Understanding how to access event parameters in GA4 User Explorer for user exploration

[Raj]

Absolutely, happy to provide some guidance!

In GA4 you have to use the analysis hub to access this information. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Launch Google Analytics and select your property.
2. In the left sidebar, navigate to ‘Explore’.
3. In the Analysis hub, choose the ‘Free Form’ analysis type available.
4. Here, you would use the ‘Rows’ dimension for ‘event_name’ and within the ‘Values’ you would select the specific events such as page_view, scroll, or session_start etc.
5. If you need to see the page_path, you can add that in the ‘Rows’ section too where it shows event parameters as Event Parameter: page_location which is equivalent to page_path in Universal Analytics (UA).

Do keep in mind that GA4 is quite different from UA in terms of event tracking and you may not see everything in the same way. Regarding click events, they show up as ‘engagement’ in GA4 as opposed to clicks in UA. If they are not showing up, it might be because of GA4 setup.

To ensure typical clicks are automatically tracked in GA4, you need to enable enhanced measurement of events for your property. You can find useful information on this topic in the link I shared earlier.

Remember, it will take a bit of practice to become familiar with GA4. Good luck with your exploration!

[Ella]

To view the specifics of user events in GA4 such as page_view, scroll, session_start, and similar, you need to follow these steps. Firstly, from the GA4 home page, navigate to the Engagement Report in the left-hand-side menu. Within Engagement, click on Events. Now you’ll see a list of events, and you can click on any event to view more details. This is where you’ll find page_path and other event parameters for the given events. Also, don’t forget to check event custom dimensions like page location or page referrer if you have set them up.

Regarding click events, these need to be manually set up in GA4, they’re not captured automatically like page views. You can use the GA4’s built-in Tag Manager, where you have the option to track clicks on links, buttons, forms, and other elements.

Lastly, regarding the User Explorer report, currently GA4 does not provide this functionality in the same way as Universal Analytics did. However, you can use the User Explorer technique via BigQuery if that’s an option.

Furthermore, always ensure that there are no active filters which might limit or alter the data you’re viewing in your reports.