Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a free Google tool that shows how many people visit your website, where they come from and what they do on it. A small piece of code is added to the site, the code counts the visits, and you view the result at analytics.google.com. The old version, Universal Analytics, stopped collecting data in July 2023, so today "Google Analytics" means GA4.
Key takeaways:
- GA4 answers three questions: how many people come to the site, where they come from and what they do once they arrive.
- Setup takes three steps: create an account and a property, connect the code to the site, and mark an enquiry (form, call, WhatsApp) as a key event.
- If no key event is set up, GA4 only counts visits: it cannot show which ad brought an enquiry.
- GA4 does not show a specific person's name or phone number; it provides aggregated statistics.
- The account must be opened under the company's Google account: give an agency or developer a role, not your password.
What is Google Analytics 4 and what is it for?
Google Analytics 4 is a tool that counts actions on a site and turns them into reports. Compared with a shop, it is the counter at the entrance together with the observation log: how many people came in during the day, which street they came from, which shelf they stopped at and whether they reached the till.
Without Analytics, a site owner makes decisions blindly. Money is spent on ads, but nobody knows which channel brings customers; the site is updated, but you cannot see whether the change helped. GA4 answers these questions with numbers:
- How many people come? The number of visitors per day, week and month.
- Where do they come from? Google search, Instagram, ads, direct visits or other sites.
- What do they look at? The most-read pages and the time spent on the site.
- Do they get in touch? The number of people who submit a form or click the call button or WhatsApp.
The standard version of the tool is free and fully sufficient for a small or medium-sized business (Analytics Help). The GA4 interface is not available in Azerbaijani (Russian, Turkish and English are available), and menu names are updated often (Analytics Help). That is why this article gives the English names of the sections and explains each one in plain language.
What does GA4 show and what does it not show?
GA4 shows what happens inside the site; it does not show your position in Google Search, competitors' traffic or the identity of a specific person. To set the right expectations, here is the difference:
| GA4 shows | GA4 does not show |
|---|---|
| Number of visitors and visits | A visitor's name, phone number and email |
| Traffic sources: search, social media, ads, direct visits | Where the site ranks on Google |
| Pages viewed and time spent on the site | The full list of words people typed into Google |
| Breakdown by country, city, device and browser | Competitors' site statistics |
| Enquiries and sales (if set up as key events) | The content of a call or a conversation |
A separate tool exists for search position and queries: we explained it in the article What is Google Search Console. The two tools complement each other, and both are free.
How do you set up a GA4 account?
A GA4 account has three levels: account, property and data stream. Think of them as a company, a shop and a door.
| Level | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Your company. There is usually one account per company | "Example LLC" |
| Property | The project you are measuring: a website, or a website and an app together | "numune.az website" |
| Data stream | The source the data comes from: a website, or an iOS or Android app | "Web: https://numune.az" |
Setup steps (Analytics Help):
- Open analytics.google.com and sign in with a company-owned Google account.
- Press the Start measuring button and type the account name (the company's name).
- Create a property: choose a name, time zone (Azerbaijan) and currency (AZN). Choose the time zone correctly, or the daily figures will shift.
- Choose the business's sector, size and goals. This choice only affects the layout of the ready-made reports.
- Choose Web as the platform, type the site's address and the stream's name, and create the stream.
- A Measurement ID will appear on screen: a code starting with "G-". You need exactly this to connect the code to the site.
How do you connect the GA4 code to a site?
There are three ways to connect GA4 to a site: write the code directly into the site, use Google Tag Manager, or enter the Measurement ID in the platform's ready-made integration. Which one suits you depends on how the site is built.
| Method | How it is done | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Platform integration | The Measurement ID is entered in the website builder's or CMS's settings (in WordPress, with Google's Site Kit plugin) | Sites built on Tilda, WordPress and other ready-made platforms |
| Google tag (direct code) | The code snippet supplied by Google is added to every page of the site | Sites written with custom code; a developer does it |
| Google Tag Manager | A container is placed on the site once, then all codes are managed from the dashboard | Sites with ad pixels and several measurement tools |
Checking the connection is simple: open the site on your phone, then look at Reports → Realtime in GA4 and see yourself as a visitor. Google says it can take up to 30 minutes for data to start arriving. If you still do not see yourself after that, the code is either not connected or connected to a different property.
One warning: do not connect the code in two ways at the same time. If both a plugin and hand-written code are present, every visit is counted twice and all the figures are inflated.
What do the main metrics mean?
