Migrating to GA4 may seem simple. However, during my six years of working in web analytics and three years of deploying GA4 (formerly App+Web), I have gone through many files. We deploy conversions via GTM or (even worse) via a plugin. Then we find out that we do not measure the amount of VAT. We’ll fix it. After a month, the client discovers that he has no coupon data. Then we also want to measure product coupons. Half a year later, an SEO agency comes to it and wants to set up content grouping… We tinker, patch holes in the data and thus end up with one big mess where we have inconsistent nomenclature; we started measuring one event in January, the other from July until we get lost in it. Have you encountered this at your place as well? Then our procedure can help you a lot.
This was not so much of a problem as long as we had good old Universal Analytics, where we were already used to some settings. However, on July 1, we will only be left with GA4. How to guarantee that we have everything in order?
In this article, I have summarized all my knowledge from the past years in a few steps. It is not an article about how to configure events in GTM or how to set up GA4. Also, you won’t read about any plugins and automatic migrations here. I am not a fan of these solutions; in my experience, such solutions do more harm than good. It is about how to properly prepare for the entire migration. And this is even more important than the settings themselves.
Let’s go!
1 – Check Deployment / Deploy GTM to Web
Since we are deploying GA4 through GTM, we must have GTM on the web. The easiest way to check it is with the Chrome add-on from Google – Tag Assistant. This plugin will show us whether we have GTM on the website or other tracking codes and their ID. If GTM already exists for a given website, this is how we can check whether we have access to the correct container.
If GTM is not on the website, we will create it. We will need a Google email for that. We will create an account and a container as needed. Ideally, we copy the container’s code into a txt file and send it to the developer to implement it on the website according to the instructions.
Video on how to create a GTM account:
2 – Define the structure of GA and GTM accounts
To make sure how many domains and applications we are going to measure. Based on that, define how many Properties (or sub-properties) and how many Data Streams we need.
Define the taxonomy of accounts. We recommend:
- Account name – Company/project name (6clickz)
- Property name – Domain name | GA4 (6clickz.com | GA4)
- Data stream – Domain name (6clickz.com)
Best practice:
You can have multiple accounts under the same email. Don’t try to cram everything into one account if you have several projects. It won’t be very clear.
In most cases, 1 data stream/property is enough for you. If you operate in several countries with a unique domain, create one property/country.
If you use GA360, use the sub-properties option, which partially replaces views from UA.
Did you use separate views in UA for individual departments? For example, filtered only blog traffic for the content department. This is not yet possible in GA4, as no views or filters exist. However, we have two options:
1. Limit the rights of individual users – here, GA4 offers more options than UA; we can even hide financial data (revenue, cost) from specific users.
2. Create the so-called Collections for individual departments or colleagues, containing only the reports we need. All these collections can be customized. We can add reports from the library to them or create our own reports.
In the case of the GTM account structure, we also prefer one account / one project, with each domain or application having its own container. In the name, we indicate whether it is client-side or server-side GTM.
3 – Define goals
Goals can differ depending on whether it is an e-shop, blog or application. We distinguish four levels of goals:
- Business goals – the main goal of the business. There should only be one. E.g., maximizing the turnover of the company.
- Conversions – what is the primary conversion for us. Let’s not consider micro-conversions here, only the main ones: E.g., order completion. Accordingly, we will determine what the conversion will be in GA4.
- Events – what events are interesting to us besides conversions? E.g., adding to a cart or searching on the web. We will determine the events accordingly.
- KPIs – the so-called Key performance indicators. How will we measure success in numbers? E.g., cart abandonment rate, conversion rate, turnover of category/product XY, and use of coupons. According to this, we will determine the event parameters.
4 – Preparation of the implementation plan
This part is the most important and detailed. It contains a list of events and their parameters that we will deploy via GTM. It is based on the goals we defined in the previous step.
When specifying events and parameters, we work with a sample file that contains all types of commonly used events and parameters. You can’t get away with anything this way. However, the good old saying “measure twice and cut once” applies, so review the implementation plan in detail with all stakeholders before the final implementation. In principle, we divide events into three categories:
- Standard GA4 events and parameters according to our best practices. You may not need some of them, or you may need others.
- Events marked with an asterisk (*) are not part of Google’s recommended events, but we often use them.
- Almost every project has its own events in UA. You should list them in section 3 and decide if you need to migrate them.
The procedure we mentioned may seem unnecessary and lengthy. Several plugins, automated migrators and self-proclaimed GA4 experts will promise you deployment within 24 hours and will not need such an extensive plan. However, if you want to have a robust and stable deployment of GA4 with quality data, use this procedure and the sample file you can download here. It will save you a lot of time, and you won’t have to return to the beginning because you forgot something.
