How to Use Google Analytics 4 to Grow Your Small Business

Nowadays, every click, interaction, and transaction leaves a digital footprint, allowing businesses to gain valuable insights. To harness the power of data, businesses, especially small ones, should rely on a powerful analytics tool. Today, 14.5 million websites currently use Google Analytics 4 (GA4), the latest version of the Google Analytics platform, designed to help businesses unlock the full potential of their data and drive growth.

Forget about guesswork! Keep reading our article to discover the benefits of Google Analytics for a small business. Then, we will closely examine the key GA4 reports that can supercharge your analytics to drive growth.

Table of Contents:

1. What is Google Analytics 4?
2. How Google Analytics 4 Can Impact Your Small Business
3. Google Analytics 4 Reports to Better Understand Your Website Traffic
4. Make Sharper Decisions with Google Analytics 4

What is Google Analytics 4?

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a powerful web analytics tool that helps small businesses track their website’s performance to make smarter decisions. GA4 is different from the previous version of Google Analytics (Universal Analytics) in a few ways:

• GA4 is a more event-based data model. GA4 tracks user interactions with your website as events rather than just pageviews. You can also track downloads, form submissions, and other important actions.
• GA4 is more privacy-focused. The solution uses a new privacy-preserving measurement protocol that helps protect your users’ privacy.
• GA4 is more machine learning-powered. The technology utilizes machine learning to automatically identify data patterns and generate insights you might not have otherwise noticed.

Benefits of Google Analytics for a Small Business

Let’s find out the key advantages of a new version of Google Analytics for a small business.

You Can Measure the Success of Your Campaigns

Google Analytics 4 is a powerful tool for tracking and measuring the success of digital marketing campaigns. By thoroughly understanding user behavior, small businesses can gain an in-depth understanding of how their campaigns are performing, enabling them to make informed decisions based on data-driven insights.

You Can Better Understand Your Customers

Another benefit is that Google Analytics 4 provides a comprehensive view of user interactions across multiple platforms, such as websites and mobile applications on iOS and Android. With a new measurement model powered by machine learning, you can effectively reach your audience and gain more personalized insights.

You Can Integration It With Other Google Products  

Are you using Google Ads? If your answer is “Yes!” don’t miss a chance to integrate it with GA4. In return, you will be able to track conversions more accurately. GA4’s enhanced conversion tracking lets businesses pinpoint the most valuable customer actions and tailor their Google Ads campaigns accordingly. Additionally, Google Analytics 4 can be integrated with other tools, such as Search Console, BigQuery, Campaign Manager 360, Display & Video 360, etc.

You Can Enhance Privacy and Compliance

In the evolving data privacy landscape, aligning your GA4 setup with GDPR compliance is essential. GA4 emphasizes user privacy with enhanced consent controls and adherence to data regulations.

You Can Use It For Free

Google Analytics 4 offers an affordable web analytics solution for small business owners without requiring a significant financial investment.

As a small business, you can benefit from new reporting features in GA4. Let’s explore some of the most important ones and how to utilize them effectively.

Google Analytics 4 Reports to Better Understand Your Website Traffic in 2024

Acquisition report

This report shows you how people find your website, such as through organic search, paid search, or social media. With this report, you can identify your most effective marketing channels and allocate your marketing budget accordingly. You can also leverage this data to craft and optimize your marketing strategies that result in higher conversions.

GA4 allows us to choose which acquisition report we need to use for the data analysis. The User Acquisition and Traffic Acquisition reports in GA4 are both designed to help you understand where your website or app visitors are coming from. However, they differ in the following ways:

User Acquisition report

This report shows how new users find your website or app for the first time. Although Google removed the option to use different types of attribution and left only data-drive attribution. User Acquisition report still uses first-click attribution model, which means that it attributes all events/key events (prior Conversions) to the initial traffic source that led a visitor to your website.

You can use this report to identify the most effective marketing channels for acquiring new users. For example, if you see that a lot of new users are coming from your organic search results, you can focus your SEO efforts on improving your website’s ranking for relevant keywords.

Traffic Acquisition report

This report shows where new and returning sessions came from, regardless of whether the user is new or returning. It uses last-click attribution, which means that it attributes all events/key events (prior Conversions) to the traffic source that the user was on when they last interacted with your website.

You can use this report to identify which traffic sources are driving the most conversions. For example, if you see that a lot of conversions are coming from paid search ads, you can increase your budget for those ads.

In other words, the User Acquisition report shows you how new users are finding your website, while the Traffic Acquisition report shows you where all users are coming from, regardless of whether they are new or returning. Here is a table that summarizes the key differences between the two reports:

Engagement report

The engagement report tells you how people are interacting with your website, such as how long they spend on each page and how many pages they view. This information can help you to improve the user experience on your website and to make sure that your visitors are finding the information they are looking for. To use engagement reports in GA4, you can follow these steps:

1. Go to the Reports tab in GA4.
2. Click on the Engagement category.
3. Select the report that you want to view.
4. You can customize the report by adding or removing metrics and dimensions.
5. You can also filter the report to see data for specific users, sessions, or event.

Here are some tips for using engagement reports in GA4:

• Focus on the metrics that are most important to your business. Not all engagement metrics are created equal. Some metrics, such as engaged sessions, are more important than others, such as pages per session.
• Use the dimensions to drill down into your data. The dimensions in engagement reports can help you understand why users are engaging with your site or app in certain ways. For example, if you see that users who are coming from a particular traffic source are spending more time on your site, you could try to increase your marketing efforts for that traffic source.
• Compare your data over time. Engagement reports can help you track how your site or app is performing over time. By comparing your data over time, you can identify trends and make necessary changes to improve your site or app.

User report

As a business owner, it is essential to understand your website’s audience. The User report in Google Analytics 4 can help you do just that. This report provides clear and consistent data about your audience, including their demographics, interests, and behavior. This information can help you to understand whether your website is attracting the right audience and to create content that is relevant to your target audience. To use the User report in GA4, you can follow these steps:

1. Go to the Reports tab in GA4.
2. Click on the User category.
3. Select the report that you want to view.
4. You can customize the report by adding or removing metrics and dimensions.
5. You can also filter the report to see data for specific users, sessions, or events.

The User report can be used to:

• Understand your users’ behavior: The report shows you how often users visit your site or app, how long they stay, and what pages they view. This information can help you understand what your users are interested in and how they are interacting with your site or app.
• Identify your target audience: The report shows you the demographics and interests of your users. This information can help you identify your target audience and create content that is more relevant to them.
• Track user engagement over time: The report shows you how user activity has changed over time. This information can help you identify trends in user behavior and make changes to your site or app to improve user engagement.

Make Sharper Decisions with VIDEN

If you are considering using Google Analytics 4 to promote your small business, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. Our experts can help you to supercharge your analytics and drive business growth.