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GA4 Setup Checklist

Medium 17 items · 1 hour
testuser's avatar
testuser Published 1 month ago
Technical

This checklist walks you through the essential steps to set up Google Analytics 4 for a website. It’s for marketers, site owners, and developers who need a practical, step-by-step guide to get tracking, events, and conversions working correctly.

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  1. Create a new GA4 property in your Google Analytics account — Choose a clear property name, correct time zone and currency.
  2. Review property settings and set data retention — Set event/data retention, default reporting identity, and timezone.
  3. Add a Web data stream and copy the Measurement ID — Locate the G- measurement ID shown in the stream details.
  4. Install the Measurement ID on your website (choose gtag or GTM) — Decide whether to use gtag.js or Google Tag Manager for deployment.
  5. Add the gtag.js snippet with your Measurement ID to site header — Place the snippet before </head> on all pages or via your CMS header setting.
  6. Create and publish a GA4 tag in Google Tag Manager with the Measurement ID — Use the GA4 Configuration tag and trigger it on All Pages, then publish.
  7. Verify incoming hits in Realtime and DebugView — Use GA4 Realtime and DebugView (with debug mode or GTM preview) to confirm events.
  8. Enable Enhanced Measurement on the data stream — Toggle on page views, scrolls, outbound clicks, site search and file downloads.
  9. Define and register custom events you need to track — Map event names and parameters; create events in GA4 or send via gtag/GTM.
  10. Mark key events as conversions — Toggle the conversion switch for events that represent business goals.
  11. Link Google Search Console to your GA4 property — Associate the correct site property to surface search data in reports.
  12. Enable Google Signals and configure advertising features — Turn on Signals to get cross-device reports and remarketing features (check privacy/consent first).
  13. Create audiences for analysis and retargeting — Build audiences from events, user properties, or sequences for ads and reporting.
  14. Set up cross-domain tracking if your site spans multiple domains — Add linked domains to the data stream and update tagging to preserve client IDs.
  15. Grant users appropriate permissions and roles — Assign Editor, Analyst or Viewer roles per team needs; use least privilege.
  16. Export raw data to BigQuery (optional for advanced analysis) — Enable BigQuery export for unsampled, event-level data if required.
  17. Compare GA4 reports with Universal Analytics and validate metrics — Match date ranges, compare key metrics, and document expected differences.
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