Hey there, measurement ladies and gentlemen.
Are you also making these GA4 event tracking mistakes?
Well, event creation in GA4 might seem confusing, and this is why I hope this
video will help you save a lot of your time in the future.
In the end, I will also show you the checklist with the best practices.
But enough of talking, let's dive into GA4 events together.
The new data model gives us way more
flexibility when it comes to event tracking.
But at the same time, this definitely requires more planning.
Ga4 is not an update, yet a new tool,
and this is why we should approach it as a new tool.
And there are four event types in GA4.
We have automatically collected events that are collected by default
when you install GA4 on your website or application.
We have enhanced measurement events
that are collected if you enable enhanced measurement.
There are also recommended events as well
as custom events that require manual implementation.
And mistake number one that is very common is not using the recommended events.
Let's have a look.
Why do we have these names at all?
Well, it's all about communication with the tool.
You have to feed GA4 with the correct data,
and if you do so, you can get the most out of your reporting and you could unlock some
benefits from the upcoming features and integrations.
And it is related to any event you would love to set up.
The first thing you should do is checking the Google documentation.
And here you have a list of all those recommended events.
And these are the names suggested by Google, let's say you want to create
an event when a user signs up on your website.
You should look for it in this list. And here we go.
We have Sign Up and you can see that this is exactly the name that you should use.
Talking about names,
I want to emphasize the second mistake, which is not using snake case.
If we have a look at the event names right here, even the SignUp event,
you can see that each space is replaced with an underscore character,
and the first letter of each word is in lowercase.
This is the naming convention of GA4.
These are some so called grammar rules that we have to follow.
Also, some things to keep in mind, event names are case sensitive.
So if you have my_event and My_Event
with capital letters, these are two different events.
Event names must start with a letter and you should not use spaces.
So this is the format for event naming
suggested by Google, and you should stick to it when you name
your custom events to keep everything clean and organized.
And consistency is the key here.
Going back it back to our sign up event, let's say you want to provide the context
to your event, and we do not have to stick anymore to the generic concepts
of category action and label as it used to be in universal analytics.
Now we have key value pairs called parameters, and this is exactly mistake
number three, which is not checking the default GA4 parameters.
So let's click on click Sign Up here, and we are redirected to the developers'
guide, and you can see my sign up event as well as parameters.
What are these parameters?
Let's have a look.
For example, here we have the event name, clicked button, and we want to collect
some additional data points that would describe our event better.
And I named those Descriptor 1, Descriptor 2, and 3, and so on.
But these are exactly our event parameters.
For example, button_text, button_link, button_color.
Let's have a look at a different event.
For example, form_submit.
And here we have form_id, form_type, form_name, and so on.
These are the parameters that we want to track additionally to collect more data.
Going back to our sign up event.
Let's say your users can sign up in different ways and you want to collect
this additional information about the sign up event that would describe it better.
What could we do?
You could come up with your own parameter,
but before doing it, you should check the documentation.
And here you can see the parameter method, and you could use this one.
I absolutely love this tool that is called the GA4 Spy.
And this is how you can quickly search for event parameters.
If I type method, and here you can get the definition.
So it used to sign up, logging or share.
And you can see that it is available in the Explorations,
which means I do not have to register it as a custom definition.
I can build my custom report using this one.
And this is exactly mistake number 4,
not registering your event parameters as custom definitions.
So let's say you came up with your own parameter.
You don't want to use this one method because you want to trap something else.
But if you do not go to Analytics here, and then you have to go to Admin,
and this is where we have custom definitions,
and you would have to register your parameter as a custom definition.
If you do not do it, then you would not be able to access it for the reporting.
It will be available in real time as well as for the BigQuery export,
but you would not be able to see it within the GF or interface.
And this is something you should always keep in mind.
And this is how we arrived to the next
mistake, which is not checking your quota information.
So I'm using the demo account.
This is why I have no permission here
to register my parameters as custom definitions.
You should be able to do it within your own properties.
But this is where you can also find the quota information.
With all these event parameters registered
as custom definitions, we run into the issue of limitations.
Imagine you having multiple events and you want to send multiple event parameters.
This is where you can check your quota.
You can see user's code, event's code,
items code custom dimensions, and custom metric.
This is important to keep track of this.
Now the question, Okay,
so we have those limitations, but how could we solve this problem?
This is about the next mistake number six
that beginners are very likely to make, which is no consolidation.
This is actually the key when it comes
to GA4 implementation, because this is how you plan everything.
Let's go to my website and I want to show you an example.
