Understanding Google Analytics 4 for Perth Business Owners

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) replaced Universal Analytics in mid-2023 and many Perth business owners are still confused by it. The interface is different, the terminology has changed, and the reports that used to be easy to find have moved or been restructured. The good news is that once you understand GA4's logic (it's built around events rather than page views), everything starts to make sense. Here's what Perth business owners actually need to know.

The key difference from the old analytics

Universal Analytics tracked everything as page views and sessions. GA4 tracks everything as “events.” A page view is an event. A button click is an event. A form submission, a scroll depth, a video play: all events. This is more powerful but requires a different mental model. The most important implication for Perth businesses is that you need to set up “conversion events” in GA4 for the actions that matter to your business: form submissions, phone click-throughs, and purchase completions. Without this setup, GA4 just tells you how many people visited, not whether any of them did what you needed them to do.

The reports Perth businesses should check monthly

The “Acquisition Overview” report shows where your traffic is coming from. The “Engagement” section shows which pages are being read and for how long. The “Conversions” report (once you've set up conversion events) shows how many valuable actions your website generated and from which traffic sources. These three reports tell you whether your SEO is working, whether your content is engaging, and whether the traffic you're generating is converting into actual leads or sales.

MSA Digital sets up and configures Google Analytics 4 for Perth businesses as part of our web design and digital marketing service. Get in touch if your Analytics setup isn't giving you the information you need.