The Truth About GA4 Event Parameters: How to Understand GA4 Events
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- Опубліковано 7 лис 2022
- GA4 event parameters are very different from event parameters in Universal Analytics. Gone are "event Category, Action, Label, and Value". In its place is a more flexible data model that can be confusing if you don't understand what you're getting into.
So let's demystify those event parameters and walk through how we can use them properly.
Have questions or comments? Leave them in the comments. I'm always up for learning more...and for new video ideas.
There's typically a new video every week or two about GA4 or Google Tag Manager or Looker Studio or sometimes Google Ads or SEO. If you want to follow along with what I'm learning (trying to learn) you can subscribe at the link below:
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🔗 Links to 📖📖📖 BLOGS: These are the most popular blogs on the Root and Branch site from UA-cam visitors
✭ Do These 10 Steps to Install AND Configure GA4 Properly: www.rootandbranchgroup.com/ga...
✭ Events in GA4 and How it Compares to UA: www.rootandbranchgroup.com/ev...
✭ GA4 Reports Explained: Standard Reports, Explorations, Custom Reports: www.rootandbranchgroup.com/ga...
✭ Google Analytics 4 vs. Universal Analytics: www.rootandbranchgroup.com/go...
✭ A Practical Guide to Event Parameters: www.rootandbranchgroup.com/ga...
✭ GA4 Problems (And What You Can Do About Them): www.rootandbranchgroup.com/ga...
✭ Google Analytics 4 Link Click Tracking: www.rootandbranchgroup.com/go...
✭How to Install Google Tag Manager (GTM) on Wordpress: www.rootandbranchgroup.com/ho...
✭And Some SEO! How to Edit robots.txt on Wordpress!
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🔗 Links to 📹📹📹 VIDEO TUTORIALS: These are most popular GA4 instructional videos as measured by views or watch time
📺 How to Set Up GA4 in 5 Minutes With GTM: • Set Up GA4 (in 5 Minut...
📺 How to Properly Configure Your GA4 Property: • 10 Steps to Configure ...
📺 6 Key Differences Between GA4 and UA: • Google Analytics 4 (GA... 🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑
📺 The Truth About GA4 Event Parameters: • The Truth About GA4 Ev...
📺 GA4 Hits, Events, Sessions, and Users Explained: • Google Analytics Event...
📺 How to set up GA4 FORM SUBMISSION tracking with a thank you page: • How to Set Up a GA4 Fo... 🙏
📺 How to set up BUTTON CLICK tracking with GA4 and Google Tag Manager: • Set Up Page Timer Trac...
📺 How to set up PAGE TIMER tracking with GA4 and Google Tag Manager: • Set Up Page Timer Trac... ⏲
📺 How to Set Up LINK CLICK Tracking with GA4 and Google Tag Manager: • Button Click Tracking ... 🖯
📺 How to Set Up SCROLL DEPTH Tracking (25%, 50%, 75%, 90%) with GA4 and Google Tag Manager: • How to Set Up GA4 Link... 🖯
📺 How to Build a Link Click Tracking Report Using GA4 data and Looker Studio: • Google Data Studio GA4... 📊📊📊
📺 Campaign Tracking in GA4 to See UTM Tagged Traffic: • Campaign Tracking GA4 ...
📺 GA4 Conversion Tracking Compared to UA: • GA4 Conversion Trackin...
📺 Registering Custom Dimensions in GA4 Explained: • GA4 Custom Dimensions ... -
📺 How to Link GA4 and BigQuery: • Google Analytics 4 + B...
📺 Users in GA4 Explained vs. UA Users: • GA4 Users Explained: N...
📺 Creating and Using Audiences in GA4: • How to Create GA4 Audi...
📺 3 Practical Ways to Use the Path Exploration Report: • GA4 Path Exploration: ...
📺 How to Set Up Site Search in GA4 and UA: • Video
📺 Video review of the Source/ Medium report in GA4: • GA4 Reports: How to Re...
