MA Exams | Data Tracking Set Up

1. Open the client’s GTM account
2. Click on “Tags” on the left side-bar and select “New”
3. Select “Tag Configuration”, then “Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration”
4. Go to the GA4 property in Google Analytics and copy the measurement ID by either typing “measurement ID” into the search box at the top and clicking the “copy” button that pops up, or you can go to the admin section, click on “Data Streams”, select the stream, and copy the measurement ID on the right side of the page
5. Go back to GTM and paste the ID into the “Measurement ID” box
6. Scroll down and select “Triggering”, then select “All Pages”, then “Save”
7. The tag should automatically rename itself to “Google Analytics GA4 Configuration”. Click “Save”
   • If you also created a Universal Analytics property for the client then you will also need to create a Universal Analytics tag.
8. Be sure to also publish the changes in GTM.

If for some reason your can’t use GTM on a website, GA4 will need to be installed in another way. Please let the Fulfillment Director know if you are unable to install GA4.

Goals Overview

Different goals we track in Analytics include destination, duration, pages per session, and event goals.

Destination – we use this the most commonly to track when someone fills out a form that redirects to a thank you page upon submission. We track whenever someone lands on the thank you page.

Event Goals: You already learned about these under the GTM section above, but we can use GTM to make events to track any actions taken on the site such as button clicks. Event goals are also used for tracking information sent to Google Analytics from a 3rd party, such as CallRail call tracking.

Duration – the amount of time a visitors spends on the site – this generally doesn’t provide direct monetary value, so we don’t usually use this type of goal.

Pages per session: the number of pages visited in one session – this generally doesn’t provide direct monetary value, so we don’t usually use this type of goal.

When setting up Data Tracking for a new client, go through their website and make a list of all the actions that would be important for a client – most often these are forms on the site that collect lead information, or phone calls. Once you’ve created a list of all the forms*, buttons, and phone numbers on the site (skip this step if the client uses CallRail), begin setting up goal tracking with Analytics and GTM.

*If the forms do not redirect to thank you pages, you will need to create a thank you page and redirect the form before setting up a goal. Learn how to do that with the following links:

Gravity Forms

Contact 7 Forms

Create Destination Events in GA4

1. Click on “Configure” on the left side-bar of the GA4 property in Analytics
2. If you have just created the property, it will probably say “Integrate the SDK and within 24 hours you’ll see your first event reports here”. If everything is set-up correctly, there should be some data displaying here soon, so don’t worry about it for now
3. Click on the blue “Create event” box on the right, then click “Create” in the upper right
4. Name the event, then in the empty “Value” box that corresponds to the pre-existing “event_name” parameter, enter “page_view”
5. Click “Add condition”, then enter “page_location” as the parameter. If you are wanting to track the entire URL (ex. https://sebotraining.com/data-tracking/) leave the operator as “equals”. If you just want the permalink (ex. /data-tracking/) then change the operator to “contains”. Enter the URL or permalink as the value
6. Optional: If the client wants to have a value associated with the event, click “Add modification” at the bottom. Enter “currency” as the parameter and set the “New Value” to the appropriate currency the client wants, usually “USD”. Click “Add modification” again, set the parameter to “value”, and enter the number value of the event in the “New Value” box
7. Click “Create” in the upper right
8. If you just barely created a new event it wont show up in the list of events until this event is triggered.  You can still set up this event as a “conversion” by going to the “Conversions” section and adding a new conversion.  Just label the event identical to the new event you created.  Otherwise, if the event already shows up in the list you can simply switch the toggle for “Mark as conversion”

Create Destination Events with GTM

(Most commonly used to track thank you pages for form fills).

1. Create a new tag inside of GTM – Choose “Google Analytics: GA4 Event”
2. Select the GA4 Event Configuration for the Configuration Tag
3. Set the event name to something, replace spaces with underscores – example: contact_form
4. If you also want to set a value for this event then you will need to add 2 parameters to this event:
   • Name: currency, Value: USD
   • Name: value, Value: {enter the value that this event is worth to you and the client}
5. For Triggering, choose an existing trigger if it meets your triggering needs.  Otherwise, click on the “+” in the corner to create a new trigger.
   In this case you will want to choose “Page View” and set it to “Some Page Views” where “Page URL” “Contains” “{the permalink to the page}”
6. Be sure to save and publish the tag and trigger inside GTM
7. Now you can go to GA4 and mark the event as a conversion once it shows up in the list or you can manually add it without waiting by going to conversions and adding this new event there.

Creating Other GA4 Events with GTM

1. The easiest way to make non-destination based event goals is by using Tag Manager, so navigate to “Tags” on the left side-bar of the GTM container. Select “New”, then set the Tag Configuration to “Google Analytics: GA4 Event”, set the configuration tag to “Google Analytics GA4 Configuration”, name the event, and select the appropriate trigger(s) from the list.
2. Click on the plus sign in the upper right corner of the “Choose a trigger” screen, then select “Trigger Configuration”. Choose the desired trigger type from the list and set it up according to the fields it requires (Sometimes you might need to create another variable in order to create the trigger. For example, making a button click trigger might require first creating a “Click Class” variable so the trigger knows what to look for. Name the trigger and click “Save” in the upper right
3. The new trigger should automatically be selected as the trigger for the event. If you want multiple triggers on the same tag, click the plus button above the new tag. If you want to exclude some events from triggering the tag, click on “Add Exception” and choose the trigger you want to ignore. When you are done, rename the tag whatever you want followed by “GA4”, then click “Save” in the upper right
4. Once all your events and any other tags and variables have been added, click “Submit” in the upper right, then “Publish” in the upper right again
5. Once these events happen they will start showing up inside GA4.  You can mark this event as a conversion inside of GA4 just as you would any other type of event.
6. Click the 3 dots by the conversion to change the counting method. Change  it to “Once per session.”