Creating custom and remarketing audiences in Google Analytics 4 is one of the strategies to progress your analytics setup, per the GA4 checklist. You may need clarification on GA4’s comparable audiences, segments, filters, and comparative options.
Who are the GA4 audiences?
Let’s begin by defining the target audience. Users can be grouped or segmented into audiences based on one or more demographic, geographic, or user behavior characteristics.
This segmentation of users means you can use the whole amount of data in Google Analytics 4 to build audiences. For instance, you can create the following audience:
Facebook Ads Traffic from the USA
Google Organic Search Mobile Traffic
Google Ads Desktop Traffic Paris, France
Users who started their first session visiting the specific landing page and scrolled more than 50% of the page
Users that arrived at the targeted landing page for the first time during their first session and scrolled more than halfway down the page
These are all illustrations of audiences in GA4. So the question “What’s the difference between them” is excellent if you use segments in GA4 Explore.
How To Create Audiences in GA4
The audience creation process in Google Analytics 4 is comparable to that in Universal Analytics. Therefore, you should launch GA4 and take the next step to do that: Click the “New Audience” button under GA4 -> Admin -> Audiences.
Creating audiences in GA4
Let’s review the interface at this point. For this article, I decided to split the audiences into two types:
Predefined audiences – the ones we can create using GA4 Templates
Custom audiences – any audience we create using GA4 “Create a custom audience” button
GA4 – Building new audiences
We can create the first type of audience using Google’s templates. Then, selecting the appropriate selection and entering the value are the only things we need to change. Next, Google offers us some ideas on how we may create them.
For instance, choosing “US” as the “country id” in the demographics template makes it simple to establish an audience that includes all users from the USA.
Audiences including US citizens
We can create remarketing audiences for Google Ads using customized or suggested audiences.
Predictive audiences is another intriguing Google Analytics 4 feature that allows you to run paid advertising campaigns, for example, for users more likely to churn. Send by ecommerce_purchase or in_app_purchase events to activate these audiences.
Audiences – Metric
Definition
Purchase Probability The probability that a user who was active in the last 28 days will complete a specific conversion event within the next seven days.
Churn probability The probability that a user who was active on your app or site within the last seven days will not be active within the next seven days.
Predicted revenue The revenue expected from all purchase conversions in the next 28 days from an active user in the last 28 days.
Unfortunately, you will see a “Not eligible to use” label if you don’t send these events.
GA4 Audiences – Not eligible to use
Let’s create a custom audience and enable it in Google Ads. This way, it will become a remarketing audience.
Creating a custom audience in GA4
We want to target users who landed on the Show page during the last 30 days. We want to show them an ad detailing purchase ticket options and deals.
As I previously stated, Google Analytics 4 allows you to build up to 100 audiences. So, you may find yourself in a position where you must remove, alter, or archive one.
Once more, editing an existing audience does not need resetting any users. This audience has no users before you provide and save modifications, but it immediately begins to get new traffic.
The audience can be archived in Google Analytics 4. The same as delete, it is. Go to the GA4 Audiences page, click the three dots next to the audience you want to delete, and then select “archive.”
Audiences – Editing
In the next and final installment you will read about Reporting with GA4.
Part 4 of many about GA4 and what is coming after UA
We will pick up this installment of the Analytics after UA here at the end of the last article GA4 Configuration by digging into segments and audiences.
With its robust audience builder and advanced generation tools, GA4 stands head and shoulders above Universal Analytics (UA). However, GA4 uses a unique approach to track screen views, unlike UA. Instead of treating mobile and web views separately, it combines data from both channels into one property. As a result, GA4 gives you a complete picture of a user’s journey across different devices, allowing for more comprehensive user profiles.
Think of audiences as specific groups of users (‘user segments”) that you can use for analysis and advertising.
Groups are formed based on a range of criteria, such as dimensions, page visits, user attributes, and events (or their sequences) relevant to your company.
For instance, you could compare the behavior of US users against all users or users originating from your app against mobile users and desktop users.
It’s worth noting that audiences are re-evaluated as new user data is collected in GA4 automatically.
Segments and audiences may seem similar, but they have some key differences. Segments are data sections that meet particular requirements and can be analyzed independently.
For example, you can compare the purchase behavior of your local users to the conduct of all users or mobile users to desktop users to gain deeper insights.
Segments allow you to segregate certain groups of people and compare their behavior to the rest of the data rather than analyzing data from all visitors.
GA4 Segments and Audiences
You can opt to develop an audience based on a segment while creating a segment, but these two capabilities are distinct. Segments cannot be used in regular reports, although audiences may.
