Understanding the dashboard setup

You can find GA4 exploration reports on the furthermost left-hand menu of your Google Analytics 4 (GA4) account. You are then given four options to create a blank, free-form, funnel exploration or path exploration report. The dashboard setup is the same regardless of which option you choose, consisting of three columns: Variables, Tab Settings, and your report output.

• Variables allow you to choose the data you want to use when creating your report. This usually involves a date range, segments, dimensions and metrics (these aren’t related to variables set within Google Tag Manager).
• Tab Settings is where you configure your report by selecting and dragging your segments, dimensions and metrics across from the variable’s column. You will need to ensure that the technique dropdown has the correct visualisation for the report you’re trying to create
• Within the report output, you get the visualisation you have created and the opportunity to use multiple techniques within the same exploration. By clicking the + symbol you can create a new report from scratch. This opens the opportunity to create a series of explorations customised for individual teams.

It is worth noting that if you are using custom parameters pulled through from Google Tag Manager, you will need to set these up as ‘Custom Definitions’ before using them in Exploration Reports. To do this, select Configure from the left-hand menu, select ‘Custom Definitions’, and then click ‘create custom dimensions’. From here, select the event parameter you created in Google Tag Manager from the dropdown menu and give it a name and description. You will need at least 24 hours of data from Google Tag Manager to see any results in Exploration Reports. This is because you cannot view today’s data.

How to set up your reports for maximum benefit

At Nomensa, we recommend to our clients that they consider analytics right at the conception of their website. By creating their analytics solution alongside designing the look and feel of their webpages, we ensure optimal tracking configuration. Then when we come to build reports using new features like user parameters, they are based on events that have been preconfigured into your website design. This removes the need to compromise within your tracking setup and therefore speeds up the entire process of implementing an analytics solution. To learn more about our recommendations for setting up your GA4 account, read our blog on migrating to GA4.

Event parameters are additional bits of information that can be recorded about how users interact with your website. User parameters work the same in that they can be recorded when a user completes an action on your website. However, the recorded data is assigned to the user’s unique ID.

This allows you to create segments of users using custom user parameters that are meaningful to your business. For example, when a user views a Nomensa job advert and applies, we have a user parameter that records them as a job candidate.

With this user parameter, we can create segments to understand the behaviour of this audience on our website. We can understand more about their application journey and which content engages them most by viewing metrics such as dwell time and bounce rate. Similarly, we can exclude these users when we want to optimise the user experience on our website for lead generation.

User and event parameters can also be used as dimensions, allowing you to delve further into the data. For example, you could record the job title as part of the application process and assign it to the user ID. This allows you to create a segment based on individual jobs, and to identify underperforming pages on a job-role basis.