- Set up three things on day one: key events for enquiries, 14-month data retention and the Search Console link.
- Key events (formerly 'conversions') are how GA4 knows an enquiry happened.
- Five reports cover most needs: Realtime, Traffic acquisition, Landing page, Pages and screens, and Events.
- Check GA4 against your inbox or CRM: analytics undercounts when visitors decline cookies.
What Google Analytics 4 does
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) records what happens on your website: how many people visit, where they come from, which pages they view, and whether they take the actions you care about, such as submitting an enquiry. It's free, and for most small businesses it's the main source of truth about whether the website is working.
GA4 is built around events. Every interaction, from a page view and a scroll to a form submission, is an event. The events you care most about, such as enquiries, are marked as key events (called "conversions" until 2024).
How to set up Google Analytics 4
Step 1: Create an account and property
- Go to analytics.google.com and sign in with a Google account the business controls, not a personal or agency account.
- Create an account (usually your business) and a property (your website). Set the reporting time zone and currency.
- Add a web data stream with your website address. Leave enhanced measurement switched on: it automatically tracks page views, scrolls, outbound clicks, site search, file downloads, video engagement and form interactions.
Step 2: Install the Google tag on your site
Use the easiest route for your platform:
| Platform | How |
|---|---|
| WordPress | Google's Site Kit plugin, or your SEO or analytics plugin, or Google Tag Manager |
| Webflow | Paste the Measurement ID (G-XXXXXXX) into site settings |
| Squarespace, Wix, HubSpot | Built-in Google Analytics integration in settings |
| Custom site | Add the Google tag snippet to every page, or use Google Tag Manager |
Install it once only. Two installations (say, a plugin and a hard-coded snippet) double-count everything.
Step 3: Check it's working
Open Reports, Realtime and visit your site in another browser tab. You should see yourself appear within a minute or so.
Step 4: Set the essentials
- Data retention: under Admin, Data collection and modification, Data retention, change event data retention from the default 2 months to 14 months, so explorations can look back further.
- Link Search Console: under Admin, Product links, link your Search Console property, so search queries appear alongside site behaviour.
- Exclude internal traffic: define your office IP address as internal traffic and activate the filter, so staff visits don't skew the numbers.
- Cookie consent: if you need consent for analytics, connect your consent banner using Google Consent Mode. See cookie consent banner.
Track enquiries as key events
This is the most important part of setup. Without it, GA4 can tell you how many people visited but not whether they enquired.
Form submissions. The most reliable method is to send people to a thank-you page after submitting (for example /thank-you). Then:
- In GA4, go to Admin, Events, and create an event that fires when
page_viewhappens on a page whose location contains/thank-you. Name it something likegenerate_lead. - Once it appears in the Events list, mark it as a key event.
If your form doesn't redirect, your form plugin, CMS integration or Google Tag Manager can send an event on successful submission instead.
Phone and email clicks. Track clicks on tel: and mailto: links as events (via Google Tag Manager or your plugin), and mark them as key events too.
Test it: submit a real enquiry and check it appears in Realtime and later in your key events.
The five reports that matter
You can ignore most of GA4 most of the time. These five answer the questions a small business actually has.
| Report | Where | Answers |
|---|---|---|
| Realtime | Reports, Realtime | Is tracking working? Did a campaign just send traffic? |
| Traffic acquisition | Reports, Acquisition, Traffic acquisition | Which channels bring visits and enquiries? Add the key events column |
| Landing page | Reports, Engagement, Landing page | Which pages do people arrive on, and which lead to enquiries? |
| Pages and screens | Reports, Engagement, Pages and screens | Which pages get viewed most? |
| Events | Reports, Engagement, Events | Are key events firing, and how often? |
Tips for reading them:
- Change the date range (top right) and use Compare to see this month against the same month last year.
- Session default channel group groups traffic into Organic Search, Direct, Referral, Email, Organic Social, Paid Search and so on. Use UTM tags on your campaign links so email, social and partner traffic is labelled correctly. See UTM tracking.
- Look for AI referrals in the Referral channel: visits from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and similar sites show when AI assistants send people to you.
When to use Explore
The Explore section lets you build custom reports, such as conversion rate by landing page and device. It's powerful but optional. Start with the standard reports, and use Explore when you have a specific question the standard reports can't answer.
Common GA4 problems
| Problem | Likely cause |
|---|---|
| No data at all | Tag not installed, wrong Measurement ID, or blocked by the consent banner |
| Everything doubled | Tag installed twice |
| Key events at zero | Event not created, not marked as key, or the thank-you page URL changed |
| Lots of "Direct" traffic | Missing UTM tags on email and campaign links, or apps that strip referrers |
| GA4 enquiries lower than your inbox | Visitors declining analytics cookies, ad blockers, or forms that don't redirect |
GA4 will always undercount a little where visitors decline cookies or block tracking. Treat it as a reliable guide to trends and sources, and count actual enquiries in your inbox or CRM.
A monthly GA4 routine
- Traffic acquisition: sessions and key events by channel, compared with last year.
- Landing page: which pages brought enquiries, and which got traffic but none.
- Events: check key events are still firing.
- Note anything unusual and find the reason before reporting it.
Our marketing KPIs guide includes a one-page monthly report built on these numbers.
Questions
How do I set up Google Analytics 4?
Create an account and property at analytics.google.com, add a web data stream, install the Google tag on your site (through a plugin, built-in integration or Google Tag Manager), and confirm it works in the Realtime report. Then set up key events for enquiries.
How do I use Google Analytics as a beginner?
Focus on five reports: Realtime, Traffic acquisition, Landing page, Pages and screens, and Events. Make sure enquiries are tracked as key events, and compare each month with the same month last year.
What are key events in GA4?
Key events are the events you mark as most important, such as form submissions or phone clicks. They were called conversions until 2024. GA4 uses them to show which channels and pages produce results.
Why doesn't GA4 match my enquiry numbers?
Usually because some visitors decline analytics cookies or use ad blockers, the key event isn't set up for every form, or the form doesn't redirect to a tracked thank-you page. Count actual enquiries in your inbox or CRM as well.
How long does Google Analytics keep data?
Standard reports keep aggregated data, but event-level data used in explorations defaults to 2 months. Change it to 14 months in Admin, under Data retention.
Every guide is checked against the platform it describes before it’s published, and re-checked when the platform changes.