📺 All about the GA4 Certification: • Google Analytics 4 Cer... 🏆
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If you found this video helpful, you'll now have more fun with creating custom events (and using event parameters). Here are a few custom event guides you might find helpful:
How to set up a button click event: ua-cam.com/video/JOFtjLpwBLE/v-deo.html
How to set up an internal link click event: ua-cam.com/video/sF_KPPhzF-Y/v-deo.html
How to set up a form submission event: ua-cam.com/video/mc9BHAmnrMI/v-deo.html
How to set up a page timer event: ua-cam.com/video/zT1NZbf0anw/v-deo.html
How to set up a custom scroll tracking event: ua-cam.com/video/m1jVbh79ZnM/v-deo.html
Good luck and have fun! 🙌
Can't thank you enough for the GA4/GTM series of videos. It's been absolutely invaluable to me being new to Google Analytics. Awesome stuff!
You are most welcome. And that is most kind of you to share. Good luck and Godspeed to you on the next stages of the journey!
Yes, looks like GA4 gives more flexibility, but I was totally fine with UA. Thank you Goolge for bringing me more work.
Good video.
Ha! I agree with you completely. I would have been 100% fine with UA sticking around. I still like it better than GA4 in most ways, to be honest.
Still, I guess Google decided on their course of action without asking either one of us. How rude!
Feel free to keep me posted if you run into challenges you get stuck on. There's a chance I've run into the same thing already...and a chance I haven't yet and probably need to try and learn it.
Ps. The different reporting structure in GA4 vs UA totally threw me for a loop. Recently published this guide which tries to provide an overview of how reporting (standard reports, custom reports, explorations, etc) work in GA4. Sharing in case it could be useful for you as well: www.rootandbranchgroup.com/ga4-reports/
Best wishes, and thanks for stopping by!
Zack
Thanks finally i found the answer that i was looking for! 😃
Alright! I’m so glad to hear it.
There are some custom event tutorials on the channel (scroll tracking, button click tracking, etc) in case you want to put your new event parameter skills to more use.
Best wishes! 🙌
Great video Thank you!
Thanks much! 🙏
clear as day. Thank you
Very glad to hear it. Thanks for watching and for taking the time to share. Good luck and Godspeed to you on the GA4 and analytics journey!
Thanks for the great video, I have question about event count in 9:07 .should Event count updated immediately or takes time for updating even the event is shown in the last 30min, if not how it should take to update the count? thanks
Hi Marwa - this is a great question. I had never thought about it until it prompted me to do a little research.
Based on what I read in this Google support article (support.google.com/analytics/answer/11198161?hl=en), I think the answer is that there may be a 4 - 8 hour delay in these standard reports. That's one of the reasons I primarily use GA for analyzing data up through the day prior. And if I need anything more immediate I tend to stick with the Realtime report.
Thanks again for the thoughtful question. Best wishes!
Thanks for this helpful video. I'm wondering how you came up with the parameter values in {{Brackets}} like {{URL Click}}. Is there a list of valid values somewhere?
Glad you found it helpful! Those {{Brackets}} indicate variables in Google Tag Manager. So the {{Click URL}} functions as a variable that will always pull in the specific URL that was clicked.
This is specifically something called a "Built in variable" in GTM that can be configured in a single click. If you're logged in to GTM, click on "Variables" in the left-hand navigation and then hit the "Configure" button next to Built in Variables and you toggle them on just by hitting the check boxes.
Here's a resource from Google showing what built in variables are available: support.google.com/tagmanager/answer/7182738?hl=en
Hope this helps!
Hi, I've been enjoying your content on GA4. If I could give you a tip: please keep the audio levels in mind when using voice and music. The audio of your voice is way lower than the intro music.
Keep up the good vids 🦾
This is good to know. Thanks Quinten. Would you recommend going up on the voice audio or down on any music? (Or both?)
@@rooted-digital Up on the voice audio if it is possible without losing the clarity.
@@Quinten_ I will give it a shot. Really appreciate the feedback 👍👍
Hey Zack, I know you've received a lot of comments about the volume on the videos, so here's some completely unsolicited advice (sorry about that). I'm pretty certain it's because your mic channel has no or very little compression applied. If you squeeze the ever-living hell out of that track, it will allow you to increase the volume beyond what a raw track can do without redlining. It will also make the quiet sounds a lot louder, for instance when you lean back or trail off at the end of a sentence, or even just from normal speaking dynamics. I'd recommend slapping a compressor on the track with a ratio of 4+ (I used to use ~8 when I recorded vocalists, so play around with this setting), fast attack and slow release. Then crank the volume until just before it redlines. This should bring your voice more inline with the music & ads.
