GA4: Which report to use? Predefined, Explore or BigQuery

We know that analyzing your web and booking engine data is key to understand what users do on the web, which channels generate more sales or how to improve conversion. At ROIBACK we have a space dedicated to web analytics in the BI PORTAL and we could dedicate an entire post to talk about your data and alternative analysis (and we will).

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But in GA4, where do you find this data?

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If you have ever been lost among the predefined reports, the "Explore" section or heard about BigQuery without knowing if you need it, we explain it clearly.

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Predefined reports: fast but limited

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GA4 offers a number of standard reports on traffic, acquisition sources and conversion events. They are useful for a quick look at key metrics such as:

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- From where visitors come to your website.

- How many bookings have been generated in your booking engine.

- User devices and locations.

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But they have some peculiarities:

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-Sampling in some cases, which means that the data may not be 100% accurate if you have a high volume of traffic.

-Cardinality issues, if you have many custom dimensions (such as campaign names or dynamic pages), GA4 may group values as (other) when there are too many combinations of data.

-Little customization, although you can modify some views, you cannot do in-depth analysis.

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Explore: the middle ground and probably the one you can get the most out of

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The "Explore" section allows you to go beyond standard reports and build customized analyses with pivot tables, funnels, cohorts and other advanced analyses. With these reports you will be able to, among others:

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-Analyze the user journey: at what point do they abandon the booking process?

-Channel targeting: what converts better Google Ads or meta search engines?

-Compare time periods: do I have more demand this year or did I have more last year for the same dates?

-It avoids sampling by being more accurate data.

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However, you may still have cardinality problems if there are many combinations of dimensions, such as campaign names or source destinations.

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Datasets in BigQuery: the most advanced level, with no limitations

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If you want to avoid restrictions, work with large volumes of data and have SQL knowledge, BigQuery allows you to:

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- Access to data without sampling and without cardinality.

- Create detailed reports by combining GA4 data with other sources, such as your CRM or PMS.

- In short, to perform more advanced analyses.

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In short, there is no universal truth about which is the best. The use of one report or another will depend primarily on the analysis needs and, secondarily, on our ability to customize reports or even create them from scratch.

We hope we have helped you to get the most out of GA4 data. And if you are interested in learning more about the tool, please send us a contact form requesting information about the customized trainings with the specialist team, which mainly deal with:

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- How to navigate the GA4 tool and its predefined reports.

- Main differences compared to Universal Analytics

- How to create customized reports in "Explore

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See you on the dashboards!

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