Google Analytics 4 is a game changer for engagement strategy.
Whereas Universal Analytics based its measures on views, Google Analytics 4 bases its measures on actions that people take on your website. These actions are called events.
For clients viewing our new dashboards, and anyone else wanting a quick overview of Google Analytics 4 for non-e-commerce brands, here is a VERY basic explainer video. Note that there are additional measures for both e-commerce and apps.
View time: 54 seconds
Beyond the basics, Google Analytics 4 events are infinitely customizable through Google Tag Manager.
For non-e-commerce brands without apps, these are the key events we recommend tracking:
There are two additional events that are similar, but distinguish between users and sessions (see below for definitions)
There are two additional built-in events:
Users: Individuals
Sessions: Duration of a visit until 30 minutes of inactivity. One user may have several sessions.
Engaged Sessions: These are defined as sessions lasting more than 10 seconds OR viewed at least two pages OR had a conversion event.
Engagement Rate: Engaged sessions / total sessions