Measuring Website Performance with Google Analytics 4

How many people visit your website, where do they come from and how many become customers? The answers come from measurement. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the event-based analytics tool that replaced Universal Analytics. In this guide we cover the essential steps to make GA4 meaningful for your business.

The Logic of GA4: Everything Is an Event

In GA4, page views, clicks, form submissions and video views are all events. Some are collected automatically (page views, scrolls, outbound clicks); those specific to your business must be defined by you.

First Steps After Setup

1. Set data retention to the longest period available; otherwise you cannot reach older data in exploration reports.
2. Filter out internal traffic (office IPs).
3. Link Google Ads and Search Console.
4. Configure cross-domain measurement if needed (e.g. a separate checkout domain).

Define the Events That Matter

Define the genuinely valuable actions as events and mark them as key events (conversions):

• Contact form submissions,
• Phone and WhatsApp button clicks,
• Quote or demo requests,
• Appointment bookings,
• Purchases and add-to-cart in e-commerce.

Privacy and Cookie Consent

GA4 uses analytics cookies. Measurement tags should not run before the user consents. Cookie management that adapts to consent status matters for both legal compliance and data quality. See KVKK-compliant websites.

Reports Worth Checking

• Acquisition: Which channels bring users? Organic, paid, social, direct, referral.
• Engagement: Which pages attract interest and how long do people engage?
• Key events: Which channels and pages actually generate leads?
• Explorations: Use funnels to see at which step users give up.

Separate Campaigns with UTM

Add UTM parameters (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign) to links from newsletters, your Google Business Profile or QR codes on printed material to tell that traffic apart.

Common Mistakes

• Looking only at visitor numbers without defining conversions,
• Loading the same tag twice and doubling the data,
• Not filtering test traffic,
• Never actually reviewing the reports.

Turn Data into Decisions

Create a short monthly reporting routine: Which channel brings the most leads? Which page loses visitors? Where should the ad budget shift? Make your landing page optimisation and Google Ads management decisions with this data.

Conclusion

Set up correctly, GA4 becomes the compass for your marketing budget. To build your measurement setup together, contact us.