GA4 — Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 — Google's free tool for measuring website and app visitors and what they do.

What it means

GA4, or Google Analytics 4, is a free tool from Google that shows you who visits your website or app and what they do there.

GA4 replaced the older Universal Analytics, which Google retired in July 2023. If you read an old blog post about "Google Analytics", check which version it describes.

How it works

You add a small piece of code, called the Google tag, to your website (or connect your app). After that, GA4 records visitor actions as events. A page view is an event. A scroll, a click, a video play or a form submission can all be events.

This event-based model is the big idea behind GA4. Instead of thinking only in pages, you think in actions. You can mark your most important events as key events. In 2024, Google renamed "conversions" to "key events" inside GA4, so you may see both names online.

GA4 then groups this data into reports on traffic sources, pages, devices and engagement.

A simple example

Priya runs a café in Pune with a simple website that has a "Reserve a table" form. She installs GA4 and marks the form submission as a key event. After a month, she sees that most reservations come from visitors who found her through Google search, while her Instagram visitors mostly browse the menu and leave. Now she knows where to spend her time.

Why it matters

Without analytics, marketing is guesswork. GA4 shows what is actually working, so you can spend your budget and effort on the channels that bring real results.

Beginner tips

• Install GA4 on your own blog or portfolio site and explore the reports with real data.
• Set up key events for actions that matter, like form submissions or purchases.
• Use UTM links so GA4 can tell your campaigns apart.
• Common mistake: looking only at total visitors. Focus on engagement and key events, not just traffic.

Related: Session, Conversion tracking, UTM