[Daniel]

Google’s Terms of Service actually prohibit directly exporting personally identifiable information (like raw cookie data) from Google Analytics, so you can’t directly transfer this data into a public Data Management Platform (DMP). Instead, you can use Google’s own data activation tools or consider indirect methods such as exporting aggregated reports and retargeting lists, which adhere to Google’s terms and privacy regulations. Always remember data privacy and respect user consent when handling data.

[Daniel]

It seems like you’re facing a timing issue where the data layer is pushed after the GA4 tag is fired, which subsequently leaves an empty parameter in your custom event. To overcome this, you may want to reconsider the trigger for your tag to ensure the necessary data layer variable is available before the tag fires – for instance, you could delay the GA4 tag until the data layer pushing the product name is loaded completely. Regarding the custom events not showing up in Debug View, you must ensure that GA4 is able to pick up these events correctly – if you don’t see them in Debug View but do see them in Tag Assistant then it’s likely a difference in how the two sites parse the events. If your “page_view” event isn’t triggering, it’s most likely due to your code configuration. It may help to try various configurations and observe the results. Debugging such issues can be complex, therefore it may be beneficial to seek help from a developer experienced with GA4 tracking.

[Daniel]

It sounds like somehow the parameters of ‘item_category’ have become unassociated with your reports. There may have been an update or change in your system setup which could have caused this issue. I would suggest reiterating the entire process of setting up ‘item_category’ parameters again, as they might not have been properly established or they might have been accidentally removed. As for scrutinizing your ecommerce performance without this, you might have to rely on other parameters or categories that are still visible in the reports until you fix this issue. However, it’s hard to say without more insight into your configuration, system, and the type of data you have. I’d strongly recommend reaching out to your technical support team or forum for more specialized assistance.

[Daniel]

Unfortunately, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) works a bit differently than its predecessor, wherein it is largely event-based. This means setting up Google Ads Conversion tracking in GA4 does require setting up events and subsequently marking them as conversions. Your Google Conversion ID remains crucial, however, it should be used in conjunction with event and conversion creation in GA4 and not in isolation. Regrettably, while this might seem more complex, it is the method Google is steering users towards.

Regarding Google Tag Manager, it can streamline the process but may not necessarily simplify it. It allows you to manage and deploy marketing tags (snippets of code or tracking pixels) on your website without having to modify the code. This can make it easier to set up tracking for multiple events without the need to manually add code to your website for each instance.

Lastly, for further assistance, I would recommend resources like Measureschool, Simo Ahava’s blog, and Analytics Mania for comprehensive guides and tutorials on GA4, Google Ads Conversion tracking, and Google Tag Manager. These sites provide information in an easy-to-follow format that might make these concepts clearer.

[Daniel]

I understand your confusion. Using the edit mode is currently the way to view custom reports in Google Analytics 4 (GA4). GA4 is designed as such that when you click on your customer report from the library, it takes you to the edit mode where you can review and modify your report. If you want to simply view the report, you can do so by first clicking on the report in the library which takes you to the edit mode/view. Then, to adjust the date range for the report, go to the “date range” drop-down menu at the top of the page, change it as per your needs and the report will adjust accordingly. As per sharing the custom report, unfortunately, GA4 does not currently support a feature to share custom reports in the same direct way as the standard or ready-to-use reports. Your peers would need access to the GA4 property to view the custom reports you create.

[Daniel]

It appears the code is expecting a GoogleAnalyticsDataV1betaNumericValue instance in the ‘value’ field of numeric_filter, not a string or integer as currently passed (‘10000’).

Take a look at the JSON equivalent provided, the value is an object:
`
“value”: {
“int64Value”: “10000”
}
`
Translating this to PHP, it likely expects an equivalent object:
`
‘numeric_filter’ => new FilterNumericFilter([
‘operation’ => FilterNumericFilterOperation::GREATER_THAN,
‘value’ => new GoogleAnalyticsDataV1betaNumericValue([
‘int64_value’ => ‘10000’,
])
])
`
Please make sure to replace ‘GoogleAnalyticsDataV1betaNumericValue’ with the actual class path in your case.

Also, make sure that you’ve added necessary class initializations for the classes used like DateRange, Dimension, Metric, FilterExpression, FILTER, NumericValue etc., at the top of your PHP file per your namespace structure.

If the issue still persists, you could refer to Google’s official PHP library repository or contact their support for further assistance as the GA4 library is in beta and may contain bugs or lack of documentations.

[Daniel]

Sure thing! The difference you’re seeing might be because UA and GA4 measure things differently. For instance, GA4 only registers single page app movements when you set them up, and treats multiple interactions in one ‘session’ as separate events. This might make it look like there are fewer pageviews or users in GA4. You’d have to check your setup to make sure everything is being tracked the same way in both UA and GA4, or consider these differences when comparing data.

[Daniel]

In Google Analytics 4 (GA4), some of the parameters like page_path are no longer sent automatically like they used to be in the previous Universal Analytics version. You’ll find that GA4 captures page_location by default which holds the full URL (including query parameters) of the page where the event was captured. You’ll need to implement custom tracking to capture page path separately. If you’re using Google Tag Manager, there are various methods to capture this data, for instance, you could set up a custom JavaScript variable to strip out the domain and just return the path. If you’re using gtag.js directly, you may need to implement additional JavaScript to capture this on the page_view event. Creating a custom event could potentially work as well, but before you do that, you’d have to consider what other default data you might lose by not utilizing the built-in page_view event and weighing out if it’s worth it. A more comprehensive solution would be modifying the tracking setup slightly to send the page path with the default page_view events.

[Daniel]

Sure thing! I think you might have better luck using sessionDefaultChannelGrouping instead of defaultChannelGrouping. This guidance comes from Google Analytics 4’s migration guides, which suggests the use of sessionDefaultChannelGrouping in GA4, much like how we used ga:channelGrouping in Universal Analytics.

Here’s the thing to note though: defaultChannelGrouping is an attribution dimension. Meaning, if your GA4 property’s event attribution model is set to Data-driven, you aren’t going to get any rows from defaultChannelGrouping if your GA4 property hasn’t had a conversion during the date range you’ve selected.

I know, it’s a little finicky, but swap it around and you should start seeing that Organic search data roll in. Fingers crossed!