Google Analytics 4 Integration (Agency Plans)

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is Google’s new property designed to collect both web and app data. GA4 uses events instead of Universal Analytics’ customary session-based data.

This article will cover 

1. How to connect your CTM and GA4 accounts for Growth, Connect, Marketing Pro, Sales Engage, and Enterprise plans
2. How to view your CTM data in GA4
3. Tips CTM has learned along the way

Prerequisite: 

Before beginning the setup process in CTM you will need to create a 

• GA4 Property
• At least one Web Data Stream, and 
• API Secret in your GA4 account(s).

At this time, CTM is only supporting the use of a Web Data Stream. 

Take a look at Google’s helpful article on creating a new GA4 Property and Web 

Data Stream.

Once these prerequisite steps are completed you will be ready to connect CTM to your GA4 account.

Getting Started

1. Go to Integrations >Google Analytics 4 >Settings
2. Link a Google Analytics user to the integration
3. Click New Data Stream Link
   • We will automatically match session data to the corresponding data stream.
4. Assign the account(s) by moving them from the right to the left box and Save changes.

Options

5. Customizing Event names is now simple using the built-in toggles. We can indicate if the events are first-time or repeat callers, or apply the direction of the activity within the event name.

6. Turn on the prevention toggle to “Prevent duplicate events from being sent from a single activity to the same Data Stream.”
7. Save Changes

Workflows

Create custom mappings and set up workflows to send data in the most useful context, whether activities are sent as Sales based or Lead-based events. 

If using the GA3 Equivalent Event Data, this is what is included:

Completing

Once you have completed the steps on this page in the breadcrumbs, click GA4 Settings to return to the integration page. 

The account(s) will be listed here, and you can make changes to this by clicking Edit.

Supplemental Event Trigger

If you need to send supplemental events to GA4, you can do so by creating a Trigger with different conditions that will get evaluated alongside any conditions already set in the GA4 integration. Once the conditions are met, it will send a second event for the same activity. 

1. Navigate to Flows > Triggers.
2. Create the trigger and add a workflow with the criteria needed.
3. Within the workflow, click Add Action and choose Send GA4 Events. 
4. If you want to manually create an event, click on the arrow to the left of Advance, then check the box for Manually create GA4 event.

Viewing your CTM data in GA4:

CTM also recommends creating a Custom Dimension in your GA4 account. This will ensure the event data sent from CTM will persist in your GA4 account once it leaves the Google real-time report. Data on the real-time report is only available for 30 minutes.

Check out this helpful information on how to create Custom Dimensions in your GA4 account.

CTM Notes:

• At this time, CTM is only sending event data to GA4 no attribution will be pulled into CTM using GA4.
• CTM recommends using custom dimensions so you don’t lose access to your data once it’s removed from the real-time report by Google.

Read Google’s article Introducing Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

Looking for additional guidance and resources?

• Visit our GA4 Hub, which offers some of our best resources to prepare you for the change to GA4.
• Download our Google Tools Checklist to help guide your approach to GA4, Ads, and more.
• Let our Professional Services team take the stress out of optimizing your Google tools with our Google Tools Boost Pack.
• If you are running into an issue with OAuth2 error after clicking the "Sign in with Google" button this is likely due to the domain you are using to connect to Google.   The primary app.calltrackingmetrics.com domain is needed for most integrations when connecting with CallTrackingMetrics.