BLOGS

Getting started with Google Analytics

May 20, 2021

By this time, you should have a better understanding and a certain comprehension of Google Analytics’ purpose especially for your website and business, overall. So, how do you start using the tool anyways? Let’s do a run down of the basics of setting-up your Google Analytics.

Create Analytics Profile

First thing you need to do is to create your Analytics account profile. If you already have an existing Google Account then you can utilize and create a user with that. However, if you do not have one, you have to create first by clicking on the Start for free (see image below) which will route you to the page that lets you create a Google account that you would like to use for your Analytics account.

 

Universal Google Analytics vs Google Analytics 4 Property

The Universal Google Analytics profile is structured by these three components: Account, Property and View.

Account – the account where the dashboard for your properties will reflect. In your profile, you can create multiple accounts especially if your company is handling business in different industries or categories with websites of their own. Basically, this is a way for you to sort or categorize the tracking and analyzing of data for each business entity.

Property – the website, application or the device/s that you wanted to track and collect data from. In one analytics account, you can create multiple properties.  

View – is the where data collected from your property will be determined, whether they will appear on the reports or not. From here on, you can sort or filter the information that you actually wanted to see and analyze. In a single property, you can create multiple views.  

The Google Analytics 4 Property is the latest and upgraded 4th version of the Universal Google Analytics. If you have an existing Google analytics account, you can upgrade your analytics to the updated version. If you are, however, a new user of Google Analytics, you immediately will be able to utilize the new analytics version, Google Analytics 4 Property.

The visual structure of the updated version is different from the universal version although the components are the same. We will get into the upgrade and process and differences of the two on our next discussion. 

 

The following process/steps below are for Google Analytics 4 Property.

First: Creating Account 

  1. Once logged-in to your user account, click Admin;
  2. from Admin view, click Create Account. 
  3. Fill out the required information from the 3 sections (Account setup, Property setup and, About your business). 
  4. To save, click Create. 

 

Second: Creating Property

  1. To create a Property, click again on the Admin. 
  2. Next to the Account, is the Property column, then just click on Create Property. 
  3. Here, except for the Account setup, you will need to fill-out the Property setup and About your business only.
  4. To save, click Create.

 

Third: Add a Data Stream

  1. To create Data Stream, click Admin. 
  2. Navigate to the Property where you want to add and click Data Stream.
  3. Select whether iOS, Web or Android and click add stream. 
  4. Setup your stream by providing all information needed. 
  5. Click the toggle to enable enhanced measurement to automatically measure all events and interactions on your site or app.
  6. Click Create stream to save. 

Fourth: Adding Tag to website

After you set-up your account, property and data stream, it’s time to add a tag to your website to start tracking and collecting data. Find your tracking code (tag) by going to the data stream you created.

 

There are three ways to add tag to your website:

  • Adding to a website builder

>Go to Admin 

> Navigate to the property and web stream 

> Under the Add new tag instruction, copy the entire code displayed (see sample image below) 

> Then,  paste the site tag into your website builder’s custom HTML field. 

 

  • Adding directly to the site pages

> Go to Admin 

> Navigate to the property and web stream 

> Under the Add new tag instruction, copy the entire code 

> Paste the page tag immediately after the <head> on each page of your website.

 

  • Using Google Tag Manager 

> Go to Google Tag Manager and navigate to the container implemented on your page 

> Click Tags > New 

> Click Tag Configuration and choose GA4 Configuration 

> Enter the Measurement Id 

> Select pages you want to measure 

> Save and publish your tag configuration

 

Once the setup above is completed, then your analytics will start to collect and measure data accordingly. Although there are still other sections that need to be set-up and a lot to learn about the tool itself, it is always good to take the first step and gradually get acquainted and familiar with the system, so that your business can maximize it to the extent.

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