Dan, I love and appreciate you sharing your clear expertise with me. You sir, sound like a man who knows this stuff. Thank you!
Allow me to reveal my dearth of knowledge by sharing that I don’t even k or what redlining means. What does it mean?
I did find a basic setting that seemed to be wrong about 3 months ago. To my untrained ear, I think (hope) the audio has been a little better since. I’ll drop an example here. If you have a chance, I’d love to hear your take. I’m sure it’s still not truly good, but I’m hoping it might be at least a little better. 😄
Ok, here’s an example from a couple weeks ago about tips for customizing reports.
ua-cam.com/video/X6tvL7WVoyM/v-deo.html
Is this any better or just as brutal?
@@rooted-digital way better! A touch too loud on the music, but the big part is that i don't have to crank my computer's volume to hear your voice. Thanks for looking into this and I really appreciate how responsive you are. Also, I'm in charge of putting together my agency's internal GA4 trainings and your videos are invaluable to my research.
@@user-tl7qs1fj4q Hey, that's great. Thanks Dan!
Glad the videos have been helpful during the research process. Wish you the best as you continue to put together those trainings for your agency. Feel free to drop me a line if you'd ever want to write a guest blog or make a guest video documenting what parts and processes in GA4 have been best / worst / easiest / most frustrating / etc for your agency. It would be a really cool perspectve.
Cheers!
@@rooted-digital Awesome! I would love that. In fact, I'm already polling all the client-facing folks on our teams about this exact topic. I'm hoping to have a list gathered by the end of next week. I'll reach out then. Thank you so much for the opportunity!
Thank you for this video. This video is somewhat helpful to me but I am still confused a bit. My tech team has created an event from an external portal, lets name that event 'XYZ' for this conversation's sake.
Event name: XYX > Event Parameter Key: Action > Event Parameter Value: URL.
I want to track all the URLs. Current GA4 setup just shows me how many event count for XYZ on the events page. How do I create a custom dimension to be able to track individual URLs in a report? Thanks.
Hi there. If I'm understanding correctly, your event parameter is named 'Action' and the value of that parameter is the URL. Is that right?
If so, you'd need to register a custom dimension for 'Action'.
Here's a blog with more info about that: www.rootandbranchgroup.com/ga4-custom-dimensions/
Ps. It might be worth checking with your tech team about the event parameter naming conventions for the future. With the old Google Analytics (UA), event parameters had names like "category", "action" (your case here), "label", and "value". With GA4, you have more flexibility and could name your parameter here as something simpler to remember like "click_url". Good luck!
how do you see the event parameters for the default enhanced tracking events? Do you have to register these as custom dimensions?
It depends on where you want to "see" the event parameters. If it's in Explorations, then no. But if you want to see them in your standard reports (event detail), then yes.
This is a 4 minute video showing that situation for the view_search_results enhanced measurement event and the search_term event parameter. Hope it's helpful.
So what if you want to filter on Event Values in Explore or Lookerstudio?
I just checked and it looks like you should be able to do this in Explore. Just add "Event value" as one of your Metrics when you're selecting your variables. Then, you can drag it to "Values" in your Tab Settings area and you'll be able to build your filter.
Does that work for you?
How to build a report after creating custom events to show PURCHASES & REVENUE
I've created all the custom events using GTM as per the guidelines, and I've created custom definitions or dimensions too.
Under Explore, I am able to see event counts for those respective events.
But when I drag sales and revenue metrics, no number shows up. Why so?
Example: Event Action: Video watched. I can see that in the last 30 days, 2500 users watched the video, and the event count is 2512 (so watched more than once).
I know this video has helped many understand the product well, and people have converted. (I placed 5 test orders 7 days ago after I watched the video using a different IP.)
The event action dimension went to row
Event Count, Active Users, Transaction, Conversion, Purchases, Revenue went it to col
Conversion, Purchases, and Revenue show 0."
Why is this happening?
Hi there. If I understand your question correctly, you want to be able to see how many purchases took place after watching the video.
It's a bit too complex for me to answer fully, but here are some things I'd look into if I were in your spot.
You could create a funnel report or a path exploration report based on the video event and the specific purchase event. You could also build a segment based on users who have both of those events.
