GA4 for businesses: the 5 reports worth checking every month

Why does GA4 go unopened at most businesses?

Almost every site has Google Analytics installed. Very few businesses, though, open it regularly, and even fewer make decisions based on it. The reason is simple: Google Analytics 4 shows everything, so at first nobody sees anything. And if you once set up the old Universal Analytics, keep in mind that it stopped collecting data in July 2023. Today, only GA4 counts.

You don’t need every report. You need five, once a month, for about 15 minutes. But first, three settings that make the numbers reliable.

Before you start: three settings that change the numbers

• Data retention period. By default, GA4 keeps detailed data for Explorations for only 2 months. Change the Data retention setting in Admin to 14 months. The change doesn’t apply retroactively, so do it today.
• Filtering out your own traffic. Your team’s visits skew the data. Mark your office IPs as internal traffic (Define internal traffic) and activate the filter in Data filters. Until you activate it, the filter only runs in testing mode and doesn’t remove anything.
• Cookie consent. Since March 2024, Google has required Consent Mode v2 for visitors from the European Economic Area if you want measurement and remarketing for your ads. Make sure your cookie banner sends the consent signals correctly.

Report 1: Where your visitors come from

You’ll find it under Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition. Here you see your website traffic by channel: Organic Search (Google), Paid Search (ads), Direct, Organic Social, Referral, Email.

Don’t just look at the number of visits (sessions). Look at the engagement rate and key events per channel right next to it. A channel with few visits but many inquiries is worth more than one with lots of traffic that brings in nothing.

Always compare with the previous month and with the same month last year, so seasonality doesn’t fool you.

If you see a large share under “Unassigned,” something isn’t being measured correctly. The usual culprits are links in ads or newsletters without proper UTM parameters.

Report 2: Which pages hold on to visitors

You’ll find it under Reports → Engagement → Landing page. The landing page is the first page a visitor sees, and it often decides whether they stay.

In GA4, a visit counts as “engaged” when the visitor stayed at least 10 seconds, viewed two or more pages or took an action you’ve marked as important. The percentage of these visits is the engagement rate. Its opposite is the bounce rate.

Look for pages with lots of traffic and a low engagement rate. That’s where you lose the most people, and that’s where an improvement makes the biggest difference.

Report 3: What they do that matters to you

Since 2024, what we used to call “conversions” in GA4 is called key events: a purchase, a contact form, a click on your phone number, a newsletter signup. The term “conversions” is now reserved for what’s measured in Google Ads.

If you haven’t set up key events, GA4 measures visits but not results. Set up at least two or three that match your goals, from the Events section in Admin. For an e-shop, these are usually purchase, add_to_cart and begin_checkout. For a service business, form submissions, phone clicks and clicks on email or WhatsApp.

Every month, check how many key events you had and which channels they came from. That’s the number that ties to your revenue.

Report 4: Mobile or desktop

You’ll find it under Reports → Tech → Overview. You can also add the “Device category” dimension to the previous reports.

Compare engagement rate and key events between mobile and desktop. If mobile brings in most of the visits but far fewer inquiries, the problem usually isn’t the audience. It’s your site on mobile: slow loading, tiny buttons, tedious forms.

Also check which pages show the biggest gap between mobile and desktop. That’s where the fix starts.

Report 5: Which Google searches lead people to you

This report isn’t there by default. Link GA4 to Google Search Console (Admin → Search Console links). Then, from the Library, add the “Queries” and “Google organic search traffic” reports and publish the collection.

You’ll see the words your customers type, how many times you appeared, how many clicks you got and at what position. Searches with many impressions and few clicks are the quickest opportunities, because a better title and description are often all it takes.

Keep in mind that the data shows up with a delay of up to 48 hours and goes back up to 16 months.

From numbers to decisions

Data is only valuable when it changes something. End every monthly review with three questions:

• Which channel brought in the most key events and deserves more budget?
• Which page is losing the most visitors and needs fixing?
• Which search can we win next month?

To make it even faster, set up a free Looker Studio dashboard with these five reports on one page. That way, the monthly review takes five minutes instead of half an hour.

Measure right, decide more easily

GA4 isn’t a tool just for experts. It’s the most honest mirror of your marketing, as long as it’s set up correctly and you check it regularly. If you’re not sure about yours, start with the three settings in section 02.

At CNCTECH, we set up GA4 properly, define your key events, connect Search Console and Google Ads, and build dashboards you can read in a few minutes.