Exploration reports in GA4 include segments but do not incorporate audiences. However, despite being present in these reports, audiences, as opposed to segments, can be utilized for remarketing campaigns. Audiences are created based on segments and are shared across Google’s advertising products, which makes them suitable for targeted ad campaigns. Conversely, while they can be created and applied within the Explore section of GA4, segments are not used directly in Google’s advertising products like Google Ads.
Most significantly, segments are retroactive, whereas audiences are not because they begin gathering information only from the moment they are created.
How To Create Segments
In GA4, navigate to Explorations > Create a New Exploration.
Choose a segment type
There are three types of segments you can create:
User segment: Includes all events associated with users who satisfy a specific set of criteria.
Sessions segment: Includes all events associated with those sessions that match the set of criteria.
Event segment: Includes only specific events that meet a set of criteria.
Let’s dive into how each segment type works with a simplified model.
Let’s say the user who visited the website performed the following actions during the first session:
Page view.
Submitted form.
Made a purchase.
On the second session the next day, the same user performed these actions:
App click through.
Page view.
Made a purchase.
Made a purchase.
If we create a user segment with the condition that the user submitted a form, it will contain data from all sessions because we tell GA4 to include all data that belongs to that user.
If we build the sessions segment with the condition that the user submitted a form during the session, it will contain only data from the first session because we told GA4 to retain data only from sessions where one has submitted a form.
Building a session segment of when someone watched a video will have data from both sessions because the user made a purchase during both sessions.
And finally, if we create an event segment for times when the user clicks a link, it will contain only click event data from the second session.
Segment Builder UI In GA4
Condition ScopeUser segment builder with time constraints
Here are some of the features to know about within segment builder:
Sequence is available only in user segments and isn’t configured for session or event segments. You can use it to know how many users subscribe after visiting your home page.
You can apply time constraints to your segments. An example use case would be to know how many users visit your subscribe page and sign up within five minutes or how many users visit your product page and add it to the cart within five minutes.
Group level scoping: applies to all conditions within the group and is either across all sessions or within the same session within the same event. Please note that you can use specific sequence level scoping “across all sessions” and “within the same session.” Note that “across all sessions” scoping is available only in user segments.
“Exclusion group” is a valuable tool that allows you to refine your segment or audience by excluding specific users. For instance, you can create an audience comprising individuals who clicked the ‘Add to cart’ button but exclude those who have already purchased. An exclusion group enables you to develop a targeted audience for your remarketing campaign in Google Ads, specifically catering to those who expressed interest in your product but still need to complete the purchase.
OR/AND conditional logic operators can apply multiple criteria simultaneously in the groups.
By checking the “Build Audience” checkbox, you can also create an audience from that segment.
Example Of An Event Segment
Event segments are subsets of events triggered on your website or app.
Why would you need event segments if you already have users and session segments? Event segments, on the other hand, enable a more targeted and specific analysis than session-based or user-based segments.
They enable you to investigate people’s actions on your website and optimize the user experience.
As an example, let’s make a scroll-depth event segment. You may identify interesting sites by analyzing users that achieve specific scroll depth criteria, optimize content layout, and enhance overall user engagement.
Event Segment – Scroll depth greater than 50%
In our case, we want to view data from people who went 50% of the way down the page and noted that only “within the same event” remained.
Granular scroll depth monitoring necessitates a specialized configuration, which we will discuss in the following steps. If you don’t have it configured, you may use the “scroll” event without the special parameter “percent_scrolled.”
Here are some examples of when you might want to use event segments instead of users or session segments.
Clicks Events: Make a segment from click events like “Add to Cart” or “Submit Form.” A click event enables you to analyze sessions or users who actively engage with your call-to-action buttons and quantify the effectiveness of individual call-to-action buttons.
Show Page Engagement:
Interaction with Dynamic Content. Analyze interactions with dynamically loaded or personalized content pieces, such as image carousels, actor bios, or press releases.
Video Engagement: A segment can be created depending on events such as “video_start,” “video_progress,” or “video_complete.” This segment lets you examine sessions or users interacting with video content on your website or app.
Buy Tickets: Set up custom event monitoring to generate segments based on unique interactions important to your business, such as buy ticket button clicks (to your event ticketing site), to assist you in identifying and analyzing problematic sessions or individuals.
Error Tracking: Form validation errors, broken links, and server-side problems can all be used to create a segment. The benefit: error-focused event segments allow you to discover and analyze sessions or users that faced issues, enabling you to improve error handling, fix broken elements, and improve the overall website or app operation.