What confuses people at first glance in GA4 is mainly the terminology. Nine terms are enough for day-to-day work (Analytics Help):
| Term | In plain language |
|---|---|
| Active users | The number of distinct people genuinely interested in the site in the selected period. Even if the same person visits three times, they count as one user |
| New users | People visiting the site for the first time |
| Sessions | Visits. If one person visits in the morning and in the evening, that is two sessions |
| Engaged sessions | "Interesting" visits: sessions that last longer than 10 seconds, in which at least two pages are viewed, or in which a key event occurs. A session counts as ended after 30 minutes of inactivity |
| Engagement rate | The share of engaged visits among all visits |
| Average engagement time | The average time the site stayed open in the foreground of the browser |
| Views | The number of page views |
| Event | Every measured action on the site: page view, click, file download, form submission |
| Key event | An event you consider important for the business: an enquiry, an order, a click on the call button |
Engagement rate is the opposite of the old "bounce rate" metric: bounce rate shows the share of visits that passed without interest (Analytics Help). So if the engagement rate is 60%, the bounce rate is 40%.
GA4 collects some events automatically. When the setting called Enhanced measurement is active, page views, scrolling to the end of a page, clicks on outbound links, site search, video views, file downloads and form interactions are measured without any extra code (Analytics Help).
Which reports should you look at first?
Four reports are enough for a beginner: Realtime, Traffic acquisition, Pages and screens and Key events. All of them are in the Reports section of the left-hand menu.
Realtime: who is on the site right now?
The Realtime report shows visitors who were on the site in the last 5 and 30 minutes (Analytics Help). Its main use is checking: does the code work, is traffic coming from an ad that has just started, is a form submission recorded as an event.
Traffic acquisition: where do visitors come from?
The Acquisition → Traffic acquisition report splits visits by channel. In each row you see the number of sessions the channel brought, the engagement rate and the number of key events. The main question here should be not "where does most traffic come from?" but "where do most enquiries come from?".
Pages and screens: which pages are read?
The Engagement → Pages and screens report ranks pages by number of views. A page that is viewed a lot but brings no enquiries is the first candidate for fixing: often it lacks a clear call-to-action button or a contact form.
Key events: how many enquiries have come?
This report shows the number of the important events you have marked. If it is empty, the key event has not yet been set up and the site only counts visits.
The figures in the standard reports are not updated in real time but with a delay: Google says data processing can take 24–48 hours (Analytics Help). It is better to look at today's figure tomorrow.
What is a key event and how do you count enquiries?
A key event is an event that counts as a result for your business; it used to be called a "conversion". On a service website this is usually a form submission, a click on the call button and a click on the WhatsApp button; in an online store, it is a completed order.
Setup takes two steps (Analytics Help):
- The event must reach GA4. A form submission, a click on a "tel:" link and a click on a WhatsApp link must each be sent as a separate event. A developer sets this up in the site code or in Google Tag Manager.
- The event must be marked as a key event. In the Admin section of GA4, find it in the events list and mark it as a key event. After that it appears in reports as a separate metric. A standard account can have up to 30 events marked as key events.
After setup, check it yourself: fill in and submit the form on the site and see whether the event appears in the Realtime report.
The value of a key event shows up in advertising. When you link a Google Ads account to GA4, the ad system sees which clicks turned into enquiries and directs the budget to that audience. We compared which channel brings higher-quality enquiries in the article lead form, WhatsApp or website.
How are ad and social media traffic separated in GA4?
GA4 automatically assigns each visit to a channel. These are the channels you will meet most often (Analytics Help):
| Channel | Who they are |
|---|---|
| Organic Search | People who arrive from Google and other search engines through free results |
| Paid Search | People who arrive from search ads |
| Organic Social | People who arrive from ordinary social media posts and the profile link |
| Paid Social | People who arrive from social media ads |
| Direct | People who typed the address directly, and visits whose source could not be determined |
| Referral | People who arrive from links on other sites |
| People who arrive from email mailings | |
| AI Assistant | People who arrive from AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot |
The AI Assistant channel was added in May 2026. Visits from Google's own AI answers (AI Overviews and AI Mode) are counted in the Organic Search channel.
To separate channels correctly, UTM tags are added to ad links. A UTM is a short note written at the end of a link, for example ?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=payiz-endirimi. It tells GA4 which source and which campaign a visit came from (Analytics Help).
Without UTM tags, some of the visits from an Instagram ad appear as Direct or Organic Social, and the ad's result looks weaker than it is. We showed how to set up the advertising side in the articles how to run Instagram ads and how to run Google ads.
What are the 7 most common mistakes in GA4?
Most mistakes are made during setup and go unnoticed for months. Seven typical cases:
- The code is connected twice. The figures look twice as high. Check: if you open one page in Realtime and two views are counted, the code is duplicated.
- No key event is set up. The site only counts visits, not enquiries. This is the most expensive mistake, because the result of the advertising is not measured.
- Your own team's visits are counted. On a small site, staff visits seriously distort the statistics. In GA4 you can mark the office's IP address as internal traffic and filter it out (Analytics Help).
- Data retention is left at 2 months. For detailed analysis (Explore), data is kept for 2 months by default; raise it to 14 months in the Data retention setting in Admin. This setting does not affect standard reports (Analytics Help).
