Get ahead with Google Analytics 4
GA4 is packed with new capabilities that help you improve acquisition, engagement, revenue, and retention for your website.
In five hours, we’ll have you confident, capable, and armed with new insights into your business and your website. This course pays back for you real quick.
Online course: Google Analytics 4 for Beginners
By Fred Pike,
Managing Director / COO @ Northwoods Software
Course length: 5h 04min
Some of the companies that train their teams at CXL:
From beginner to proficient in 5 hours
Our GA4 for Beginners course covers what you need to know so that you can measure and improve your business performance around:
- Acquisition
- Engagement (including conversion)
- E-commerce
- Retention
If you’re a Universal Analytics (GA3) user, you’ll find helpful comparisons to help you understand what’s changed, what’s stayed the same, and what the new opportunities for insight are.
If you’ve never used Google Analytics before, key concepts are explained from scratch. You’re ready to go.
Introduction video
Find the hidden capabilities of GA4 that too many people miss
GA4 is more customizable than ever, easier to drive insight from, and delivers all the core functionality of UA3. A lot of these capabilities aren’t easy to find, though, until we show you how.
You’ll walk around four real GA properties, and follow along in your own GA to unlock the reports you know you need, and the ones you didn’t know existed.
You will leverage features that were previously only available in Google Analytics 360, and get ahead of the curve with practitioner-level expertise in acquisition and engagement reports.
Understand the new meaning of key metrics in GA4
GA4 redefines bounce rate. It also introduces a new concept of active users. That’s right: some of the basic terms of digital analytics are redefined in GA4 and not understanding them is an easy way to look dumb.
GA4 isn’t an upgrade to UA: it’s a powerful new way of understanding customer behavior using an events-based database.
Own the new UI
GA4 is more customizable than ever. Your homepage is a custom dashboard, with filters that help you look at what is most important without the noise, and comparisons that help you spot trends and anomalies.
If there’s one powerful message in this course it’s this one: own your UI to make important changes in customer behavior immediately obvious. That’s the way to be able to take action more quickly.
Make your GA4 property work for your business
With custom channels and custom measurements, GA4 puts you in control like never before.
Use the new powers GA4 gives you to track the behaviors that matter to your business.
Nail the key concepts
What’s the difference between user acquisition and traffic acquisition? And which one should you care about most? How does Google define a user?
Fred Pike takes you through key concepts which should be familiar to strong users of UA3, but which still catch people out.
E-commerce tracking that works
E-commerce tracking is hard. For the non-specialists, this course covers the importance of the items array as the underpinning data structure powering all e-commerce reports and helps you understand how key events in GA4 relate to real customer behavior and real web pages.
Who is this course for:
- Marketing generalists who need to report on on-site behavior, acquisition, campaign performance, and site revenue
- PPC specialists who need to ensure that all campaigns are properly tracked and full insight is easy to get
- Digital analytics specialists who need to understand key capabilities and ensure they’re driving maximum value from new capabilities
- Anyone still using Universal Analytics (GA3): from July 1, 2023, you won’t even have that option
Above all, anyone who is scared of GA4, or frustrated because “my reports have gone” or “things are missing” or “my data isn’t the same as it was in UA3” will feel more confident, more capable, and more able to identify how to drive real value from GA4 after taking this short course.
Please note that this course focuses on the use of GA4 for websites, not for apps or games.
Take this course and you will…
- Be able to answer specific business questions using Google Analytics 4
- Use GA4 data to improve your product, marketing, and strategy decisions
- Know who your visitors are and where they’re coming from, so you can focus on getting more of them.
- Navigate the GA4 interface, read data with confidence, and provide meaningful reports.
- Master the new reports and track acquisition, engagement, and landing page performance to understand how visitors find you and what they do on your website.
- Learn everything you need to get started with the GA4 event model and the different event types.
- Customize the GA4 home screen to create a dashboard that fully reflects your key business objectives.
Skills you will master
Victor A.
CXL gave me a big lift in my career.
Few months after my Growth Marketing Minidegree, I got a job.
Ever since then, the story has been different.
Tomek D.
Our Growth Marketing agency has completed 1298 lessons and 138 courses at the Institute so far. CXL helps us in a number of ways:
1. Provides an incredible source of content to train our staff.
2. Is a good tool in keeping our staff (they’re growing and we aid in that).
3. Is an awesome source of new opinions/methods to try out on our clients.
Radvilas Š.
Anyone interested in genuinely understanding the math behind CRO and A/B testing absolutely has to use CXL.
My whole team has a great time discussing the material and aligning our views on processes we use, and to come up with ideas to implement in the future.
Ruben D.
The wide variety of courses taught by many different experts makes CXL highly recommended for every team who takes growth seriously.
New courses are regularly available, making it better and better. CXL is a great platform for learning and growing businesses.
Yasmine de Aranada, Growth Strategist @ Market 8
This course is packed with gold! Momoko is an awesome teacher – I took the course late so only got access to recordings, and even with that, I am able to use every bit of it in my deliverable.
Josh R.
CXL has lead to more professional growth than any other year of my life. The best educational investment I have ever made.
Chris Out
For the hard skills, we use CXL to enable all our growth hackers and CRO people, who have different clients with different needs. Everybody can follow a tailored course for the stuff that they need to learn. The next thing we do, we create a learning plan per person, and we check in with people to see how fast are they learning. That learning plan is created based on their ambitions, what their clients need, and how they want to evolve.
