69: Track Your Leads with Google Analytics 4

Summary

In this episode, Meredith’s husband discusses the transition from Universal Google Analytics to the new Google Analytics 4 (G4), highlighting the difficulties users face with the change. He explains how to set up conversion tracking using events and why it’s essential for tracking leads and conversions from your website, especially for businesses. The episode focuses on simplifying this complex setup to help website owners make data-driven decisions and improve their online performance.

Blog Post: How to Set Up Google Analytics 4 for Conversion Tracking

If you’re used to Universal Google Analytics, the transition to Google Analytics 4 (G4) may feel overwhelming. G4 is designed to be more modern, but its interface is drastically different, and setting up essential features like conversion tracking can be tricky. This post will guide you through why and how to set up conversion tracking in G4 so that you can track leads and make data-driven decisions to improve your website’s performance.

Why Conversion Tracking Matters

Your website's primary function is to generate leads, customers, or clients. If you don’t know where your leads are coming from, it’s impossible to refine your marketing strategy effectively. Conversion tracking allows you to see how users are interacting with your site and whether your online marketing efforts are paying off.

With the new G4, every action is tracked as an event. Whether it's a page view, form submission, or button click, these events can be tracked and analyzed to optimize your site’s performance.

Setting Up Conversion Tracking in G4

Follow these steps to set up conversion tracking in Google Analytics 4:

Create a Confirmation Page After someone submits a contact form, direct them to a unique confirmation or thank-you page on your website. This page will serve as the "event" in G4, as the only way users will access this page is by completing a form submission.
Set Up an Event in G4 Go to the Google Analytics admin panel and create an event that tracks visits to your confirmation page. In G4, every interaction is classified as an event, and you'll be setting up a specific event for your page view of the confirmation page.
Link the Event to a Conversion After creating the event, you’ll need to define it as a conversion. Go to the conversions section of the admin panel and link the confirmation page event to your conversion. This step is crucial for tracking how many users complete your contact form.
Monitor Conversions Once the event is set and linked to conversions, you can monitor how often users submit your contact form and analyze where these conversions are coming from. You’ll be able to track the success of various marketing channels (Google, social media, etc.) and refine your efforts accordingly.

Why This Setup is Important

Without conversion tracking, you won’t have a clear understanding of how effective your website is in generating leads. Knowing where your conversions come from enables you to focus on marketing channels that bring you the most success. Conversion tracking isn’t retroactive, so the sooner you set it up, the better.

Key Points:

Set up a unique confirmation page for users to land on after form submissions.
Create an event in G4 for tracking visits to the confirmation page.
Link the event to a conversion in the G4 admin panel.
Start collecting valuable data about where your leads come from.

By following these steps, you’ll ensure that your website is actively collecting data on user behavior, helping you make smarter, more informed decisions about your online marketing strategy.

Resources: For a detailed guide on setting up conversion tracking in G4, visit Meredith’s husband’s blog, where he explains each step with visual examples.