Google Analytics 4 (GA4) organizes the interactions your tag is configured to collect as events: page views, certain scrolls and clicks, and form submissions when those events are captured. Most of its interface can wait. Start with Traffic acquisition (where visits came from), Pages and screens (what people viewed), and a check that your most valuable actions are recorded as key events. Key events are a setting and metric used across reports, not a separate report.
Those are the GA4 views and key-event numbers I check on johnserra.com. The rest of this guide explains how GA4 counts things, where to find the reports in a common menu layout, how to test tracking, and what you can safely skip. The examples use a made-up bookkeeping firm, not a real site.
Why GA4 Feels Confusing
If you used the older version of Google Analytics (Universal Analytics, whose standard properties stopped processing data on July 1, 2023, with historical access ending in 2024), you may remember reports built around sessions and pageviews. You opened it, and a dashboard told you how many visits you'd had and which pages they saw.
GA4 counts differently. Every interaction is an event, and each event has a name:
page_viewwhen a page loadsscrollwhen 90% of a page becomes visible, if enhanced measurement is enabledclickwhen someone follows a link to another websiteform_submitfor supported form interactions when enhanced measurement catches them;generate_leadis a separate recommended event that you set up
Google built it this way so websites and mobile apps could be measured in the same system. The cost for a small business is that GA4 is more flexible and less obvious. Reports you'd expect aren't always on the menu, the vocabulary changed, and some of the most visible features are meant for people who analyze data full time.
The good news is that you need very little of it.
A Plain-English Translation Table
| What you might call it | What GA4 calls it | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Visits | Sessions | A period of activity on your site by one visitor |
| Unique visitors | Users (or active users) | Distinct browsers or devices, not exactly distinct people |
| Pageviews | Views (the page_view event) |
A page loaded |
| Goals or conversions | Key events | An action you've marked as valuable, like a form submission |
| Where a visit came from | Session source / medium, or session default channel group | The site, search engine, or campaign that sent the visit |
| Bounce rate | Engagement rate (bounce rate is its inverse) | Share of visits that showed real interest |
Two of these need a closer look.
Users aren't people. GA4 counts browsers and devices. Someone who visits on a phone at lunch and a laptop that evening can count as two users. Treat user counts as approximate.
Engagement replaced the old bounce rate. GA4 counts a session as engaged if it lasted longer than 10 seconds, included a key event, or included at least two page views. Engagement rate is the share of sessions that were engaged, and GA4's bounce rate is simply the rest. A visitor who reads one article for three minutes now counts as engaged, which is closer to how you'd judge it yourself.
Report 1: Traffic Acquisition (Where Did Visitors Come From?)
Where to find it in the Life cycle collection: Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition. A property using a Business objectives or customized collection may place the same report elsewhere; use the report library or ask an Editor to add it if it is missing.
This report answers "which sources are sending visitors, and do any of them produce inquiries?" Each row is a channel. The default grouping is called session default channel group, and for a small business the common rows are:
- Organic Search: unpaid results from Google, Bing, and other search engines
- Direct: someone typed your address, used a bookmark, or GA4 couldn't tell where they came from
- Referral: a link on another website
- Organic Social: unpaid posts on social platforms
- Paid Search and Email, if you run ads or send newsletters
The columns that matter are Sessions, Engaged sessions, and Key events.
The one habit that changes how you read it: sort by key events, not sessions. GA4 sorts by volume by default, so the channel sending the most visitors sits at the top whether or not those visitors ever contact you.
[Illustrative example: a synthetic bookkeeping firm.] Last month, Organic Social sent 900 sessions and 2 key events. Referral, mostly from a local business association's member directory, sent 140 sessions and 6 key events. Sorted by sessions, social looks like the winner. Sorted by key events, the directory listing is doing three times the work with a sixth of the traffic.
"Direct" deserves some skepticism. It includes typed addresses and bookmarks, but also visits GA4 couldn't attribute, such as links in some apps and private messages. If you share campaign links in newsletters or social posts, tag the links you control with UTM parameters so those visits can be identified. A tagged newsletter link looks like https://example.com/services?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=october-update. Google's free Campaign URL Builder assembles these for you. Don't add UTM tags to links inside your own site, because that overwrites the original source of the visit.
Report 2: Pages and Screens (What Did They Look At?)
Where to find it in the Life cycle collection: Reports → Engagement → Pages and screens. In other report collections, look for Pages and screens by name.
This report lists every page on your site with its views, users, and average engagement time. It answers "which pages get attention?"
Read it with two questions:
- Are my commercial pages getting seen by the right visitors? A service page can work without ranking near the top by total views. If it gets few views and few inquiries, check whether visitors can reach it from relevant entry pages.
- Which pages deserve a closer look? Average engagement time estimates how long the page was in the foreground. Read it alongside the page's purpose and useful actions; low time alone does not show that the headline failed.
To see which pages people arrive on, rather than every page they view, use the Landing page report (under Reports → Engagement in the Life cycle collection). Its placement may differ in your property. That report can show key events by landing page, so you can investigate which entry pages lead to inquiries.
[Illustrative example: the same synthetic firm.] Its most-viewed page is an article on year-end payroll deadlines, with 600 views and no key events. Its "Monthly bookkeeping" service page has 90 views and 5 key events. The article may be drawing readers who have no obvious next step. A short line near the end, linking to the service page, is a better use of an hour than writing another article.
Check 3: Key Events (Did Anyone Contact You?)
A GA4 setup without useful key events tells you about visits but little about whether visitors took the actions you care about. Key events connect those actions to the acquisition and page reports above.