- There are no UTM tags in ad links. The source of traffic gets mixed up and channels cannot be compared.
- The account is in the contractor's name. When the collaboration ends, years of statistics go with it. The account's owner must be the company.
- Time zone and currency are chosen wrongly. Daily figures do not match the figures in the ad account.
Do not forget the privacy side. State in the site's privacy policy that you use Analytics. If your site gets visitors from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, Google's consent policy requires you to obtain the visitor's consent for cookies (Google).
Whose name should the GA4 account be in?
The GA4 account should be opened under the company's own Google account, and others should be given roles. Statistics are an asset that accumulates over the years: if the account stays on the contractor's personal email, it is often impossible to get it back and measurement starts from zero.
To give access, add the user's email in Admin → Account access management and choose a role (Analytics Help):
| Role | What they can do | Who gets it |
|---|---|---|
| Administrator | Everything, including managing users | The company's head and one person you trust |
| Editor | Changes settings, sets up events and key events | An agency, an analyst, a developer |
| Analyst | Creates reports and analyses, does not change settings | A marketer |
| Viewer | View only | Management, a colleague who reads the report |
When taking over a site, check three things: is GA4 in your account, are you an Administrator, and does the key event work. The remaining items of the handover checklist are in the checklist table in the article why a cheap website ends up costing more.
How does Advertol set up analytics?
At Advertol, analytics is built as an integral part of the website and advertising: when the site goes live, GA4, Search Console and ad pixels are connected under the client's own accounts, and form, call and WhatsApp enquiries are marked as key events. This way the ad budget is judged by enquiries rather than by the number of visits.
Clients also follow results in the AVA panel: ad results are visible live in this Advertol client panel. We showed with an example which figures a monthly report should contain in the article marketing report: what should an agency show every month.
Advertol is an agency based in Baku: Meta and Google advertising, SMM, website and mobile app development, CRM and AI automation are run by a single team. If you need a site with measurement set up correctly from the start, see how the website and app development service works.
Frequently asked questions
Is Google Analytics 4 free?
Yes, the standard version of GA4 is free and fully meets the needs of a small or medium-sized business. The paid version, Analytics 360, is for companies with very large traffic. All you need is a Google account and the ability to add code to the site.
Where can I see how many people visit my site?
Open the Reports section in GA4: the overview on the home page shows the number of users for the selected period. The Realtime report shows who is on the site now, and the Traffic acquisition report shows the breakdown by channel. If GA4 was not connected to the site, there is no data for the past: statistics are only collected after the code is connected.
Does GA4 show who exactly visited the site?
No, GA4 does not show a visitor's name, phone number or email; it provides aggregated statistics. Google requires site owners not to send personally identifiable information to Analytics. Who exactly made an enquiry is shown by the form, the CRM or call records.
Why don't the numbers in GA4 match the numbers in the ad account?
Because the systems count different things: the ad account counts clicks, while GA4 counts sessions that start on the site. A click where the page is closed before it loads does not appear in GA4, and several clicks by one person may count as one user. A small difference is normal; if the difference is large, check that the code is on all pages and check the UTM tags.
What happened to the old Universal Analytics data?
Universal Analytics stopped processing new data on 1 July 2023, and access to old properties was later closed as well. Old data is not transferred to GA4 automatically. If your site still has a code starting with "UA-", it no longer counts anything and should be replaced with GA4.
When should GA4 be connected?
On the day the site goes live. GA4 cannot recover the past: statistics for a period when the code was not connected are lost permanently. At least a few days before you start advertising, check that GA4 is working and that the key event is being recorded.
Conclusion
Google Analytics 4 is the free way to see how your site is doing with numbers rather than by feel. Open the account in the company's name, connect the code once and correctly, mark enquiries as key events and look at four reports once a month: Realtime, Traffic acquisition, Pages and screens and Key events. That is enough to see which channel brings customers and where the site loses enquiries.
If you need help setting up analytics or reading your existing figures, book a free strategy meeting or write to the Advertol team.
Sources
- Google Analytics Help — Set up Analytics for a website and/or app
- Google Analytics Help — Enhanced measurement events
- Google Analytics Help — Understand user metrics
- Google Analytics Help — Engagement rate and bounce rate
- Google Analytics Help — Mark events as key events
- Google Analytics Help — Realtime report
- Google Analytics Help — Data freshness
- Google Analytics Help — Default channel group
- Google Analytics Help — URL builders: collect campaign data with custom URLs
- Google Analytics Help — Filter out internal traffic
- Google Analytics Help — Data retention
- Google Analytics Help — Access and data-restriction management
- Google Analytics Help — Google Analytics 4 has replaced Universal Analytics, 16.07.2025
- Google Analytics Help — Available languages
- Google — EU user consent policy