Google Analytics 4

Last updated on Nov 15, 2023

Google Analytics 4 (GA 4) is the latest version of Google Analytics. It allows in-depth assessment of user experiences across your websites and applications using reports. Each of these websites and apps is referred to as GA 4 property and has a unique tracking ID, which enables the monitoring and analysis of activities associated with the respective property.

Hevo uses the Google Analytics Data API (GA 4) to ingest your GA 4 account data. You must allow Hevo to access data from your Google account to do this.

For creating Pipelines using this Source, Hevo provides you a fully managed BigQuery data warehouse as a possible Destination. This option remains available till the time you set up your first BigQuery Destination irrespective of any other Destinations that you may have. With the managed warehouse, you are only charged the cost that Hevo incurs for your project in Google BigQuery. The invoice is generated at the end of each month and payment is recovered as per the payment instrument you have set up. You can now create your Pipeline and directly start analyzing your Source data. Read Hevo Managed Google BigQuery.

Setup

Data Sync

Prerequisites

An active Google Analytics 4 (GA 4) account from which data is to be ingested exists.
You are assigned the Team Administrator, Team Collaborator, or Pipeline Administrator role in Hevo to create the Pipeline.

Configuring the Google Analytics 4 Property

If you are an existing user of Google Analytics, you must configure the GA 4 property in your Google Analytics account before configuring GA 4 as a Source in Hevo.

If you are a new user without an existing Google Analytics account, skip to Configuring Google Analytics 4 as a Source.

Note: Read Configuring the Google Analytics 4 Property for your Firebase Account (Optional) if you want to configure GA 4 property in your existing Firebase account.

Configuring Google Analytics 4 as a Source

Perform the following steps to configure GA 4 as the Source in Hevo:

Click PIPELINES in the Navigation Bar.
Click + CREATE in the Pipelines List View.
In the Select Source Type page, select Google Analytics 4 as the Source.
In the Configure your Google Analytics 4 Account page, do one of the following:
- Select a previously configured account and click CONTINUE.
- Click + ADD GOOGLE ANALYTICS 4 ACCOUNT and perform the following steps to configure an account:
  1. Select your linked Google account.
  2. Click Allow to grant Hevo access to your analytics data.
In the Configure your Google Analytics 4 Source page, specify the following:
- Pipeline Name: A unique name for your Pipeline, not exceeding 255 characters.
- Authorized Account (Non-editable): The email address that you selected earlier when connecting to your Google account.
- GA4 Account Name: The GA 4 account from which you want to replicate the data. One Google account can contain multiple analytics accounts.
- Property Name: The website or app from which you want Hevo to read the user data. This field appears once you select the GA4 Account Name from the drop-down.
- Historical Sync Duration: The duration for which you want to ingest the existing data from the Source. Default duration: 6 Months.
- Report Name: A unique name for your report, not exceeding 30 characters.
- Dimensions: The attributes for which you want to see the data in your report. For example, in a Website property, the dimensions can include city, country, and device category. Read Analytics Dimensions and Metrics to know more about the dimensions available in GA 4.
- Metrics: The numerical measurement of data as per the dimensions selected above. For example, in a Website property, the metrics can include the number of viewers, new sign-ups, and number of clicks. Read Analytics Dimensions and Metrics to know more about the metrics available in GA 4.
- Pivot Report: If enabled, Hevo creates additional reports by rearranging the data with a subset of dimensions and metrics from the above report. Default setting: Disabled.
  - Pivot Dimensions: The subset of dimensions from the parent report for which you want to rearrange the data.
  - Pivot Metrics: The subset of metrics from the parent report for which you want to rearrange the data.
  - Pivot Aggregation Function: The aggregation function you want to use to rearrange the data.
- Advanced Options: The conditions to filter the data from the above report based on your business requirement.
- + ADD ANOTHER REPORT: Use this option to add up to five reports.
Click TEST & CONTINUE.
Proceed to configuring the data ingestion and setting up the Destination.

Data Replication

Default Ingestion Frequency	Minimum Ingestion Frequency	Maximum Ingestion Frequency	Custom Frequency Range (Hrs)
1 Hr	15 Mins	12 Hrs	1-12

Note: The custom frequency must be set in hours, as an integer value. For example, 1, 2, and 3 but not 1.5 or 1.75.

Historical Data: The first run of the Pipeline ingests historical data for the selected reports on the basis of the historical sync duration specified at the time of creating the Pipeline and loads it to the Destination. Default duration: 6 Months.
Incremental Data: Once the historical data ingestion is complete, every subsequent run of the Pipeline fetches new and updated data for the reports.

Note: Hevo retrieves the incremental data for the reports in a single run of the Pipeline by creating batches of data rather than calling the API for each report separately. This is done to reduce the number of calls made to the GA 4 API.
Data Refresh: Hevo re-ingests the data daily for the past three days.

Schema and Primary Keys

Hevo uses the dimensions in a report as primary keys.
To represent pivot reports, Hevo adds the suffix _pivot to the report name.
The aggregation_function column in the pivot report contains sum, minimum, maximum, or count values.

For example, if you want to check the maximum page views for each page on your website daily, the count value represents the number of page views, and the maximum value represents the maximum page views.

Additional Information

Read the detailed Hevo documentation for the following related topics:

Source Considerations

To fetch data for the Interests, User Age, and Gender dimensions, you must:
- Enable Google Signals.
- Meet the data thresholds enforced by GA 4.

Limitations

Hevo does not support the ingestion of cohort dimensions and metrics.
Hevo might take more than 24 hours to fetch accurate data for some reports because of the GA 4 data freshness intervals. Therefore, data replication might not be accurate, leading to discrepancies in the Destination. To avoid this, you can add a clause and exclude dimensions with null values while configuring the Source.

Revision History

Refer to the following table for the list of key updates made to this page:

Date	Release	Description of Change
Aug-28-2023	NA	Updated the page as per the latest Hevo functionality.
Jul-12-2023	NA	Updated section, Limitations to add information about GA4 data freshness intervals.
Apr-25-2023	NA	Updated the page to move information about Firebase Analytics to the Firebase Analytics page.
Apr-04-2023	NA	Updated section, Configuring Google Analytics 4 as a Source for more clarity.
Sep-05-2022	NA	Updated section, Data Replication to reorganize the content for better understanding and coherence.
Oct-25-2021	NA	Added the Pipeline frequency information in the Data Replication section.
Jul-26-2021	NA	Added the section, Source Considerations.
Jun-28-2021	1.66	New document.