Crystal Ignatowski, Marketing Content Developer @ Surety Solutions
I’ll be honest, I didn’t entirely understand what the CXL was at first. Then, I realized it was a gold mine. The Institute is jam-packed with courses, certificate programs, and recordings of past events/courses. The CXL was my guide book for many many months and because of that, I am leaps and bounds above the rest. Everything the Institute publishes is part of the top 5%. There is no fluff in the Institute; only real, actionable, and result-driven content. If you think you know stuff, give the CXL a try. You’ll be shocked at how much you have to gain.
Get a lesson preview
Your course curriculum
Google Analytics 4 for Beginners
1 Course Introduction
2 GA4 Event Types
3 Getting Started
4 GA4 Properties We’ll Use
5 Google Merchandise Store
6 Home Screen – a customizable dashboard
7 Insights
8 Definitions –Sessions and Users
9 Reports Snapshot; Realtime
10 Acquisition Reports
11 User Acquisition
12 Hidden Features in the UI
13 Default Channel Group
14 Traffic Acquisition
15 More Segmenting Features
16 Acquisition Overview Report
17 Customization
18 Wrapping Up Acquisition Reports
19 Engagement Reports
20 Engagement Overview Report
21 Landing Page Report – Part 1
22 Landing Page Report – Part 2
23 Landing Page Report – Part 3
24 Pages and Screens – Part 1
25 Pages and Screens – Part 2
26 Events – Part 1
27 Events – Part 2
28 Conversions
29 Wrapping Up Engagement Reports
30 Other Reports in GA4
31 Ecommerce Background
32 Monetization Reports
33 Retention – User Reports
34 Advertising
35 Explorations – Part 1
36 Explorations – Part 2
37 Course Wrap-up
Fred is a self-avowed GA & GTM freak. He is a Managing Director at Northwoods Software and leads their GA/GTM Practice Area. A sought-after educator, he has spoken multiple times at such events as MeasureSummit, SuperWeek, GA4Ward, MN Search, etc. “GA4 Intro” is his fourth CXL course.
At any point in time, you can find Fred digging into the intricacies of GA4, walking his beloved Pekingese Xuxa, or playing mandolin with the Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra.
This online course comes with a certificate to prove completion
Completing this training earns you a CXL certificate of completion you can add to your Linkedin profile.
What our students say about our online marketing courses:
Subscribe to CXL and get access
- 120+ courses (full list here) on all aspects of data-driven marketing (new courses added every month)
- 10 minidegrees that give you advanced level skills
Got a team, multiple users? Get our Teams All-Access plan instead.
The CXL guarantee
- 7-day no questions asked money back period
- You can immediately apply learnings and improve your results.
Need help convincing your boss?
Click here for a pitch deck, swipe files and tips.
Subscribe to CXL
Get access to this and 100+ other training programs.
or
Google Analytics 4 course: FAQ
How long does it take to complete this course?
This is entirely up to you – it’s how many study hours per week you can put in. This course is 5h 04min long. The majority of people will complete the course in between 5 and 5.5 hours.
Fred references Google support documentation, which you may choose to work through in addition.
You may also wish to pause recordings to apply your learnings in your own GA4 property.
However, Fred suggests in the course that you watch him at 1.5 speed, and there are no set exercises to complete in the course: the focus is on practical know-how.
Do I need previous experience with GA3 or GA4 before taking this course?
You don’t need any previous Google Analytics knowledge before taking this course.
Throughout the course, Fred will make comparisons between features in GA4 and UA (GA3) that may be useful if you’ve used Universal Analytics before, but the lessons assume you start from scratch.
What are some tips to get the most out of the course?
- Set up your GA4 property before starting the course, so you can get hands-on to make learning stick and apply your learnings immediately
- Open up your GA4 in one tab and the course in another. Fred walks you through step by step so you can follow along, see real data for your own business, and opportunities to customize
Who is this course for?
This course is for you if:
- You have used Universal Analytics previously, and want to make a switch to GA4… or you haven’t used any Google Analytics product at all before.
- You will be using GA4 (not implementing it from scratch) and want to fully understand its key terms, metrics, and interface.
- You want to pull insights that relate GA4 data with your key business objectives.
- You want to leverage the event-driven data model, the acquisition and engagement reports, and the new segmenting features in GA4.
Some careers that will especially benefit from this course are data analyst, digital marketing specialist, product marketer, SEO specialist, web analytics consultant, ecommerce manager, and digital analytics specialist.
What will you learn?
After taking this course, you will:
- Understand the basics of GA4 and be able to drive insights for better decision-making.
- Know who your visitors are and where they’re coming from, so you can focus on getting more of them.
- Navigate the GA4 interface, read data with confidence, and provide meaningful reports.
- Master the new reports and track acquisition, engagement, and landing page performance to understand how visitors find you and what they do on your website.
- Learn everything about the GA4 event model and the different event types.
- Customize the GA4 home screen to create a dashboard that fully reflects your key business objectives.
What does the course include?
Our Google Analytics 4 training includes 38 lessons, 10 downloadable resources, 5h 04min of video material, several assignments, and a final exam.
Are subtitles available for the lessons?
Lessons have English subtitles and transcriptions available.
Will I receive a certificate of completion?
After taking this course, you will receive the Google Analytics 4 certification from CXL, with credentials that you can add to your LinkedIn profile.
What is the refund policy?
All plans come with a 7-day refund period .