Example Of A User Segment
At DWG, we have sign-ups, and we are interested in how long it takes a user to sign up for our newsletter after landing on our article pages.
For that, we should build a segment of users who visited the homepage for our shows, followed by a “buy_tickets” event within 5 minutes.
For that, we choose “first_visit” as an event.
Add / Edit / Delete GroupsCreate / Edit an EventAdd subsequent events & time constraints
If you want to apply a time constraint to a specific step, you can utilize the time constraint option within the sequence. However, in our case, we have chosen a sequence global time constraint, which applies to all steps within the sequence.
We’ve found from this segment that 7.5K out of 12K subscribers (50%) subscribe within 5 minutes when they visit the homepage.
If you run a shop, you can create a segment of customers who buy within a day of browsing a product page.
There are unlimited ways to use this, and I’d like to emphasize that GA4’s new segment or audience builder is far more flexible and powerful than Universal Analytics.
Here are a few ideas of segments you may need to use for a users segment:
User Acquisition: Understand user behavior from different acquisition channels (organic search, paid ads, social media, email marketing, DSP). Tracking the user across to the event ticketing site across sessions with event tracking across all sessions. Get a full ROI of all your marketing efforts, based on revenue, order value, and purchase frequency.
Demographic Analysis: Segment users by age, gender, location, or interests to personalize marketing strategies.
Churn Analysis: Identify and re-engage users who have churned via remarketing campaigns.
Cohort Analysis: Compare new and returning users’ engagement, retention, and conversion rates.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV): Identify high-value users based on revenue, order value, and purchase frequency.
Example Of A Session Segment
While user segments help analyze long-term behavior and user attributes, session segments help analyze user interactions within a single session.
For content engagement analysis reports, session segments are the best option. For example, you can use session segments to analyze how visitors interact with various types of content on your website or to study user behavior based on referral sources.
Session Segment
In the sessions segment, everything is the same, but it no longer has the following:
“Across all sessions” scope.
Sequences.
Time constraints.
Let’s build a segment of users who arrived at our website from social.
Here are a few ideas for how you can use session segments vs. users:
Content Engagement: Analyze sessions where users interacted with specific content types.
Campaign Performance: Evaluate sessions originating from specific marketing campaigns or channels to understand your marketing efforts’ effectiveness.
Conversion Funnels: Analyze sessions that progress through crucial steps of your conversion funnel, from initial engagement to goal completion, helping you optimize the user journey.
As we learned how to use segment builder in UI, we can create an audience quickly. In the next part we will focus on the Audiences and get to the bottom of how to create audiences and multiple examples.
Part 3 of many about GA4 and what is coming after UA
This installment of the Analytics after UA deals with detailed work you need to do to ensure you have completed the basic setup of GA4 by performing a proper GA4 configuration. We will pick up here at the end of the last article:
Next steps with your new GA4 property
After completing the process with the wizard, you’ll see “You have successfully connected your properties” at the top of your Google Analytics 4 Property Setup Assistant page. If your Universal Analytics property name is “Example property (UA-nnnnnnn),” your GA4 property name will be “Example property – GA4 (xxxxxxx)”, without a “UA-” prefix, and where xxxxxxx is a new property number.
Set up the GA4 Configuration tag
Step 1: Create a GA4 Configuration tag
Start by creating a Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration tag to send data to your Analytics property.
In Google Tag Manager, click Tags > New.
Enter a name for the tag at the top (e.g., “GA4 Configuration – example.com”).
In the Tag Configuration box, select Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration.
Configure your tag:
In the field Measurement ID, enter your “G-” ID. Keep the Send a page view event when this configuration loads option checked to automatically send page view events.
Optional settings:
Server-side tagging: Select Send to server container to send all GA4 events to a Tag Manager server container instead of Google Analytics. Specify the Server Container URL of your Tag Manager server container. Learn more about Server-Side Tagging.
Parameters: Add any parameters you’d like to configure in Fields to Set. Use recommended event parameter names so that Google Analytics can populate dimensions and metrics for you.
Example 1: To set a user ID, add a row to Fields to Set. Set the Field Name to user_id, and the Value to a Tag Manager Variable that returns the user ID.
Example 2: Use Fields to Set to configure cookie field settings:
Custom properties: Add any custom user properties that you’d like to configure in User Properties. Note: Analytics automatically collects some user dimensions so you don’t have to define user properties for them. You can set up to 25 additional user properties per Google Analytics 4 property.
Step 2: Create a trigger
Next, set up a trigger to load the Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration when someone loads your website.
