Google Analytics 4 - Troubleshooting

Updated on

Sep 6, 2023

How to structure your GA4 reports

Keep It Simple: Use as few dimensions as possible to avoid data loss and threshold.
Avoid dimensions with high cardinality.
Separate Granular and Aggregated Data: If you need granular values and aggregated values, then it’s better to create separate reports for granular data and aggregated values.
~E.g., a granular report with ```date - session campaign - session source - session medium - session manual term - sessions``` and common report with ```date - sessions - total users```.
Start in GA4 UI: Start with building the necessary report in GA4 UI, and make sure that data quality suits you (looking at row values instead of total values), and then build the same structure in Improvado.

Data discrepancy between GA4 and Improvado

There are three different ways to get your data from GA4:

GA4 Reports (UI)
GA4 Explorations (UI)
GA4 API

GA4 API and GA4 Reports typically show the same values as they use the same pre-processed database tables, whereas Explorations and funnel reports load raw event and user-level data without relying on pre-processed database tables.

Also, Explorations and reports support different fields and have other differences described here.

How to compare values

Sometimes, the numbers in your database may not match what you see in your GA User Interface. To ensure accuracy, it's best to compare data on a row-by-row basis. The most reliable comparison is between Improvado and GA standard or custom reports.
~GA UI adjusts Total row values to avoid duplication and data thresholds for some metrics such as Sessions, Total users, etc. Learn more about the Sessions metric here.
Comparison between Improvado values and Explorations is incorrect because GA4 Explorations use data sampling. Reports & API use different behavioral modeling, calculations, etc. on GA side. Reports & API also are grouped under (other) row. Learn more here.

Missing data or under-reporting of metrics

This may happen if GA4 has applied data thresholds. You can learn more here.

Data thresholds are applied to prevent anyone viewing a report or exploration from inferring the identity of individual users based on demographics, interests, or other signals present in the data.

The report with the applied threshold will show only values that meet the minimum data aggregation thresholds.

Usually, it happens for reports containing Total users metric and/or using demographics, interests, or other signals present in the data.

Solution

Remove Total users metric from the report or remove dimensions that add too much granularity (use fewer dimensions and or dimensions with lower cardinality).

Discrepancy in Sessions metric

Learn more about the Sessions metric here.

Discrepancy in Total users metric

GA4 Users metric shows the total number of unique users who have visited the website during the selected period. You can calculate the number of unique users for any requested period.

For example, User A who visited the website on Day 1 and Day 2 will be counted as one unique user for the period [Day 1...Day 2]. Thus, the total users number for the period is not equal to the sum of users per each day from this period. For daily report types "Users" metric could be compared only with single-day value, not period.

Solution

Instead of using Daily reports, create Weekly/Monthly reports that will show the correct user count for the week/month.

Also, data thresholds applied in GA might be a reason for the data discrepancy. Learn more here. Missing data or under-reporting of metrics.

(other) row

When you extract a report that surfaces a large amount of data, you might notice less common values grouped under an (other) row.

This could be a reason for some lost values in a database, even if you still see these values in GA4 Explorations or in filtered GA4 reports. Learn more here.