Step by step guide on how to set up Google Analytics 4 with Google Tag Manager

Step by step set up of Google Analytics 4

The next step is to setup your GA4 property. There’s two ways to do this. 

1. Set up GA4 through your existing Universal Analytics account
2. Create a brand new GA4 account. If you have a new website, you can set up a new GA4 account. Follow the below steps to connect them together.

Create new GA4 Property from UA and integrate with Tag Manager

1. From main UA property, click Admin > GA4 Setup Assistant
2. Click Get Started
3. In the new GA4 property navigate to home dashboard and copy the
   Measurement ID: G-ABC123456
4. Go to Tag Manager, and click on Variables in left side bar
5. Create new variable 
   • Give it a name: GA4 Measurement ID
   • Variable Type: Constant
   • Value: G-ABC123456
6. Create new Tag in Tabs menu (see Tag Configuration screenshot below)
   • Give it a name: GA4 Pageview
   • Select GA4 Configuration
   • Measurement ID: GA4 Measurement ID
   • Open Fields to Set: (this is optional)
     1. Field name: gtm_container and the value: {{Container ID}} (this can be found in Built-in variables)
     2. Field name: debug_mode and the value: {{Debug Mode}} (this can be found in Built-in variables)
   • Select Trigger All Pages
7. Click Save
8. Once you have set this up (and any other tags you wish to create), head to preview to test that your tags are firing.
9. Lastly, after testing it’s all working correctly, don’t forget to publish the changes to the container.

Why create a new variable for the GA4 Measurement ID?

By creating a variable for your GA4 measurement ID you can maintain all your standard settings across tags, for example, Property Settings, Fields to Set, Custom Dimension and Custom Metrics. This saves you adding these settings to every tag you create in the GTM container. 

Why add gtm_container and debug_mode to Fields to Set?

Once the GA4 tag has been configured, give your Google Analytics account up to 24 hours to start collecting data. 

Yes, it’s really that simple… There are many other custom GTM tags you can set up which may suit your goals. For example, we like to track how users interact with each area of a webpage, so we may set up tags such as footer clicks and social profile clicks. Over time, we can begin to understand how users interact with a website, and the purpose of their visit.

How do I track Internal Traffic on GA4?

Within the GA4 settings, you can add your work IP address. This will remove the traffic from those IP addresses from your reports. This is particularly useful if companies use their website to work on. This way, you can collect data solely on external users. 

1. Log on to your GA4 account.
2. Click on Admin > Data Stream
3. Under Additional Setting click More Tagging Settings > Define Internal Traffic
4. Rule name, e.g. Office IP Address
5. Unter IP Address click on Match Type and select IP address equals
6. Enter the IP address (in this example the office IP address)
7. Click ‘Create’. 

There is a second step in order to make this active:

• Head to Admin > Data Filter
• Click on the arrow to the left of Internal Traffic
• Under Filter State, select Active 
• Click ‘Save’.

Your data will now start excluding the internal traffic. 

We hope further down the line, that you will be able to see both external and internal traffic. If a company works on the website a lot, it’s important to understand how they use it, and from that whether improvements can be made.