First and foremost, we wouldn’t recommend just migrating your old Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4. GA4 is the new age of digital analytics, with a huge potential for your business. Just switching your settings would cause a poor GA4 account structure.
The biggest contribution of GA4 is the freedom it gives you during data collection and reporting. This article assumes that you have good knowledge of Google Tag Manager principles and dataLayer.
In this article, we will cover the main steps to include in most projects – semi-advanced settings for those who have skills in Google Analytics but do not want to overlook anything important. We are not going to discuss specific situations and advanced projects.
I do not provide an exact way to reach the point because it can change depending on the development of GA4. However, you can always google a step-by-step tutorial.
This checklist focuses mainly on website measurement, but most points are relevant to both web and app.
Preparation
Before we start any data collection to Google Analytics 4 it is important to think about our measurement framework.
- Check your website and write a list of things you want to measure. For example:
- all forms (I need to know which form was submitted–top or bottom of the page)
- click on accordion in the bottom
- click on the main CTA button in the main banner
- scroll to the given headline
- anything else based on the structure of GA4 – all of these become “Events”
- Which of these events should become goals/key events? Goals/key events may be imported to Google Ads.
- Create a table with all your custom events and parameters. It can look like this (this is also an important part of your documentation):
Event name | Parameters | Meaning | Goal |
button | btnname, btnhref | Click on any blue button on the webiste with button name and href parameter | no |
form_sent | formid, formname, formservice | Form successfully submitted with unique formid stored in CRM, formname and enquired service | yes |
- Check the current state of dataLayer – do I have enough information in dataLayer for these settings? Should I contact a developer, or can I use GTM listeners for this tracking?
- Am I going to work with User ID? Does my client/developer have the technical capacity to give me this information? Is User ID usage aligned with the legal department?
- Do I have a cookie banner on the website that supports consent mode? How much data due to the cookie panel should I expect to lose, based on past experience?
Settings in Google Tag Manager
- Set up a basic config event – this is the best place to influence GA4 data collection. You may use these parameters in “Fields to Set” section of the GA4 config tag. Every setting is useful, of course, but the default settings are pretty good, too. I usually consider these extra settings: content_group or user_id.
Set up GA4 Events in Google Tag Manager with your parameters.
- Always check if the event is not collected by default – Automatically collected events
- Some events that are not collected automatically but have a reserved name. If you use this name, GA4 can work (or will work in the future) with the event by default – Google Analytics 4 Events. Besides e-commerce events, often-used reserved events are, for example: generate_lead, login, sign_up, or share.
- Set up e-commerce events, either with a developer or by using one of the GTM variable templates to transfer Universal Analytics dataLayer to GA4 item dataLayer.
Settings in Google Analytics 4 – the first day
During your initial configuration of Google Analytics 4 you should not forget to check on settings mentioned below.
On the Data stream level please check on the following:
- Select the right time zone and currency.
- Allow enhanced measurement (it is allowed by default, but some clients switch it off).
- Set up filters for internal traffic (do not forget to activate the filter).
- Set up a website search parameter (the most common ones such as “q, s, search, query, keyword” are there by default).
- Set up your own domain, especially in case you need to have a cross-domain tracking domains if you have more connected domains.
- Exclude unwanted referrals, like payment gateways.
On the GA4 property level check the following settings:
- Set up data user retention to 14 months (by default it is only 2 months).
- Set up user reporting identity- n case you have an identification by user ID (through logins) then consider “observed” or “blended” identity. In case you do not have login functionality (and thus you do not collect any user ID) then select “device only”. In case of “blended” and “observed” please be aware of thresholding application in your website is not visited frequently.
- Allow Google Signals if you have usage for enhanced user data from Google services (e.g. age, gender, interests) and have your client’s/lawyer’s approval.
- Configure all event and user parameters. Even automatically collected events, are not configured by default. They are collected and can be seen in debug more and real-time data collection, but they are not stored and sent to Big Query unless you configure your custom dimension.ttings in debug mode.

Thus, go to Configure -> Custom definitions and set up dimensions you would like to use in your reports. A helpful step-by-step guide for outbound links may be found on Analytics mania. The principle is always the same.
Settings in Google Analytics 4 – the second day
- You should see some of your events now. Make goals/key events from the events that you consider goals.
- If needed create custom events; for example, for goals like pageview of a page XY.
- Create basic audiences for GA4 segments and Google Ads usage.
- Create basic connections – at least Big Query, Google Ads, Merchants, and Search Console. Furthermore, depending on your use case you can also link Google Play, Search Ads 360, Doubleclick etc.
Settings in Google Analytics 4 – continue testing
Unfortunately, a lot of problems can emerge. I recommend testing after the third day and after the first week. Especially check:
- Do you see all events you set up coming to your Google Analytics 4?
- Do all parameters you set up have meaningful values?
- Do you have users in your audiences?
- If you set up user ID, do you see % of people with user ID?
- If you ask a client for a real number of forms/purchases, does it match your numbers? Consider the usual % of ad block users, browsers with tracking prevention systems, and % of users who did not consent to cookies regarding your industry and cookie bar appearance. All these together may cause a loss of data of between 5 % – 60%.
These are the basic steps that we follow during GA4 settings. The data should have enough quality to be used in your dashboard. Altogether, it may take 2-4 hours for a small website, up to one day in a medium project, or up to weeks for a really challenging website with huge traffic.
Let us know if we can be of any help
Have fun!