A checklist for marketers and advertisers to ensure that Analytics has the crucial data you need to power business measurements
After you have set up data collection for your websites and apps, complete additional configurations to get more accurate and useful data. The more items you complete on the checklist, the more complete your GA4 data will be. Many configurations determine what data is collected in your property, so it will only be available from when you complete them. That's why it's valuable to do them as soon as possible. Most configurations can be done through the Analytics interface. The few that may require help from a developer are marked "Requires working with code."
In this article:Collect more data
Configurations everyone should complete
| Action | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Set up key events | Measure and analyze user actions that are most important to your business. |
| Activate Google Signals | Enable cross-device remarketing and cross-device key events export to Google Ads. |
| Link to Search Console | Analyze organic search results for your website in Analytics. |
Configurations to consider
| Action | Consider if | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Set up ecommerce events | You sell products or services on your website or app. | Collect and measure ecommerce data. Requires working with code. |
| Link to your other data sources | You have other data sources. | Analyze data from other sources in Analytics. |
| Import additional data | You have other data sources that aren't available as integrations. | Analyze data from other sources in Analytics. |
| Send offline data to GA4 using Measurement Protocol | You have point of sale (POS) kiosks or other offline key events. | Tie online to offline behavior. Requires working with code. |
| Set up cross-domain measurement | Your business has more than one domain. | Attribute activity to a single user as they cross domains. |
| Measure activity across platforms with User-ID | Visitors sign in to your website or app. | Associate your own identifiers with individual users to connect their behavior across different sessions and on various devices and platforms. Requires working with code. |
| Collect campaign data with custom URLs | You run ad or email campaigns other than Google Ads. (Google Ads campaigns work best with auto-tagging.) | Use UTM parameters to identify the campaigns that refer traffic from non-Google sources. |
Filter unwanted data
Configurations everyone should complete
| Action | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Filter out internal traffic | Exclude internal traffic from measurement. |
| Filter out developer traffic | Exclude test traffic generated by developers. |
| Filter out bots | Exclude known bots and spider traffic. GA4 automatically filters out bots and spiders. Unlike in Universal Analytics, you don't have to do anything to turn on this option. |
Configurations to consider
| Action | Consider if | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Filter unwanted referrals | Your website gets traffic from another website that you don't want to count as a referral, for example an external payment processor. | Ensure your data includes only referrals in which you're interested. |
Power advertising
Configurations everyone should complete
| Action | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Link to Google Ads | See Google Ads data in Analytics, use Analytics key events to bid on Ads, and use Analytics audiences for remarketing in Ads. |
| Allow personalized advertising | Share your audiences and key events with Google Ads. Personalized advertising is enabled by default when you link Analytics and Google Ads. |
| Import GA4 key events to Google Ads | See Analytics key event data in Google Ads and give Google Ads Smart Bidding access to data that helps optimize bids. |
| Build audiences | Use audiences for reporting, advertising, and optimization (e.g., A/B tests). |
| Enable Analytics audiences in Google Ads | Use Analytics audiences for remarketing in Google Ads. |
Configurations to consider
| Action | Consider if | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Create custom channel groups | Default channel groups don't meet your needs. | Use custom rule-based categories for your website traffic as dimensions in reports, explorations, and audiences. |