Updated: 5/18/23
This guide was made to explain the essentials of creating a Google Analytics 4 (GA4) Account on Wix. This works for both individual accounts and small agencies looking to manage multiple accounts. This guide also fixes the gaps between GA4 and Wix with the use of Google Tag Manager (GTM).
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool provided by Google that helps website owners track and analyze various aspects of their website's performance. It provides valuable insights into user behavior, website traffic, conversions, and other metrics to help businesses make data-driven decisions.
Google Analytics can track a wide range of data points, including the number of visitors to your website, the pages they visit, the time spent on each page, the sources of traffic (such as search engines, social media, or referral websites), conversion rates, and more. It provides detailed reports and metrics to help you understand how users interact with your website.
Google Analytics works by inserting a tracking code snippet into your website's HTML. This code collects anonymous data about visitors to your site and sends it to Google's servers. The data is then processed and presented in the form of reports and visualizations in the Google Analytics interface.
Why you should be using GA for your Business:
Understanding user behavior: It helps you gain insights into how users interact with your website and identify areas for improvement.
Optimizing marketing efforts: You can track the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, identify the most valuable traffic sources, and allocate resources accordingly.
Improving website performance: By analyzing user data, you can optimize your website's design, content, and user experience to enhance engagement and conversions.
Measuring ROI: Google Analytics allows you to track conversions and revenue, providing insights into the return on investment (ROI) of your marketing activities.
Why Google Analytics 4?
Google Analytics 4 is free and allows the measurement of traffic and management across your website. The new edition, the reason for the 4, collects event-based data from your website using cookieless measurement and behavior conversion modeling. After July 1, 2023 new data will only flow through GA4, as opposed to going through Universal Analytics. When you add the code from GA to your website GA drops a cookie on the visitor's browser. That cookie collects the info and is able to be displayed on different reports in GA. GA4 uses event-based data instead of cookies, this means it can track things like file downloads and video views too. The main reason for GA4 is to add more privacy for the people using the websites, especially since many are worried (or relieved) that cookies will likely be leaving soon.
GA4 is better because of:
Enhanced User-Centric Measurement: GA4 focuses on a more holistic and user-centric approach to measurement. It provides a more accurate view of user behavior across devices, platforms, and channels. By capturing data from multiple touchpoints, including websites, apps, and offline interactions, GA4 enables a deeper understanding of user journeys and customer interactions.
Future-Proofing Data and Privacy Compliance: GA4 is designed to comply with evolving privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). It incorporates privacy-centric features, like enhanced data controls and user consent management, which help businesses meet regulatory requirements and build trust with users.
Machine Learning and Advanced Insights: GA4 leverages Google's machine learning capabilities to provide more advanced insights and predictive analytics. It offers smarter and more actionable reports, such as enhanced measurement of cross-device and cross-platform interactions, user lifetime value, and churn prediction. These insights help businesses make data-driven decisions and optimize their marketing efforts.
Event-Driven Data Model: GA4 introduces an event-driven data model that enables businesses to capture and analyze specific user interactions, known as events, across their digital properties. This flexible and customizable approach allows businesses to track and measure unique actions, conversions, or engagements that align with their specific goals and objectives.
Integration with Google Ads and Other Google Products: GA4 provides seamless integration with Google Ads and other Google marketing tools, making it easier to unify data across platforms and optimize advertising campaigns. This integration allows for better tracking of conversions, audience segmentation, and attribution modeling to improve overall marketing performance.
Simplified and Streamlined Interface: GA4 offers a redesigned and more intuitive user interface compared to Universal Analytics. The interface is designed to be user-friendly, making it easier for businesses to navigate and access key reports and insights. It provides a more seamless and efficient user experience for managing and analyzing data.
How Wix Connects
GA4 and GTM seamlessly integrate with each other, providing a cohesive tracking and analytics solution for your Wix website. You can easily link your GA4 property with GTM, allowing you to manage and deploy GA4 tags alongside other tracking tags within the GTM interface. This integration ensures consistent and accurate data collection, allowing you to have a holistic view of your website's performance.
With GA4 and GTM attached to a Wix website, you can track pageviews, conversions, button clicks, form submissions, video plays, and more. This comprehensive tracking allows you to gain insights into user behavior, identify trends, and measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
GTM offers flexibility in managing your tracking setup. You can make changes to tags, triggers, and variables without relying on web developers or making code modifications. This agility allows you to quickly adapt your tracking requirements, add or remove tags, and respond to changes in your marketing strategies.
The combination of GA4 and GTM on Wix enables you to collect and analyze data that can drive informed decision-making. By understanding user behavior, engagement patterns, and conversion metrics, you can identify opportunities for improvement, optimize your website's user experience, and enhance your marketing strategies to achieve better results.
Google Analytics 4 Set Up with Wix
To start this process you must be on Google Chrome. Log into the Google Account you want to admin Google Analytics in the Chrome browser. Open two tabs, one is the Wix website logged in and the other is the homepage for Google Analytics (GA). From there follow the steps below to link your website to GA4 and some modifications to make when first exploring GA4.
Below are step-by-step instructions on how to set up your Wix website with GA4 on Tango. It works best if you click "Open larger" and have one window open with the steps and another window situated side by side with the GA4 and WIX tabs. If Tango doesn't work you can use this link to see the steps.
Things to keep in mind as an agency: It works best if agencies create individual accounts for each of their clients. This will prevent any mix-ups in the future and keep the data in order. This requires a separate Google account for each client. Some agencies will be tempted to create one GA account and make each client a property this is where it gets messy and is best to just avoid it.
Google Tag Manager & GA4 with Wix
We disabled page views and form interactions when setting up GA4. This was done because the Wix connect with GA4 doesn't work well and may fire when not triggered making the data less accurate. To fix this gap Google Tag Manager (GTM) is used to add a tag in the code of the website, so when tripped it triggers GA4 to record the data.
Below is the step-by-step guide to follow after finishing the GA4 setup. Open the Tango window and your Wix and GA4 window and add a tab for Google Tag Manager (still under the same browser logged in) to get started. Keep in mind there are two Tango steps for GTM because the process requires more details. If Tango doesn't work for you here are the links for the first and second steps.
Note: This tutorial is basic and surface level there are so many things you can do with both GA4 and GTM. To simplify this process no coding or backend explanation for doing things was shown. This is why it is so important to type exactly what I put in the steps, they connect to backend coding and if they are misspelled or wrongly capitalized the process will not work.
Definitions
Tags: bits of code ingrained in your website that collect data on your website visitors (GTM simplifies this process to use minimal coding)
Triggers: Instructions for when tags are fired, when someone on your website trips a tag it triggers GA4 to collect the data under something like link click or page view
Variables (looks like the puzzle piece): additional pieces of info to precisely define what the tag or trigger should do
Collecting Data
Now that we have GA4 and GTM set up for your website it will take at most 24-48 hours to settle itself and start collecting data.
Conclusion
To find more information and understand the coding behind this simplified process check out the videos and resources below that were used to create this post. This post is very surface-level, but it gets the job done and GA4 will be collecting data in no time.
I hope this guide was helpful in explaining the basics of setting up Google Analytics 4 on your Wix website using Google Tag Manager. Please keep in mind that some parts of this guide may become outdated as Google Analytics and Wix continue to evolve. To ensure you have the most up-to-date information, be sure to check out the resources and links provided in the Sources section.
Thanks for reading,
The Elevate Team
Sources:
https://support.wix.com/en/article/tracking-events-on-your-wix-site-with-a-google-analytics-property