Kelsey
Forum Replies Created
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It seems like you’re trying to override a default parameter that Google Analytics 4 (GA4) automatically collects, which in this case is the ‘platform’. GA4 tries to automatically determine the platform (web, android, iOS) based on the data source. The ‘platform’ parameter you’re trying to set manually is a different one and does not influence GA4’s automatic tracking of the platform. For GA4 to accurately track the platform for a hybrid app, you’ll need to integrate GA4 SDKs for both web-based tracking (gtag.js) and for the respective mobile platforms (Android/iOS). Each has different setup instructions available in the GA4 help center. It’s important to send the appropriate data from each platform using the correct SDK to ensure accurate tracking.
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As it currently stands, there doesn’t appear to be an automated way through an API to set up GA4 properties and link them to UA properties, or to disable the automatic setup of GA4 properties. Google has yet to provide this capability via the API. The workaround is to manually configure everything from the Google Analytics UI for now. This might involve more work initially, but it’s the only surefire method to avoid property duplication or other configuration issues as Google transitions from UA to GA4. The API and its reference material has received a lot of attention, but so far it seems to come up short for this particular requirement.
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You can continue to use the ‘purchase’ event to track the products sales on your ‘shop.domain.org’. For the donations received on ‘give.domain.org’, stick with the custom ‘donate’ event. The reason your revenue or ‘value’ metrics might not be showing up on GA4 is because GA4 treats custom events a little differently. You will need to register ‘value’ as a custom metric in GA4. In the GA4 interface, go to ‘Custom Definitions’ and then to ‘Create Custom Metrics’. Here you can name your custom metric (like Donation Value), choose the scope as ‘Event’ and select your custom event (‘donate’). Once GA4 recognises ‘value’ as a custom metric, you should be able to see the tracked donations under Event data in your GA4 reports. It might take a while for the metric to reflect in your report. This way, you’ll be able to track both donations and product sales separately and effectively.
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Sadly, at the moment, there’s no Google-supported way to backfill the historical data from GA4 into BigQuery. You can’t pull full historical event-level data from the Analytics Data API currently. So for GA4, the BigQuery export essentially starts from the day you enable it.
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Certainly! Essentially, the two systems – Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Google Tag Manager (GTM) – are somewhat independent and each has its own functionality. The ‘gtag.js’ and the ‘gtm.js’ files are two different libraries and they serve distinctive purposes, with the former being for GA4 and the latter being for GTM. When you use GTM, it essentially replaces the direct implementation of gtag.js for GA4 in your code. This means you no longer need to directly include the GA4 tracking in your code, as this will be managed via GTM. When you configure GTM, you’ll create an account and container, and obtain a specific container ID (represented as ‘GTM-XXXX’). This GMT-XXXX goes into the GTM script instead of the gtag script. Then, within the GTM interface, you can set up GA4 tags with their own tracking IDs, and add different events on your site. By doing this, you can manage all your tracking implementations, including GA4, via the GTM interface, centralizing your tag management and making it more manageable and tidier.
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The user is encountering an issue with Google Analytics 4 (GA4) while attempting to add it to their site without using Tag Manager. Despite everything running smoothly in the GA console’s debug view, when the site is live, only ‘page_view’ and ‘user_engagement’ events appear, omitting many others that otherwise show up. The user has also ensured that the events have all of the requisite properties. They are seeking advice or insights from others who may have experienced a similar issue. Another user responded by sharing a similar issue they encountered with Google Tag Manager, where they did not have the appropriate rights to publish a live version. They suggested that checking permissions might be helpful.
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Sure thing! So you’ve got an event in your NextJS app, right? You’re using the GTM module and GA4 to track when this event happens – all standard practice. But something’s off: the event fires about 10 times more than it should. And when looking at the event data, all that changes is the ‘engagement_time_msec’ parameter.
Well, it seems like this might be because of the way you’ve set up your custom event in GA4 and GTM. The event you push onto the data layer is named ‘my_test_event’, and the trigger for a custom event in GTM is also ‘my_test_event’. Then, in GA4, another custom event that triggers based on the ‘my_test_event’ fires.
That’s like shooting a boomerang and having it return only to throw it again immediately – it creates an echo effect. This can explain why the event fires about 10 times more than expected, and why only ‘engagement_time_msec’ changes with each round.
Simple fix? Don’t have a GA4 custom event that triggers based on an event with the same name. Pretty much ‘don’t play boomerang with your events!’.
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The discrepancy in the numbers might be because you’re looking at two different metrics in Google Analytics. While the ‘Events’ tab shows the total number of unique users who triggered the specific event (in this case, a purchase), the funnel analysis might be showing only those users who completed the entire user flow you’ve defined for your app or site. If any part of this flow wasn’t tracked (or didn’t occur), these users aren’t reported in the funnel analysis. It’s also possible that some users disabled cookies, making it impossible for Google Analytics to identify them as unique users, or used a different device, leading to the same issue. Finally, I would suggest checking your purchase event timestamps. Google Analytics might filter out purchases if the timestamps are out of sync.
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You see, Google introduced a quirky update to GA4 around last August. Without much warning or documentation, they added a mechanism to ignore ‘duplicate’ configuration calls and enabled it by default.
You should be able to address this by following these steps:
1. Go to your GA4 property’s Admin
2. Navigate to Data Streams
3. Select the relevant data stream
4. Go to Configure Tag Settings
5. Find your Google Tag and
6. Click the checkbox next to your stream
7. Turn OFF the option for “Ignore duplicate instances of on-page configuration.”It seems like gtag.js’ behavior is contingent on your GA4 property’s config. There are other configurations you can adjust too, including cross-domain linking rules.
I’d also like to give a shout out to Angela Grammatas and Todd Bullivant who helped figure this out on Measure Slack 🙂
Just a quick note – it might seem a bit offbeat to use both GTM and gtag() simultaneously. This approach could accumulate technical debt. A more efficient strategy would be to migrate all direct gtag() calls to GTM by activating your dataLayer.
