[Lily]

I’m afraid it’s a tough situation right now because I’ve not come across a specific NuGet package for GA4 yet, especially for .NET Standard 2.0. But you might want to consider alternatives like the Google Tag Manager if things don’t work out. Hang in there, hopefully, something pops up soon!

[Lily]

The http referrer field and UTM parameters both allow Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to track the origin of user traffic. In this case, you’re asking if a visitor came from LinkedIn, followed a link that included both UTM parameters and an http referrer field, which would GA4 apply to the report.

For your first question, GA4 would assign the source/medium tracking according to your UTM parameters because they are manually set by you and tend to be more specific than the http referrer. So in the report table, the source/medium will be listed as “linkedin/testsocialpost.”

For your second question, if two different people visit your website from two different LinkedIn posts, where one post includes UTM parameters and the other doesn’t, both parameters will be represented in the GA4 reports. One will show as “linkedin/testsocialpost” (from the link with the UTM parameters) and the other as “linkedin.com/referral” (from the post without UTM parameters). GA4 is able to differentiate and track both sources in this case. In general, keep in mind that UTM parameters are a more customized and specific method of tracking your source mediums compared to the more automatic http referrer field.

[Lily]

It sounds like you’re experiencing a common issue where events are being logged twice in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) through Google Tag Manager (GTM). This could be due to a number of reasons. Firstly, check if the same tracking code has been inserted twice. This can occur if the code has been manually put into the website and also implemented via GTM. Another reason could be that you have the same tags firing twice in GTM, so you should check your tag firing order and rules. Also, check any third-party plugins you’re using, as these can interfere with GA4. It could potentially be that an event listener is triggering GA4 events twice. In any case, the way you can investigate this is by using Tag Assistant by Google, using DebugView in GA4, and investigating the website’s source code. Remember to ensure only one implementation method (either hardcoding or GTM) is being used to avoid duplication of events.

[Lily]

Yo!

I’ve cracked it! Basically, you was on the right track with that article you found (this one: [custom event GA4](https://www.delasign.com/blog/custom-ga-event-reactjs-gatsbyjs/)), you just need to tweak it a bit.

In **step 2**, switch up the ‘TrackGoogleAnalyticsEvent’ method like this:

`
const TrackGoogleAnalyticsEvent = (
category,
event_name,
label,
data
) => {
console.log(“GA event:”, category, “:”, event_name, “:”, label);

let event_params = {
category,
label,
…data
};
// This will send your GA4 Event
ReactGA4.event(event_name, event_params);
};
`

Then, on the client side, just pop the following code in:

`
TrackGoogleAnalyticsEvent(
“game_over”,
“message shown”,
window.location.pathname + window.location.search,
{ id: 1234, username: “john” }
);
`

Here’s a little tip: you can stuff as many parameters as you like into the JSON object.

Take a look at the [‘react-ga4’ package](https://github.com/codler/react-ga4) for more deets.

[Lily]

Unfortunately, if your tracker has been set up to work with Universal Analytics (UA), you’ll need a UA-XXXX property ID in order to get your tracking data. If you’re wanting to use GA4, you’re going to need to find a tracker that’s compatible with it and can handle the G-XXXX code format.

[Lily]

The issue you are facing might originate from a variety of factors as tracking events in Google Analytics can sometimes be tricky and intricate. Firstly, it’s worth making sure that you’ve implemented the event tracking code correctly on the page where the event occurs. If still, the event doesn’t show up, you can try using Tag Assistant, which will verify if you’ve correctly installed various Google tags on your pages. You might also need to configure the event in your GA4 dashboard so that it recognizes the ‘search’ event when it receives the data. The GA4 documentation should provide the necessary details on how to set up an event. Another point to consider is that maybe the GA4 server is just slow to process the data, leading to the delay. However, this is quite rare. Lastly, it might be a bug in the GA4 system; it’s worth reaching out to the Google Analytics Support Team.

[Lily]

Based on your code, it seems like you’ve done most of the initial configuration correctly. However, there’s an important detail about GA4 that might be causing your issue: unlike the previous versions of Google Analytics, GA4 handles e-commerce data in a slightly different way. In GA4, the ‘purchase’ action (which tracks conversions) requires a specific data structure called the ‘item’ array which you have used correctly. However, please make sure to replace ‘SKUID’, ‘Name’, and ‘19.00’ with actual values and ensure that ‘G-TESTSTRING’ is replaced with your actual Google Analytics Measurement ID.

Besides, GA4 also uses some new specific names for the event parameters. Here you should replace ‘event_action’ and ‘event_category’ with ‘transaction_id’ and ‘affiliation’. If such changes don’t take effect, the problem could be due to other factors such as the Google Tag patch not being implemented properly or tracking being blocked by browser privacy settings. It’s also possible that there might be some delay for the data to come up on the Google Analytics dashboard. Therefore, it’s best to try all these troubleshooting steps before concluding the root of the problem.

[Lily]

Sure thing! To report server-side conversions to Google Ads, you need to use the Google Ads Conversion Tracking tag or the Google Ads API to report conversions directly from your server. To attribute conversions to the original user, pass the Google Click Identifier (GCLID), which is stored in a cookie when the user first clicks on the ad, along with the conversion details from your server.

[Lily]

Reimagining a Google Analytics dashboard can be challenging, especially when handling custom queries in BigQuery. If you’re running into hiccups with your custom event data, it might really help to try a query builder like Analytics Canvas. They even have a free trial, so it’s a no-risk way to validate your results and hopefully clear up your roadblocks.

Admittedly, navigating SQL can be a bit of a juggling act. Just remember when you’re using Looker Studio with BigQuery directly, it shoots out separate queries for each component of the report, like each chart, table, and even scorecard. To keep things tidy, it might be smart to use date partitioned summary tables which could save you from jumbled results, especially when compared to working with raw GA4 export tables. Stay patient, keep experimenting with your approach, and you’ll get there!

[Lily]

Unfortunately, no current API, including the Google Analytics Data API, allows you to open an already existing GA4 report. All Google APIs provide raw data as JSON, so if you want to access information from an existing report, you would need to recreate the report yourself by using the same dimensions, metrics and dates to make the request.

There is a Google Analytics Embedded API that was designed for the Google Analytics core reporting API, but it only works with Universal Analytics. I’ve reached out to the Google team and was informed there are no current plans to make it compatible with GA4.

[Lily]

Sure, let me break it down.

Instead of relying solely on the Google Analytics 4 (GA4) reference, you can actually dig into the network traffic that Google’s GA4 JavaScript sends. This allows you to see how the data is collected and what parameters are used.

You can find this information by looking at the network tab in your browser’s developer tools and inspecting the packets sent to https://region1.google-analytics.com/g/collect.

The data that is sent contains various parameters such as the version (v), the Google Measurement ID (tid), geo data (gcs), client ID (cid), user language (ul), and more.

Now, here’s the interesting part. You can also send a GET request to the same URL with your own data. You can replace parameters as necessary and leave out the ones that you’re not sure about. In the example given, they were able to get their data (like screen resolution) to show up in their GA4 reports, even though this info was previously missing.

However, the full potential of this method hasn’t been unlocked yet. They weren’t sure how to transmit information about GA4 custom dimensions and custom metrics, which could prove valuable.

So while this doesn’t fully answer the question about Universal Analytics parameters in GA4, hopefully it gives you a new way to approach your data tracking and consider how you can augment the built-in auto-fill capabilities of the GA4 Measurement Protocol.