[Gabriel]

It sounds like the situation you’re experiencing is likely due to the nature of how custom dimensions and metrics work. When you create a new dimension or metric, it doesn’t retroactively apply to pre-existing data. That’s because, when data is sent to Google Analytics, it includes the dimensions and metrics at that point in time. Any dimension or metric created subsequently wouldn’t apply to this data. That’s likely why you’re seeing data from the 8th onwards, which is when the new dimension was created. It’s a standard behavior rather than an anomaly. As for the identical results in both GA4 Magic Reports and SyncWith addons, they fetch data from Google Analytics using the same principles, so this is also expected. To have insights from a certain period with a custom dimension or metric, you should create and apply this dimension/metric at the start of that period.

[Gabriel]

In GA4, tracking actions such as questionnaire interactions is done by logging events. An event is simply an action that happens on your site, like a user clicking a button or completing a form. Ideally, you would want to set up individual events for each question in your questionnaire. As users interact with questionnaire, analytics registers these events. You can then utilize analytics to view the sequence of these events which would give you an equivalent of a funnel. GA4 allows you to define ‘events’ based on user interaction and it is more flexible compared to the previous Universal Analytics, where event categorizations were used. To track the point where users drop off, you need to set an event at each question, so when a user doesn’t trigger the next event you know they have dropped off after the last question they completed. Setting up events in GA4 might require some technical knowledge for implementation, so you may need the help of a developer if you’re not comfortable with this.

[Gabriel]

Adjusting your Google Apps Script to stimulate a button click can be a bit complex, especially if the interface has changed. Unfortunately, Google Apps Script doesn’t have the ability to simulate a click on an image or button in Google Sheets directly like it interacts with cells. This is due to the fact that Google Apps Script is a server-side script and can’t interact with the client-side. What could be done, however, is to create a function in the script to refresh your Google Analytics v4 data. You can then set a trigger for this function to run at your desired intervals to simulate the data refresh. It may require changing your approach a bit but should give you the same results as the button click. To do this, you’d likely need to contact SyncWith to request their API they’ve employed in the new setup or ask if they have a script function that can bypass the button click and refresh directly.

[Gabriel]

The Google Analytics 4 tag doesn’t behave like the previous Universal Analytics tag where you could define custom dimensions at the tag level which would persist with each subsequent hit. In GA4, the parameters captured in an event do not carry over to the subsequent events.

As for firing your GA4 configuration tag multiple times, it’s not inherently problematic but can lead to data quality issues because firing multiple times could reset existing parameters or user properties. It’s generally a good practice to fire it once on page load and then use dynamic triggers for event tags as needed.

Regarding ‘fields to set’ not showing up in the GA debug view, note that ‘fields to set’ is used for configuring certain settings in Google Analytics itself, not for sending data. So, if you want to pass custom data like ‘Module’ and ‘Menu’, you’ll instead want to add these to event parameters or as user properties, not in ‘fields to set’.

[Gabriel]

It appears that the issue lies in the interactions between the measurement protocol and GA4, particularly when it comes to creating custom events based on parameters given in the measurement protocol. It might be that these custom parameters aren’t being recognized as they should be. Custom parameters often need to be specified in the GA4 settings in order to ensure they’re being read properly. Make sure your ‘user_plan’ parameter has been registered in GA4 admin settings, in the custom definitions section. It’s also worth noting that custom parameters and events can take up to 24 hours to start appearing in your reports. So, even if everything is set up correctly, you may just need to wait. Also, it’s useful to validate events and parameters with DebugView or a third-party tool. If the issue persists, reaching out to GA technical support may be necessary so they can dig into the issue further.

[Gabriel]

There seem to be two main issues you’re encountering with Osano’s Cookie Consent Manager. First, you’re noticing that even after a user opts out of having cookies track their data, the cookies aren’t removed and there is no change in the “Expires / Max Age” field. This might occur because the mechanism for removing or updating the cookie may not be functioning as expected. An alternative explanation could be that cookies set by Google Analytics 4 are not instantly deleted but could take some time to be removed.

The second issue revolves around Google Analytics 4 cookies not appearing in the “Storage Preference Drawer” under the Analytics section in your Osano dashboard. Because most cookie consent solution providers, including Osano, don’t manually curate the list of specific cookies for each category (like “Analytics”), the content in the storage preference drawer might be more of a general summary of the analytics cookies rather than an exhaustive listing. For instance, the drawer might mention that Analytics cookies help websites understand user interaction, without explicitly listing the specific GA4 cookies encountered on your site.

In order to better understand and address the issues you are facing, I recommend reaching out to Osano’s support team for deeper troubleshooting and guidance.

[Gabriel]

Yes, it is possible to get gtag('event', ...) calls on the same footing with GA as if gtag('config', ...) has been called. The key lies in proper GTM configuration – you need to ensure the GA4 configuration tag runs on all pages before anything else so it can set up the necessary framework. This problem essentially stems from sequencing since every tag in GTM is run asynchronously or simultaneously. If GTM has not finished instantiating the GA4 config before the gtag('event', ...) call is made, the command will fail.

As for setting up a GTA trigger/tag that tosses raw data straight to GA4, yes, you can do that too. GTM provides custom event triggers that could be used to send raw data to GA4 with a custom event tag. This requires a good understanding of the Event Builder in GA4, which allows you to create events based on user interactions and send them to GA4 via GTM.