An all-you-need-to-know guide on report basics in GA4

As we near the GA4 launch it is important to get up to speed on how to set up all the vital aspects of your Google Analytics accounts, to ensure your business does not fall behind.

The following is a guide on accessing and creating reports in GA4. Note that for some of these actions you will need an editor or admin access on the Google Analytics account – if you do not have these you may not be able to access the areas required to finalise set up.

All screenshots on this guide have come from the GA4 demo accounts, which can be accessed here.

What are reports?

Reports are an integral part of GA4, as they show you a summary of all that data being fed through your website. Using reports, you can:

• Monitor traffic
• Investigate data
• Understand users and the activities they are engaging in
• Monitor channel performance

Where can you find reports on GA4?

On the main home dashboard, you can find reports in the navigation menu on the left panel.

Getting started with reports

Once you get started with reports, you will see a few different report types on the navigation.

 Reports snapshot: when you click ‘reports’ in the navigation, the ‘snapshot’ it shows you is an overview report. Any overview report can be set as the snapshot, and this can be customised.

Real-time report: this report will allow you to monitor the user activity on your website as it happens. The types of activity you will be able to see includes:

• The number of users who have been active in the last 30 minutes
• Where your users are coming from. This can be divided by source, medium, or campaign.
• Users, and new users, by audience
• The content on your website that users are engaging with
• The events that users are triggering
• The conversions that users complete

Report collections: a collection of reports based on information provided by you during set-up. These collections can be customised. The different collections are as follows:

• App developer
• Games reporting
• Life cycle
• User

Creating a ‘detail’ report

A detail report is a more in-depth view of your data, allowing you to look at one or two dimensions in greater detail. To create a new detail report, navigate to reports, and then library.

In the reports section, click create new report, and then create detailed report. Once here, you will be prompted to either select a blank report, or you can choose a template to work from.

Once you have your detail report, you are able to make customisations as needed for your business requirements. Some of the customisations you can make include:

• Change the dimensions, metrics or charts
• Save a filter to the report
• Create a summary card
• Link or unlink the report

Topics and overview reports

In the reports tab, the navigation bar on the left consists of topics; a topic is a subset of reports within a collection – this usually consists of:

• An overview report (a summary of information about the topic)
• One or more detailed reports

In the below example, ‘tech’ is the topic, ‘overview’ is the overview report, and ‘tech details’ is a detail report.

…and that's all the GA4 ‘reports’ basics

Once you have learnt how to set up and navigate your reports you will be able to use this data to inform your future marketing efforts.

As we continue this GA4 series, we will be writing further articles that detail the reports our experts recommend be set up to streamline your GA4 experience, and give you the best data for your marketing strategy.