5 most common Google Analytics 4 frustrations

In our daily work for Google Analytics 4 implementations and support, we often see the following frustrations recurring when it comes to properly deploying Google Analytics 4 on websites.

1) Consent mode is not working properly

One of the reasons why you are not receiving all the data in Google Analytics often has to do with not using Consent Mode correctly. Consent Mode is required by Google Analytics so that Google knows that visitors give permission for their user behavior to be stored. Many website owners think that with a simple consent banner from the web builder or platform, they are doing enough to comply.

However, we notice that consent mode is often not integrated into the banner, or only a default statement is set, leaving the variables that are needed (such as ad_storage) at ‘denied’.

Unfortunately, most web builders do not take Google’s documentation to heart and, as a result, owners of websites and web shops actually suffer.

2) No or incorrect use of utm_tagging

A common comment from clients is that a lot of traffic remains on “unassigned. One of the causes is related to point 4, but a common mistake is the incorrect use of the utm_tagging in channels other than Google Ads. In particular, the utm_medium should meet Google’s requirements for default channel grouping. If it does not comply, or contains different values than Google expects, then the traffic will unnecessarily end up on “unassigned traffic. For example, consider Facebook Ad traffic, e-mail marketing or affiliates.

3) Misuse of Key events

Google updated the definition of conversion in Google Analytics 4 in 2024. As a result, we often see accounts misusing Key events. Key events are events that you consider valuable to your business. However, selecting the wrong events for Key events causes data contamination. For example, do not select a particular click on a button, or a common event like ‘scroll’. The problem with this is that it also totally skews your engagement metrics.

Choose only events that belong to your KPIs. For example, a form submission, a purchase or a lead event.

4) Forgetting to wait for Google

This happens regularly. What’s going on? Google needs a minimum of 72 hours to define traffic on your Web site. Many marketers look at yesterday’s day, or if they want to create a report on Monday, they see a huge amount of “unassigned traffic” coming back. That’s right, because yesterday’s day hasn’t been 72 hours, so Google hasn’t finished defining it.

Also certain events may be linked to another channel later because of attribution. All this has to do with data-driven attribution in GA4.

So should you want to report now, start on Wednesday.

5) Using thank you URLs for enhanced conversions

This, of course, was “common practice” in Universal Analytics. You entered a target URL and hop, your conversions were measured. Unlike Universal Analytics, GA4 isn’t actually about pages and URLs. It’s about events. The background to this is that GA4 was once developed for apps and Web apps. Those often did not contain pages and so were analyzed on events.

So now if you’re using thank you URLs as triggers in Google Analytics 4 or in Google Tag Manager, you’re actually looking at the wrong thing. You actually want to use unique events such as a successful Form Submit or Purchase event. Then, if you also want to take full advantage of Enhanced Conversion and User Provided data, realize that this visitor’s email address or phone number is often entered before the thank you page and is therefore no longer available after that.

So for optimal use of Enhanced Conversions, use events and not thank you URLs.

Would you like to be supported in properly using to Google Analytics 4? Get in touch with us!