I would love to track when my users click
here on blog and I would also love to track this click right here.
I have it in the footer.
If users want to go to YouTube and you
might be tempted to name your events like click_YouTube_footer, click_blog_navbar.
You might feel somehow unconfident using the reporting, working with the custom
definitions, and this is why this can be a good solution.
In reality, it's not as hard as it might
seem, and we could do it in a different name.
So let's say you use the name click,
and then we introduce event parameters such as click_ type and click_location.
You can come up with your own parameters, of course.
Great. So we applied a bit of consolidation here,
but let's say we have a different event that is a sign up event.
Imagine multiple sign up forms on your website for services, courses, etc.
Then we have sign_up_type, sign_up_location.
We would have to come up with these parameters.
Then we would have to create four
parameters already, and we would have to register those as custom definitions.
But you remember about those limitations.
So what would be the solution?
We want to reuse parameters to save more space for our custom definitions.
Let's do it together.
Let me go to the Google Tag Manager and I have my GA4 implemented already.
I also prepared my triggers for my events.
I will not show you the whole event set up
step by step because I assume that you already know it, or you can always check
our videos on YouTube about event tracking.
Here are my triggers that I will use to fire my tags.
Let's get started. ow to tags and click
New, tag configuration, and we should look for Google Analytics GA4 event.
This is my configuration tag and let's call it click.
Then we will start with the YouTube.
We can provide the parameter type and then value would be YouTube as an example.
Then we could also add the second parameter which would be location.
In my case, it's footer.
Then I can add my trigger right here and we should also provide the name.
Here we go.
Let's save this one and let's create the second one.
Let's go to text, type configuration.
Here we should look for GA4 event.
Again, our configuration tag.
And this is also a click because we want to track multiple clicks but we can
differentiate those with the help of parameters.
And again, we can use our parameter, which is type, and now this will be blog.
And then we can provide the second parameter, which is location.
And this time it's in the null bar.
And we can attach our trigger and provide the event name.
Great.
So in this way, we can consolidate our event needs and event parameters.
In this way, we can also solve this limitations problem.
Let's say we have the third event, which is sign up.
Let me go to my GA4 events, sign up, and we can attach a parameter.
We can say I want to have my type parameter.
As an example, this could be services.
We can also say location,
and let's imagine that my sign up form is in the footer.
In this way, you can set up this event, reusing the existing event parameters.
So instead of having four parameters to be
registered, now we have two and we can reuse them for other events.
Just one thing, do not forget to register those in GA4 or so you would have to go
again to Admin, Custom Definitions, and this is where you would be able
to register your event parameters either as custom dimensions or as custom metrics.
Of course, if you want to have
a conversion, then you would have to come up with a unique name for it.
But let's say you have multiple clicks
and it makes no sense to mark them as conversions.
And this is how we get to the seventh mistake.
And this is not really a mistake, but I want to highlight this as it might
make your and your client's life way easier.
And this mistake is about not having proper documentation.
Here you can see an example of the event
mapper that we have inside of our membership.
Of course, we're using this one for the migration project because you can
see how you can translate your events into the language of GA4.
And this is where we outline all
the events and we plan the parameters we want to set up in GA4.
We also have this event reference here with the automatically collected events,
enhanced measurement events, and recommended events.
This can be pretty helpful.
And this is how we prepare the documentation for our clients.
When we conduct either the migration
project or GA4 implementation from scratch, we also always create a live
document of implemented GA4 events with all the parameters in Google Sheets.
This is extremely helpful and it makes the housekeeping way easier.
Just imagine many people being involved
in a project and this will make everyone happy.
And this is how we are gradually arriving
at our checklist for event implementation in GA4.
Number one use recommended events.
Always double check the names in the Google documentation.
Number two, follow the naming convention.
You remember, it's snake case in GA4.
Number three, check the default GA4 parameters.
And you can use this cool tool called the GA4 Spy.
Number four, register your event parameters as custom definitions.
Number five, check your quota information.
Remember about the limitations when it comes to event tracking implementation.
Number six, consolidate your events and event parameters.
It is extremely important to reuse the parameters because this can make
the whole planning and the structure way easier.
Number seven, prepare detailed documentation.
This could be a real lifesaver.
Event tracking is so much fun.
I could set it up day and night.
Unfortunately, I also have some other activities.
I'm just kidding.
But if you like this video, please give a thumbs up.
Don't forget to subscribe.
And if you want to check other GA4 videos
about event tracking, you can find them right here.
Happy measuring.