Hey there, measurement ladies and gentlemen.
So good old universal analytics views are not available in GA4.
How can we live with that? Well, let's have a look at it together.
In this video we'll learn how to replicate views in GA4.
And a spoiler alert,
it is not possible to create an exact equivalent and all
workarounds have their limitations. Anyways, before we start with that,
I would love to say a few words about the structure of GA4.
And this is definitely one of the most frequently asked questions we are getting
these days. So how should I structure my GA4 account?
How should should I create properties and streams?
That's a very good question,
especially considering the challenge that we are facing nowadays with the
absence of views. Alright, so let's have a look at the G4 structure.
So we have an account. Within an account, you can create properties,
and within the property you can create streams.
And these are the three main pillars of GA4.
One extremely important note here,
a stream does not equal to a view in Universal Analytics.
Okay, so let's go to my property.
And here on the left side we have this column with everything
related to the account, whereas on the right side we have property.
And within a property you can create data streams.
And then we have this huge blank space that does not look super pretty.
And this is exactly where views used to live in Universal
Analytics.
And I assume the creators of the tool simply preserve the structure,
but we do not have views in GA4. While in the paid version,
in GA4 360,
you have kind of an equivalent of views that is called "sub properties."
But in order to access this feature, you have to pay for it, right?
So you have to get the paid version of GA4.
But in this video we are focusing on the free version.
And this is why we will not cover sub properties here,
but you should know that such a feature exists.
And just so that we are on the same page, what are views?
These are the subsets of data.
And the classical example in Universal Analytics could be the master view,
which would be a working view,
and you would apply multiple filters to configure it.
Then the test view that would serve as your testing environment and then the raw
data view with the plain data. This is one example.
Another example could be separate views for different language versions of your
website. For example, a German version, English version, Dutch version,
and so on. And this is what we used to have in Universal Analytics,
but now it's not available. So what can we do here?
We have two options actually either to accept this challenge
and to adjust to the reality by using the set of features that is
available right now or to get a paid version.
So these are the options. Maybe this will be improved in the future,
but on the day of the recording,
we do not have views in GA4 and we do not have any specific
solutions here, but we do have some kind of workarounds.
And this is exactly what we will focus on in this video.
So let me state my problem.
So here I have measureschool.com and this is the main website
that we have. And we also have live.measure.school, and
this is where we conduct live trainings for a very limited
group of people. But this is a part of a single user journey.
This is why we track everything under one property, under one stream.
Well, but how can I view the data separately?
In good old Universal Analytics,
I would create a separate view for this data set.
But what can I do now? And I do not want to pay for GA4.
Well, let's have a look together.
So the first workaround is to use comparisons.
So here you can see my pages and screens report.
And let's say I want to look at that specific subset
of data. So how can I do that?
If you click add a comparisons or add comparison here,
this is where you can add in you comparison and we can look for
something like Hostname and then I can select
live.measure.school, click 'okay' and then hit 'apply'.
And in this way we can look at that specific subset of
data,
but we have some limitations here because we cannot save
this comparison. They do not persist in our reports.
So if I close this one and then go back, it will not be available,
which is not super convenient.
And also the conditions you can provide here are kind of limited,
right?
So these are the disadvantages of comparisons.
So what could I do in this case?
The second way of segmenting your data is to use
filters. And you can do it in the standard reports in GA4.
So let's say I want to have the same report but for live.measure.school.
So what can I do if we click customize report?
So this is where you can add a filter and we also can say
Hostname. And you see this looks similar to comparisons.
And this is where I can select live.measure.school
and let's click apply.
And now we can view the data only for live.measure.school,
which is amazing. But what can I do?
I can also save this report.
So let's click save and we want to save changes to a new
report. And you should provide a name.
So you should provide a nice descriptive name. I will do like this.
You can also add a description to your report. And let's click save.
Let's go back to our standard reports.
And if I double check here,
my report is not available. So what could be the reason? Well,
because we have to go to library and we can see it right
here, but we have to do one more thing.
We have to add it to our collection.
And you can see that it belongs to live cycle.
This is why we can click added collection.