To ensure that the Google Analytics 4 Configuration tag fires before other triggers, click Triggering and use the Initialization – All pages trigger. Learn more about Page triggers.
Save the tag configuration.
Result
Your tag configuration should look like this:
Step 3: Verify your tag works
To make sure your tag works as intended:
In Google Tag Manager, click Preview. The Tag Assistant opens.
Enter your site’s URL.
Check if the Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration fired when the page loaded. ✅ If your tag fired successfully, the Tag Assistant UI look like this:❌ If your tag didn’t fire, check your tag’s trigger settings.
When you are done with debugging, close Preview mode.
In your Workspace, click Submit to publish your changes.
Set up events
To set up an event using Google Tag Manager, you will configure a Google Analytics: GA4 Event tag and then create a trigger that specifies when you want to send the event.
The following steps show you how to send a custom event to a Google Analytics 4 property when a user clicks a button to sign up for your newsletter. The steps show you how to implement the event using Tag Manager and don’t require you to implement a data layer object.
Step 1: Create a GA4 Event tag
Start by creating a Google Analytics: GA4 Event tag for the new custom event.
In Google Tag Manager, click Tags > New.
Enter a name for the GA4 Event tag at the top (e.g., “GA4 Event – Signup newsletter”).
Select Google Analytics: GA4 Event.
In the Configuration Tag, select your Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration tag.
In Event Name, enter a name for the event (e.g. signup_newsletter). This will create a new custom event and the name will appear in your GA4 reports. To create a recommended event, use one of the predefined event names.
Step 2: Create a trigger
Next, create a trigger to send the event when someone clicks the button.
Click the Triggering box in your GA4 Event tag.
Click + on the top right.
Enter a name for the trigger (e.g., “Trigger – Signup newsletter”).
You can choose the conditions for sending the event. The following example sends the event based on the button label:
Click the Trigger Configuration box in your trigger.
Choose All Elements.
Click Some Clicks.
Set the following trigger condition: “Click Text contains Sign up for the newsletter”.
Save all your changes.
If you want the event to trigger when someone views a page (e.g., on a confirmation page), you could use a Page View trigger instead.
Step 3: Preview your changes
Before you publish your new event in Tag Manager, click Preview to see the data that’s recorded when you click the “Sign up for the newsletter” button.
You can use preview mode to test changes to your container before you publish those changes to your website.
See your events in Analytics
You can see your events and their parameters using the Realtime and DebugView reports. Note that the DebugView report requires some additional configuration before you can use the report.
Part 2 of many about GA4 and what is coming after UA
The next installments of the Analytics after UA, deals with detailed work you need to do to make sure you have access to GA4. Here is a step by step explanation of GA4 Setup:
Use the GA4 Setup Assistant to create a new GA4 property that collects data in parallel with your existing Universal Analytics property. There are no changes to your Universal Analytics property, and it continues to collect data as always. You can access both properties via the property selector or Admin screen.
Starting GA4 Setup
To use the GA4 Setup Assistant, you need the Editor role for the account.
In Google Analytics, click Admin (lower left).
admin at the lower left hand side
In the Account column, make sure that your desired account is selected. (If you only have one Google Analytics account, it’s already selected.)
In the Property column, select the Universal Analytics property that currently collects data for your website.
In the Property column, click GA4 Setup Assistant. It’s the first option in the Property column.
Click Get started under I want to create a new Google Analytics 4 property.
In the Create a new Google Analytics 4 property pop-up screen, you’ll have one of the following options, depending on how your site is currently tagged:
Create and continue. Click this button to continue to the Set up a Google tag page.
Create property. If you see this option, this means that Analytics can reuse your existing Universal Analytics tagging for your GA4 property. Analytics will create a connected site tag between your Universal Analytics and GA4 properties. Select this option and skip to the Next steps with your new GA4 property section. Note for advanced users: This option implements standard data collection for your GA4 property. If you’ve implemented any custom tags for your UA property
On the Set up a Google tag page, select the option that best describes your situation and follow the instructions to finish creating your new GA4 property.
Use the Google tag found on your website (Recommended)
Select this option to use the Google tag detected on your website to complete setup without making changes to your site’s code.
If desired, click Details to view your tag details.
Click Confirm to finish creating your new GA4 property.
Use a Google tag you already have
Select this option to reuse a Google tag that you already have admin access to. Click Choose a tag. You’ll see:
A list of tags you have admin access to.Tag IDs
Choose a tag labeled “On site” to complete setup without making changes to your site’s code. If you choose a tag labeled “Not detected”, you might need to install it. Select the Google tag you want to use, then click Confirm to finish creating your new GA4 property.