Other things I'd consider looking into:
You might want to look at the event_value parameter. Here's Google's support article on that: support.google.com/analytics/answer/11053133?hl=en
Here's info on the path exploration report: www.rootandbranchgroup.com/ga4-path-exploration/
Best of luck!
what would one do if there is GA4 Configuration Tag? Looks like my GTM is using a weird setup but somehow GA4 is still tracking all of the website data
Hi there. I think I understand your question, but let me know if this isn't answering it.
There are two types of GA4 tags you can create in GTM.
One of them is the GA4 Configuration tag. This uses your GA4 Measurement ID (from your data stream) and pushes it to your site. This is what gets GA4 installed on your site.
The other GA4 tag in GTM is the GA4 Event tag. This is the kind of tag that creates specific events (and this is the one relevant to the event parameters I was discussing in this video).
Does that help?
Hey. Do you know how I get the result of "return users" by BigQuery?
Hi Gilvan. I haven't done this in BigQuery, but the video embedded on this blog shows how to use the 'New / established' dimension in a GA4 Exploration, which might be a way to get at what you're aiming for.
www.rootandbranchgroup.com/ga4-users-defined/
Best of luck!
Zack
Hey guys, I am facing an issue with this, I have Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics 4 set up and running. Event parameters are working great across everything. However, when I try to create custom Audiences in GA4, some of the events will not show their parameters. For example event A with parameter A_name will appear as filter option while event B will appear without it's parameter B_name. All of this is happening during custom audience creation page. All of the parameters of all of the event appear as normal in Events page.
Thanks in advance
Hi George, I haven't heard of this before. A couple of questions:
- Are there any commonalities in terms of what event parameters are showing / not showing along with your audiences? For example, are all the event parameters that are showing (or not), parameters that you had to register as custom dimensions?
- Are there any commonalities between the scopes (event scoped vs. user scoped) of the event parameters that are showing vs not?
It could also be that GA4 still just does weird things sometimes as the bugs are getting worked out.
Let me know if you happen to figure it out. I can also check back here and update you if I come across anything solid for you. Best of luck.
@@rooted-digital Hi, thanks for replying. This seems strange indeed. I will explain the issue as best I can below. Thanks a lot for your time :)
Well if I try to create the parameter B_name as a custom dimension I can. And as far as I can see I can create any param I have as a custom dimension. As such, I am able now to see the custom dimension I have created in the Custom Event Parameters while creating a custom Audience. The 'Other' Event Parameters still do not show the B_name.
So I could create the B_name as custom dimension, and in the audience creation page I would see Event parameters -> Custom -> B_name, and Event parameters -> Others -> [firebase_screen, firebase_screen_class, value].
This would be fine, but the problem now is that even if I choose to use the B_name custom dimension as a filter, it does not correspond with all the options I see in my Analytics. i.e. I have had 2k events since yesterday where B_name had the value of 'Brooklyn', but when I say B_name contains Brooklyn in the audience creation page I get back 0 users.
Meanwhile, A_name parameters shows in 'Other' Event parameters of event A and works just fine.
Everything seems the same between scopes.
Anyway, I will let you know if I figure this out :)
@@georgepapidas181 well, I'm glad there seems to be *some* positive progress, but overall, I'm confused just as you are. Will keep you posted if anything else strikes me.
Best of luck.
i need get the parameters on ga4 API for RealTimeReport.
i need get page_location for the event page_view.
Hi Gregory, I don't believe this parameter is available for the Realtime report.
You can check out this guide here on what metrics and dimensions are available in different places: data.ga4spy.com/?search=page%2520location
Best of luck to you.
Can I just come up with whatever event parameters I want that makes sense and not follow the template?
Lets say i want my event parameter to be "10_step_to_die", can I do that?
I guess my question is: is event parameters customizable in however the hell I want it as long as it makes sense to its value?
I dont know if this question even make sense, I'm confused.
Hi Elias, yes, you “can” if you want to. Although, unless you have a good reason you *might* want to stick with Google’s recommended naming convention. Do you have a specific example for an event and event parameter you’d want to track? I can try and tailor my answer a bit more.
Hopefully nothing related to death! 😄
@@rooted-digital this is the same reason I was looking videos up like this in the first place. How do you know what to type in for the parameter value? How did you even know there had to be underscores _ included? How do you know what to put in brackets? How did you also know you even had to use brackets? Been struggling with this for a couple days now, thank you in advance for any help.