA4 settings. With the intention to full linking to BigQuery, you would want to create a BigQuery challenge which would require you to enter your billing info. It's freemium, and 10 GB is free every month; it'll cost you $0.02 per GB in case you exceed that quantity. 4. Failing To Set Up Customized Audiences GA4 has highly effective audience-building capabilities you'll be able to learn extra about in our information on learn how to create segments and audiences. With GA4 audiences, you'll be able to analyze particular information segments, empowering you to derive invaluable insights. As an example, you'll be able to create goal audiences equivalent to engaged customers, subscribed customers, or customers who made a purchase order prior to now 30 days. It's advisable to create audiences on your ICP and mark it as a conversion. Since viewers dates will not be retroactive, it is very important outline your goal audiences originally of setup with the intention to collect historic information. 5. Utilizing Auto Migration From Common Analytics GA4 is a completely totally different beast in comparison with UA, with a unique information mannequin. Regardless that it gives the choice to routinely gather Common Analytics occasions, it's higher to not use that, as it's a probability to rethink your analytics and design your occasion assortment structure anew for higher analytics. 6. Not Excluding Undesirable Referrals Usually ecommerce web sites have third-party cost processors that are hosted below totally different domains – and when redirecting them again to the web site after the consumer completes a checkout, GA will detect it as a brand new session as a result of the referral is totally different. With the intention to keep away from that and never distort your conversions information, you must exclude such domains from referrals so GA doesn’t provoke a brand new session. At SEJ, for instance, we've the brief hyperlink “sejr.nl” area, which needs to be handled as the identical area – so we added it to our exclusion checklist. Additionally, in case you have subdomains and need to monitor throughout subdomains utilizing the identical GA4 property, you must exclude your personal area from referrals with the intention to hold the identical session when customers navigate from one subdomain to your fundamental area. 7. Not Selecting The Proper Reporting Identification The next reporting id choices can be found in GA4: Blended. Noticed. System-based. The excellent news is you'll be able to swap forwards and backwards between these choices anytime, and it'll replicate in your customized exploration stories. However I want to point out why it’s essential to decide on the appropriate choice in response to what you are promoting case. In case you don’t have login and consumer IDs in your web site, 99% of circumstances ought to go together with “device-based,” as a result of the opposite two choices might distort your conversions information. The reason being the consumer’s privateness. With Google indicators enabled, GA makes use of consumer IDs to trace customers throughout units, then matches them if they're logged in to their Google service accounts on totally different units – and there's a probability that consumer id could also be uncovered. In such circumstances, it hides consumer information from the stories and fashions information primarily based on consumer conduct. Modeling of knowledge can introduce some stage of inaccuracy as a result of it’s an estimation somewhat than a precise measurement. With modeled and noticed choices, you'll typically discover “Knowledge thresholds are utilized” in your stories which have implications for information accuracy. You might attempt switching between these choices and see how your information is altering. In case you discover a big distinction within the variety of conversions between blended, noticed identities, and device-based, it could be preferable to make use of the latter choice. System-based id works equally to how Common Analytics monitoring works. Conclusion In conclusion, it's essential to keep away from frequent configuration errors when establishing Google Analytics 4 to make sure correct and dependable information assortment. By understanding these potential pitfalls and taking the mandatory measures, you'll be able to take advantage of GA4’s capabilities and derive significant insights on your web site or utility. Moreover, GA4 requires ongoing upkeep somewhat than a one-time setup. Failing to recurrently monitor and analyze your information can result in missed alternatives and make it tough to determine and handle points on time. Extra sources: Featured Picture: Forged Of Hundreds/Shutterstock