Google Analytics 4 (GA4) – Basics
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is Google's free, event-based analytics tool for websites and apps, which fully replaced Universal Analytics in July 2023. Instead of sessions, GA4 records every interaction as an individual event (for example page_view, scroll, purchase), allowing cross-device analysis of engagement, conversions and user journeys.
In practice
In practice, GA4 is usually implemented through Google Tag Manager so that events can be maintained without code changes. Key first steps are defining key events (the term Google adopted for property conversions in March 2024) and checking data collection in the real-time reports. Because GA4 does not import historical data from Universal Analytics, it should be set up as early in the project as possible – for a website relaunch, ideally before go-live, so that comparable reporting periods exist from the start.