July is quickly approaching and soon Google will close up shop for Universal Analytics. As we prepare to transition to GA4 for good, it’s important that we know how to analyze our information in the new platform in order to continue to report on our key metrics consistently.
Back when Google first made the announcement, we recommended everyone set up GA4 for their website as soon as possible so they would have access to year-over-year data within a single platform. Now, it’s time to jump in and start exploring the reports.
Today, let’s focus on the Acquisition Reports.
Here are the Acquisition Reports that we are all used to using in Universal Analytics:
This is where we would go when we want to analyze performance and metrics by source or channel. In GA4 we are able to find all of the same data, but the interface is a bit different.
Here’s what you will see in GA4:
The first thing you will notice is that you have significantly fewer report options under Acquisition in GA4. You no longer have dedicated reports by Source/Medium, Channel, Google Ads, Social, and Campaigns. Now the standard report options are Overview (shown above), User Acquisition, and Traffic Acquisition.
Acquisition Overview:This report will show you a broad overview of how each channel is performing. Each card will show you one metric, and give you the ability to toggle between different dimensions (channel, source/medium, campaign, etc).
To do a deeper analysis of your acquisition sources, you will want to use the User Acquisition Report or the Traffic Acquisition Report. The reports are very similar but one looks at Users (Unique Visitors) and the other looks at Traffic (Sessions).
User Acquisition Report:This is the report you would want to use to analyze how new users find you for the first time. Let’s take a closer look.
