1. Plan Your Measurement Strategy First

Before jumping into GA4 settings:

• Define your business objectives
• List key actions (events) you want to track — e.g., purchases, form submissions, video plays
• Map out which pages, user actions, and parameters are most important

Tip: Use a spreadsheet to plan your event names and parameters in advance.

2. Use Google Tag Manager (GTM) for Flexible Tracking

Setting up GA4 via GTM makes managing tags and events far easier.

• Install GTM on your site
• Use the GA4 Configuration tag for global settings
• Set up individual GA4 Event tags for custom interactions like button clicks or downloads

Bonus: Debug your GTM events using the Preview Mode and GA4 DebugView.

3. Configure Enhanced Measurement

GA4 automatically tracks:

• Page views
• Scrolls
• Outbound link clicks
• Site search
• Video engagement
• File downloads

Go to Admin → Data Streams → Web → Enhanced Measurement to review and enable/disable as needed.

4. Set Up Key Conversions

Identify your primary goals (leads, purchases, etc.) and mark them as conversions:

• Go to Admin → Events
• Mark important events as conversions (like purchase, generate_lead, or custom events)

This helps GA4 prioritize those actions in your reports and predictive models.

5. Link GA4 with Google Ads and Search Console

To get better ad performance and organic search data:

• Link GA4 to your Google Ads account (Admin → Product Links → Google Ads)
• Link to Google Search Console to unlock SEO insights in GA4 reports

6. Create Custom Audiences

Use conditions like device type, pages viewed, event completions, or traffic source to build remarketing or analysis audiences.
Example:

• Users who visited a pricing page but didn’t purchase
• Mobile users with sessions over 5 minutes

7. Set User-ID for Cross-Device Tracking

If you have a login-based site/app:

• Assign a unique ID to each user
• Send that User-ID with each GA4 event
• This unifies user journeys across multiple devices

8. Fine-Tune Data Retention Settings

By default, GA4 retains user-level data for 2 months.
Extend it to 14 months if you want deeper year-over-year or lifetime value analysis:

• Admin → Data Settings → Data Retention

9. Use DebugView for Real-Time Testing

Under Admin → DebugView, you can monitor real-time activity during testing, especially when using GTM’s Preview Mode.

10. Create Custom Reports in Explore

GA4’s Explore section offers flexible, drag-and-drop reporting:

• Funnel Analysis
• Path Analysis
• Cohort Analysis
• Segment Overlap

Customize these to track customer journeys, identify drop-offs, and discover high-value behaviors.

Pro Tip:

Regularly audit your events and parameters to clean up unnecessary data and keep your analytics lean, focused, and actionable.