And here I can look for my pages and screens and
let's drag and drop it. So here we go. And voila.
And now we would have to click save to current collection because we
do not want to create a new one.
And let's go back just to double check if it is available. Hey, voila.
So now we can see pages and screens. And this is my report.
So this is the second way to filter out your data.
But let's say you want to dive deeper into your data and you want to
answer some specific questions with the data.
This is why we should go to Explore.
And this is a third way to work with your data.
So here I already created a report.
So it's a freeform exploration super simple, even the event account.
But let's say again we want to look at the data only for live.measure.school.
And I can create this segment. So let's select Event Segment.
And here again, Hostname
and you can provide your conditions here.
We have contains and live.measure.school. We can click apply.
Again, you should provide a proper name.
You can also add a description. And let's click save and apply.
And this segment will be automatically applied to your report.
And now we can look at this specific subset of data for our analysis.
But there are also some limitations here because each time you create a new
exploration, you would have to create this segment from scratch.
So you cannot share those segments between your explorations, unfortunately.
What could we do in this case?
So this is how we can deal with views within the tool,
but if this does not satisfy your needs,
we can go even a step further. In this case,
we would have to use some external tool.
And this could be Looker Studio or BigQuery.
Here you can see a simple report that I created,
and I'm not showing off my designer skills here for sure,
but it's just created for testing purposes.
And here we can see the data altogether,
but let's say I want to filter it out somehow.
So what could I do? So one of the options is to create a filter.
So I can go to five. And here we have report settings.
And this is where I can add a filter and I can
say create a filter and we will call it again LMS.
Just as an example. You should provide a proper name of course.
Here we have Include. And then we will look for Hostname.
Awesome. And then equals to, we have live.measure.school.
And let's click Save.
And in this way we can work with that specific subset
of data. So this is one option, or let me delete this one.
We could do it in a different way.
So let's say a person who is working with the report wants to have more
control over the data and wants to look at the whole data
set as well as that specific data set for live.measure.school.
So in this case, we can add a control and say drop down list.
Let's put it here. Now we have Country,
so we should replace that. Let's say Hostname. Great.
And here we go. So now we can say, okay,
this is what I want to analyze. So let's uncheck those.
And we got the same numbers, which is great.
But let's say you are still not happy with it,
especially now that Google has turned out quite limiting for the
Looker Studio. You might not be satisfied with this workaround.
So what could we do? In this case,
the GA4 BigQuery expert comes to our rescue.
So let's have a look at it together. So I'm in BigQuery right now,
and this is a data warehouse that offers you so much flexibility
as well as control over your data.
And the super cool thing about GA4 is that we have a free connector
available, and before it was only possible for the paid version.
So this is a considerable improvement of the tool.
And the speed here is simply brilliant.
So you can query it through huge sets of data within just seconds.
And this is another workaround, how to deal with views,
but it will definitely require more advanced skills.
And you should also know SQL.
But the good thing here is that we offer a free tutorial on YouTube,
which was created by the one and only Julian.
And also within the membership in Measure Masters,
we have a super cool beginner-friendly,
extensive five hour course created by our magician Praba.
And I would definitely recommend taking one of those because the tracking
landscape is changing and BiqQuery offers a lot of advantages. So
here you can see that I'm working with the data and I can define
the data set I want to work with. So you can model your data,
then you can export it to a separate view,
and then you can also visualize it in the Looker Studio.
So here I started working on my report and you would not face any
quota limitations, which is also a positive thing. So just to sum up,
a stream in G4 does not equal to a view,
and it is a very common misconception.
It is not recommended to create multiple web streams and one
property. So if you do not want to analyze your data together,
then it is better to create separate properties for that.
You can also utilize comparisons, filters,
and segments to work with your subset of data within G4 itself
or other solutions would involve some external tools such as
Looker Studio or BigQuery.
So we have explored different ways how to deal with views in GA4.
And I have to say that these workarounds are not perfect.
What workaround do you use? Please let us know in the common section below.
And if you like this video, use thumbs up and please not forget to subscribe.
See you next time. Happy measuring.