If you’re here, you’re likely aware of the incredible insights Google Analytics can provide for your website. Understanding your audience, their behavior, and how they interact with your site is crucial for optimising your online presence. But before you can dive into all those juicy data points, you need to set up your Google Analytics 4 tracking code. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the process step-by-step. Let’s get started!
Step 1: Sign in/up for Google Analytics
Before you can capture your tracking code, you need a Google Analytics account (continue to Step 2 if you currently have an account). If you don’t have one yet, follow these steps:
- Go to the Google Analytics website: Head over to Google Analytics.
- Sign in with your Google account: If you don’t have a Google account, you’ll need to create one.
Step 2: Set up your account and property
- In Admin, click Create, then select Property.
- Enter a name for the property (e.g. “My Business, Inc website”) and select the reporting time zone and currency. If a visitor comes to your website on a Tuesday in their time zone, but it’s Monday in your time zone, the visit is recorded as having occurred on Monday.
If you choose a time zone that honors Daylight Savings Time, Analytics automatically adjusts for time changes. Use Greenwich Mean Time if you don’t want to adjust for Daylight Savings Time.
Changing the time zone only affects data going forward. If you change the time zone for an existing property, you may see a flat spot or a spike in your data, caused by the time shift forwards or backwards, respectively. Report data may refer to the old time zone for a short period after you update your settings, until Analytics servers have processed the change.
Google recommends that you change the time zone for a property no more than once per day so Analytics can process the change.
- Click Next. Select your industry category and business size.
- Click Next. Select how you intend to use Google Analytics.
Google Analytics tailors the set of default reports based on the information you provide about how you intend to use Analytics. For example, if you choose “Generate more leads,” you will see a collection of reports to help you measure lead generation. Learn more about the business objectives reports collection.
- Click Create and (if you are setting up a new account) accept the Analytics Terms of Service and the Data Processing Amendment.
- Continue to Add a data stream to start collecting data.
Step 3: Adding a web data stream
- In Admin, under “Data collection and modification“, click Data Streams.
- Click Add stream.
- Click Web.
- Enter the URL of your primary website, e.g., “example.com”, and a Stream name, e.g. “Example, Inc. (web stream)”.
- You have the option to enable or disable enhanced measurement. Enhanced measurement automatically collects page views and other events. Once the data stream has been created, you can always go back and individually disable the enhanced measurement events you don’t want to collect. So, we recommend that you enable enhanced measurement now.
- Click Create stream.
Step 4: Get your tracking code
To begin seeing data in your new Google Analytics 4 property, you’ll need to obtain your tracking code so it can be applied to your website:
- Click Admin.
- At the top of the Property column, select your property.
- In the Property column, click Data streams > Web.
- Click the Web data stream for your website.
- Under Google tag, click View tag instructions.
- On the Installation instructions page, select Install manually:
On the screen, you’ll see the JavaScript snippet for your account’s Google tag. Your Google tag is the entire section of code that appears, beginning with:
<!-- Google tag (gtag.js) -->
and ending with
</script>
- Copy your Google tag.
- Paste the tag into an email to [email protected] : We will place the HTML into the
<head> section of all pages on your website.
- The support team will confirm when this has been actioned. Within 24 hours you will see data populating in your newly created Google Analytics property.
With accurate data at your fingertips, you can make informed decisions to enhance your user experience, improve content, and ultimately drive more conversions.
If you have any questions or run into issues during the setup process, please just get in touch. Happy tracking!