Introduction to Google Analytics 4
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest version of Google's web analytics platform, designed to provide comprehensive insights into user behavior across multiple platforms and devices. It offers a tool for tracking user interactions, focusing on the customer lifecycle rather than just pageviews and sessions. Key features of GA4 include:
Event-driven data model: GA4 shifts from session-based tracking to an event-driven model, allowing for a more granular understanding of user interactions, such as clicks, page scrolls, video views.
Enhanced cross-platform tracking: GA4 enables businesses to track user interactions across websites, apps (both Android and iOS), and other digital platforms, providing a unified view of user behavior regardless of the device or platform used.
Focus on insights: GA4 offers smarter insights and predictive metrics, helping businesses understand trends, identify opportunities, and optimize marketing strategies more effectively.
Deeper integration with Google Ads: GA4 integrates seamlessly with Google Ads, allowing advertisers to measure and optimize campaign performance across multiple touchpoints and channels more effectively.
Below is a screenshot of Google Analytics 4 (source: Google Analytics documentation)
Google Analytics 4 relevance in MMM
Google Analytics can be a highly valuable data source for Marketing Mix Models.
Firstly, many companies use it to track online conversions, meaning that it can be often used as the sales data in modeling. However, this is not always the case. Many companies also have other systems for sales data tracking, such as their e-commerce platform (e.g. Shopify, Magento).
Secondly, Google Analytics is often configured to show attribution results for conversions. While one should be careful in interpreting Google Analytics attribution data, it can be used as reference data for analysing Marketing Mix Modeling results. For example, Sellforte often shows GA4 attribution results next to MMM results. (you can see this in the Sellforte demo).
Google Analytics 4 data in Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM)
This section includes standard dimensions and metrics for Google Analytics 4 data in the Sellforte Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) template for online data, which is available here: https://support.sellforte.com/en/articles/6966284-connecting-your-data-with-supermetrics-template-gallery-recommended
Note! If you are using custom dimensions or metrics in Google Analytics 4, let your Sellforte contact know about that and we'll adjust the data schema for you accordingly.
1. Session-data
Dimensions | Metrics |
Date GA4 property Country New vs returning Session source / medium Session default channel grouping Session campaign ID Session campaign name Sessions | Total users Conversions Revenue Item revenue Item purchase quantity Purchases |
2. Order-data
Dimensions | Metrics |
Date Country New vs returning Session source / medium Session default channel grouping Transaction ID Session campaign ID Session campaign name | Revenue Shipping amount Tax amount |
3. Item-data
Dimensions | Metrics |
Date Transaction ID Item ID Item name Item variant Item brand Item category Item category 2 Item promotion name | Item revenue Item purchase quantity |