August 2021: My Top Tips for Google Analytics 4
Hey, friend!
I hope you are healthy and enjoying these dog days of summer. Tomorrow, my little family is heading north to spend six months in Bend, Oregon. We’re looking forward to the sunshine and some serious exploring.
One of the topics I’ve wanted to tackle in The Good Stuff for a while now is the new version of Google Analytics, called Google Analytics 4 or GA4 for short. Google Analytics 4 will eventually replace the version of Google Analytics that you’re probably using now, so it’s time to set up a GA4 Property in addition to your existing one!
GA4 is *powerful*. I took this affordable mini-course with Benjamin Mangold to learn the basics. And not just because Benjamin’s accent is the best...
Here’s a free starter video from him that explains what’s new in GA4 and walks through the steps to set up a new GA4 Property in addition to your existing Google Analytics Property, within your existing account, which is exactly what I recommend. For most of you, this setup will only take ten minutes and won’t even require changing any of the code on your site! Magic.
Here are the new GA4 features that matter most:
💡 1. GA4 now uses “Events” (much like Google Tag Manager, if you’re familiar) to track the actions people take on your website. GA4 offers more flexibility than previous versions to Analytics to track all kinds of website interactions—and even comes with some great built-in Events including page scrolls, video views, and file downloads. All you have to do is leave this “Enhanced measurement” option toggled on when you create your new property.
💡 2. GA4 has a simplified view with reports that mirror the customer/donor lifecycle: Acquisition, Engagement, Monetization, and Retention. There are significantly fewer standard reports within these sections, but you can dig into them by clicking on the different charts, plus signs, etc. so click around and you’ll discover a lot below the surface.
💡 3. The new Audiences section, Cohorts, and User Parameters will allow you to understand your customers or donors better.
No matter how you want to slice and dice your website users to understand different groups of people using your site, it can likely be done with GA4.
Here’s how you can use GA4 to identify & fix your marketing problems:
📈 1. Create a “Purchase” Conversion Event & set up E-commerce Tracking
This is likely a job for a web developer or a Google Analytics specialist. The process is different if your donations or purchases come through a third-party platform like Shopify or a donor CRM. Investing in this setup is absolutely critical so you can see how much revenue is coming your way, who it’s coming from, and what they’re doing on your website before and after giving you money.
Seeing actual dollar amounts within your GA4 reports will make all kinds of 💡 light bulbs flash on in your brain about how to bring in more money from your users. Suddenly, when monetary value is visible, Google Analytics reports have value and are a lot easier to make sense of. Follow the money!
The new Monetization reports will become your best friend, but this magic only happens if E-commerce Tracking is in place. And the first step of creating a Purchase or Donate Conversion (similar to a Goal in the old version of Analytics) is something you can set up yourself without any coding.
📈 2. Set up a few custom reports in the Explore section
If this feels way over your head, hire an Analytics specialist! Tell them what marketing questions you want answers to on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis. After they work their magic, you’ll be able to navigate straight to these reports—or even have them delivered to your email—to keep tabs on insightful information that would otherwise be buried.
📈 3. Focus on increasing Lifetime Value
With your E-commerce Tracking in place, look to the Retention report for mission-critical metrics like “User Stickiness” and “Lifetime Value.” As you launch new campaigns, make website improvements, and invest in other marketing activities, you should monitor these. Are you keeping people around longer? Are you inspiring them to give you more money, more often? Increasing Lifetime Value should always be your #1 goal, no matter your business or cause.
If Google Analytics isn’t your cup of tea, pay a specialist to set your account up right.
There are quite a few highly-rated certified Google Analytics specialists listed on Upwork who do this for a living at affordable hourly rates. Go ahead and forward this email to one of them and ask, “Can you please do these things?” Hiring a GA specialist for just a handful of hours to get your new GA4 property set up right will no doubt help you make decisions to bring in more money.
I will continue finding ways to share GA4 tips as I learn them. When we understand the data, that's when we can really be dangerous!
-Caroline
P.S. I’m switching this newsletter over from Hubspot to Mailchimp so don’t be alarmed when next month’s edition of The Good Stuff looks slightly different in your inbox! It will be a good one with an exciting freebie.
P.P.S. If you’re interested in learning more about Digital Donors On-Demand, the Facebook Advertising course for nonprofits that I’m a guest teacher on, feel free to reply to this email and I can answer any questions. If you’re ready to get started, you can purchase the course with my affiliate link and use the discount code “CAROLINE” for $50 off.