What should count as a key event
For most small businesses:
- A completed contact form
- A click on your phone number (
tel:link) from a mobile device - A booked appointment, if you use a scheduling tool
- A purchase, if you sell online
Pick the two or three actions that genuinely lead to revenue. Marking every click as a key event makes the number meaningless.
How to mark an event as a key event
- With Editor access to the property, go to Admin → Data display → Events.
- Find the event, such as
form_submitorgenerate_lead. - Mark it as a key event by clicking the star icon next to it.
This only works for events GA4 is already recording. GA4's enhanced measurement can record some form submissions automatically, but it doesn't catch every form, and phone clicks usually need an extra tag. It can also fire on the wrong thing, such as a search box or newsletter field. Forms embedded from other tools (HubSpot, Typeform, Calendly) or shown in popups often go unrecorded, so they usually need manual event setup.
If your event isn't in the list, it may simply not have fired yet, so run the test in the next section first. If it still doesn't appear, the setup is incomplete, and whoever built your site or manages your tags needs to add it.
A common fallback is a "thank you" page after the form. Don't mark page_view itself as a key event, because that would count every page load. Instead, create a new event under Admin → Data display → Events → Create event that fires only when the page location contains your thank-you page's address (for example /thank-you), and mark that new event as the key event.
Marking a key event only counts from that day forward. It doesn't backfill earlier data, so set it up before you judge results.
Where to see them
Once marked, key events appear as a column in Traffic acquisition and the Landing page report, and in the event reports under Reports → Engagement.
How to Check That Tracking Works in Two Minutes
Before trusting any of these numbers, confirm GA4 is recording what you think it is:
- Open your website in a private or incognito browser window.
- In your normal browser, open GA4 and go to Reports → Realtime.
- In the private window, submit a test form or tap your phone link on a mobile device.
- Watch the Event count by Event name card in Realtime. Realtime typically updates within minutes; allow for a short delay.
- Check that the same event shows up as a key event.
If Realtime is inconclusive, GA4's DebugView (Admin → Data display → DebugView) shows each event as it arrives from a device in debug mode, and Google Tag Manager's preview mode or Tag Assistant can turn that on.
If nothing appears after several minutes, investigate before concluding that tracking is broken. Confirm you opened the intended property and data stream, check the site's tag and consent state, and see whether an internal-traffic filter hid your test. A phone on mobile data can help test outside an office filter. If the action still does not appear, inspect the event setup.
Delete or mark your test submission in whatever system receives the form, so it doesn't count as a real inquiry.
What to Skip
GA4 has a lot of features that are useful to someone. For most small businesses, these can wait:
- Explore. A drag-and-drop workspace for building custom analyses: funnels, paths, free-form tables. It's powerful and meant for analysts. The standard reports answer the owner's questions.
- Watching Realtime. It's useful for testing, as above. As a daily habit, watching who's on your site right now is entertaining and rarely changes a decision.
- Predictive metrics and audiences. GA4 can predict purchase and churn likelihood, but only when a site has enough purchase and return history to meet Google's minimums, which most small business sites don't.
- Monetization reports, unless you sell online. Service businesses don't have the data these reports need.
- Demographics and tech details. Browser versions, screen sizes, and age brackets are occasionally useful for a site redesign. They don't belong in a monthly review.
A Five-Minute Monthly GA4 Check
Once a month:
- Set the date range to last month and turn on comparison with the preceding period.
- Open Traffic acquisition and sort by key events. Note total key events and the top three channels by key events.
- Open the Landing page report. Check that your main service pages and best articles are still bringing in engaged visits and key events.
- Copy the numbers onto your scorecard. My rule is four to seven metrics, depending on the business, and none that don't move the needle. Choose website numbers that support a decision rather than copying every GA4 card.
- Close GA4 until next month, unless you're testing a specific change.
If your scorecard lives in a spreadsheet, how to build a monthly KPI scorecard shows a layout that holds website numbers alongside the rest of the business.
Do You Need GA4 at All?
GA4 is free, detailed, and the default choice. It's also complicated, and it sets cookies, which may mean a consent banner depending on where your visitors are. Simpler privacy-focused tools like Umami and Plausible show pages, sources, and events with far less to learn, and I use Umami on a second site. What matters is that whatever tool you use can show three things: where visitors came from, which pages they landed on, and whether they contacted you.
If you're using GA4 already, start with the two reports and key-event check above. It costs nothing to use the standard product, and staying with a tool that covers your needs is usually the right call for a small business.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happened to conversions in GA4?
Google renamed them key events in 2024. The term "conversions" now refers to key events used in Google Ads. For your own website reporting, key events are what you want.
Does GA4 still have bounce rate?
Yes. GA4 defines bounce rate as the share of sessions that weren't engaged, the opposite of engagement rate. You can add it to reports, but engagement rate tells you the same thing.
Why don't my GA4 numbers match my other tools?
Different tools count visitors and sessions differently, ad blockers and consent choices hide some visits from GA4, and each tool handles bots its own way. Use each tool's numbers consistently over time rather than trying to make them agree.
How long does GA4 keep my data?
Standard reports keep aggregated data. Explorations are limited by a data retention setting (Admin → Data collection and modification → Data retention) that defaults to two months. Change it from 2 months to 14 months, the longest option in a standard property, if you might use Explore later. The setting doesn't affect standard reports.
Do I need Google Tag Manager?
Not for the basics. The GA4 tag and enhanced measurement cover page views, scrolls, outbound clicks, and some form submissions. Tag Manager helps when you need events GA4 doesn't collect on its own, such as phone clicks or a form that enhanced measurement misses.