Install a Google tag
Select this option if you don’t have the Google tag installed on your website.
Click Next to install a new Google tag on your website.
On the Installation instructions page, you have 2 options:
Install with a website builder: If you manage your site using certain website builders (or “CMS platforms,” like Wix or Duda), you can finish setting up your Google tag without making changes to your code.
Install manually: Choose this option if one of the following is true:
Your website builder/CMS does not yet support the Google tag (gtag.js)
You or your web developer are manually tagging your website
Your website is tagged with analytics.js
You use Google Tag Manager
Option 1: Install with a website builder or CMS
If you manage your site using one of the platforms listed on the Installation instructions page, select your platform and follow the instructions to finish setting up your Google tag without making changes to your code.
If your platform doesn’t yet support the Google tag, you can use the manual installation option (below).
Option 2: Install manually
Choose this option if one of the following is true:
Your website builder/CMS does not yet support the Google tag (gtag.js). Note: You’ll need to use your platform’s custom HTML feature
You or your web developer are manually tagging your website
Your website is tagged with analytics.js
You use Google Tag Manager
How to manually install the Google tag
On the Install manually tab, you’ll see the JavaScript snippet for your Google tag. Copy and paste your entire Google tag in the code of every page of your website, immediately after the <head> element.
Your Google tag is the entire section of code that appears, beginning with:
<!– Google tag (gtag.js) –>
and ending with
</script>
Next steps with your GA4 setup
After you’re done with the wizard, you’ll see “You have successfully connected your properties” at the top of your Google Analytics 4 Property Setup Assistant page.If your Universal Analytics property name is “Example property (UA-nnnnnnn)”, your GA4 property name will be “Example property – GA4 (xxxxxxx)”, without a “UA-” prefix, and where xxxxxxx is a new property number.
GA4 Property setup assistant
We will continue with GA4 Configuration in the next post.
Part 1 of many about GA4 and what is coming after UA
Hey there! Google Universal Analytics (UA) will sunset before you know it, and your analytics after UA will be dominated by Google Analytics 4 (GA4). I’m thrilled you’re joining me as we dive into the world of SEO analytics with GA4. GA4 is already emerging as the key to gaining comprehensive and user-centric insights into customer journeys across multiple devices and platforms. So, let’s dive in and uncover how GA4 can help us elevate our SEO game.
We might still be learning, but with GA4, we’ll be able to answer two critical questions: How do people find our website, and what do they do once they get there? The most significant change in GA4 is its user-centric approach to tracking and analysis. The new approach means we’ll look at the entire user experience rather than fragmented experiences on individual devices or mediums.
GA4 Events
Before we proceed, let’s familiarize ourselves with events in GA4. The platform is all about event-based tracking, simplifying the process of creating and customizing events, tracking conversions, and building reports. So, Events dominate the landscape of GA4. For example, in the table below, you can see that so many properties that we took for granted in UA are now specific events in GA4:
Google table describing some UA properties that are Events in GA4
Now, let’s talk about setting up events. GA4 automatically collects specific event data, but we should set up event tracking for the events that aren’t captured natively. This gives us significantly more data flexibility and empowers us by making it easy to design and personalize events.
The difference between UA session-based model and GA4 event-based model. (Source: Rittman Analytics)
To make the most of GA4, we should start by auditing what our GA4 account is already tracking, understand the parameters we’d like to collect and think about the audiences and segments we’d like to build. We should also work backward to understand which events to track and consider event-tracking limitations when finalizing the list of custom events to collect.
In addition to defining events, there are a few GA4 settings we should be aware of. The native events are either web, app, or both. You can find a complete list of these events at Analytics Help.
You can apply segments to explorations to focus on specific data sets. We can create segments based on users, sessions, and events, allowing us to ask essential questions and assess our SEO performance more effectively.
GA4 makes for better analytics
Google Analytics 4 is revolutionizing how businesses measure their online presence, and we’re learning about it together. With its advanced features and improved measurement capabilities, GA4 will help us better track and optimize our digital content to improve our SEO performance. So let’s keep learning and growing together!
Please remember, At the most basic level, you should extend the retention of user-level data to a maximum of 14 months as soon as we set up our GA4 property. Google is sunsetting Universal Analytics (UA) on July 1.
But don’t worry; many tools are out there to capture and store your UA data so you keep your historical UA data. Some of these tools host the event and will display it for you, and many more host it as google sheets.
In addition, you can use any number of visualization tools to access all of your historical performance data, giving you access to GA4 and UA metrics simultaneously for the same reports. If you need any help having your data retrieved or setup, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
