Google Analytics

Analytics

Also: GA · Universal Analytics · GA4

What it isGoogle's free web and app analytics platform

Current versionGoogle Analytics 4 (GA4), replaced Universal Analytics in 2023

What it tracksUsers, sessions, events, conversions, traffic sources

Common mistakeInstalling it and never configuring the events that matter

Quick definition

Google Analytics is a free web and app analytics platform that tracks how people find and use your website. It reports on traffic sources, user behaviour, conversions and audience characteristics. GA4 is the current version, which replaced Universal Analytics in July 2023.

How it varies across Australia

Google Analytics is the most widely used web analytics platform among Australian businesses. Businesses running GA4 with properly configured conversion events and goals are measurably better positioned for data-driven decision making than those running with default installation and no event configuration. Most Australian small businesses have Google Analytics installed but have not configured the events that make it genuinely useful.

See data and tracking performance across Australian industries →

Key GA4 concepts

Events

Every user interaction is tracked as an event. Page views, clicks, form submissions, video plays, purchases are all events. GA4 is entirely event-based, unlike Universal Analytics which was session-based.

The building block of all GA4 measurement

Conversions

Events you mark as business goals. A form submission, a purchase, a demo booking. GA4 does not know what matters to your business until you tell it.

Without conversion tracking, GA4 measures activity, not outcomes

Dimensions and metrics

Dimensions are attributes (country, device, source). Metrics are measurements (sessions, conversion rate, revenue). Combining them answers questions.

The framework for building every report

What it actually means

Google Analytics is a web analytics platform that tracks user behaviour on your website and apps. At its core, it answers three questions: who is visiting your site, how did they get there and what did they do once they arrived.

GA4 is the current version. It replaced Universal Analytics (UA) in July 2023 when Google shut down UA data processing. GA4 uses an event-based data model, meaning every user interaction from a page view to a button click to a purchase is recorded as a named event with associated parameters. This is a significant architectural change from Universal Analytics, which organised data around sessions and page views.

The free tier of Google Analytics handles the vast majority of what most businesses need: traffic sources, audience demographics, behaviour flows, conversion tracking, e-commerce reporting and integration with Google Ads. Google Analytics 360, the paid enterprise version, adds higher data limits, unsampled reports and more sophisticated attribution options.

GA4's biggest strength is the flexibility of its event model. Its biggest weakness is that it requires deliberate configuration to be useful. Out of the box, GA4 tracks page views and a handful of automatically collected events. Measuring what matters to your business — form submissions, purchases, calls, scroll depth, video completions — requires either manual event setup in the platform or implementation via Google Tag Manager.

Google Analytics installed with no conversion events configured is a speedometer in a car with no destination.

How it shows up

Google Analytics shows up in your marketing workflow in three places: the GA4 interface for direct reporting, as a data source in Google Looker Studio for custom dashboards, and as the conversion tracking layer feeding back into Google Ads for campaign optimisation.

The audit questions: Are your key conversion actions tracked as events? Are those events marked as conversions? Is your GA4 property linked to your Google Ads account? Are your UTM parameters consistent across all paid campaigns? If the answer to any of these is no, you have a measurement gap that is affecting your ability to make good decisions.

The Australian context

Australian businesses should be aware of data residency implications when using Google Analytics. GA4 data is processed by Google globally. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has published guidance on the use of overseas data processors under the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).

GA4 also defaults to anonymising IP addresses in the European Union but this setting applies globally. Australian businesses operating under the Privacy Act 1988 should review their privacy policy to accurately describe how Google Analytics is used and what data it collects.

Searches from Australia for analytics help frequently surface US-centric content that references features or workflows not available in Australian GA4 configurations. Universal Analytics data prior to July 2023 is no longer processed but can still be viewed in older reports until Google removes access entirely.

Where people get this wrong

Not configuring conversion events.GA4 does not know what a conversion is for your business. Without marking key events as conversions, you cannot see which channels drive results, only which channels drive traffic.

Reporting on sessions and users without connecting them to outcomes.Traffic metrics are vanity metrics without conversion context. More sessions means nothing if the conversion rate is zero. Always anchor traffic data to the conversion events that matter.

Confusing GA4 attribution with advertising platform attribution.Google Ads and GA4 often show different conversion numbers for the same campaigns. They use different attribution models and count differently. Neither is wrong, but comparing them directly without understanding the methodology difference leads to incorrect conclusions.

Common questions

Is Google Analytics 4 the same as Universal Analytics?

No. GA4 is a completely different product with a different data model, interface and reporting structure. Universal Analytics (UA) was shut down for new data collection in July 2023. GA4 uses an event-based model where every interaction is an event, rather than the session-and-pageview model of UA. Reports, metrics and concepts do not map directly between the two.

Is Google Analytics free?

The standard version is free for most businesses. Google Analytics 360 is the paid enterprise tier with higher data sampling thresholds, SLA guarantees and more advanced features. Most Australian businesses have no need for the 360 version.

How do I set up conversion tracking in GA4?

Navigate to Admin, then Events in the Data Display section. Find the event you want to mark as a conversion and toggle the switch. If the event does not exist because it has not fired yet, you can create a custom conversion event. For events not already being tracked, you will need to implement them via Google Tag Manager or the GA4 configuration tag.

Does Google Analytics track individual users?

GA4 tracks users by assigning a client ID stored in a first-party cookie. It does not track individual named users unless you implement User-ID functionality by passing your own user identifiers. Privacy regulations restrict what can be sent to GA4 as user data — personal information like email addresses cannot be sent as event parameters.

Keep exploring

About New Rebellion

New Rebellion is a marketing intelligence consultancy. We build tools, score Australian businesses on how their marketing actually performs, and publish Debrief every day. This dictionary is part of how we work in the open.

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