Users are people too.

Start with the Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition

If you have the Business objectives menu, this is under “Generate leads”.

It shows how many people came to the site, where they came from, how long they stayed, and what they did. It’s like your shop counter, but for your website.

GA4 doesn’t use bounce rate the same way the old version did.

Instead, it focuses on engaged sessions, which means the person actually did something on your site (such as staying more than 10 seconds, clicking something, or viewing more than one page). It’s a better way to measure real interest.

If you’re still eager to see what the bounce rate is, you can type this into the main search bar with Google Analytics and ask, “What is my bounce rate in the past 90 days?” or the time period you like.

Note that the calculation method differs from Universal Analytics, making it harder to compare.

Go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition.

For the Business objectives menu, this is under “Generate leads”.

This shows whether people find you through Google, social media, emails, or just by typing in your URL directly (direct channel).

It’s your digital version of, “So how’d you hear about us?”

To view where the user first landed, use Reports > Acquisition > User Acquisition.

A user is an actual person who visits your site.

A session is one visit to your site. So if Sally visits twice in a day, that’s 1 user, 2 sessions.

Direct traffic means Google doesn’t know where the visit came from.

It happens when someone types your URL directly, uses a bookmark, or when the tracking is lost (such as from certain email apps or QR scan codes).

If it’s your number one traffic source (for most sites, it is unless you run paid campaigns), you can double-check you don’t have a duplicate tag.

You can do this in Admin > Data collection and modification > Data streams > Select arrow > Configure tag settings > Admin (tab at top) > Manage Google tag > Toggle on “Ignore duplicate instances of on-page configuration”.

Check the Engagement > Pages and Screens report.

For Business objectives this can be found under “Understand web and/or app traffic” or ‘View user engagement and retention”.

You’ll see which pages people spend time on, scroll through 90% of the page, and click on the most. It’s your insight into “What’s catching their eye?”

Google Analytics protects user privacy, so you will only see a small sample of gender and age data.

But you can see broad details like location, device type, and which pages they liked, so you can still get to know your audience without invading their space.

Some web browsers or devices also block analytics from seeing this.

Head to User > Tech > Overview, and you’ll see if visitors are browsing on phones, tablets, or computers. Handy for making sure your site looks fab everywhere.

You can also use this data to help test if your website experience looks responsive and good across the most common device screens your website is visited by.

Use your browser’s inspect tool, such as in Google Chrome.

Yes, GA4 helps track returning visitors.

Go to Reports > Retention. If people come back, that’s a sign you’re doing something right, building trust and giving them a reason to continue the conversation.

You’ll need to set up what Google Analytics 4 (GA4) calls an event.

But don’t worry, if you need help, you can reach out to a tag specialist or purchase my tag packages to make this easier.

Once the event is tagged up, you’ll be able to see it in several reports along with Engagement > Events.

For the Lifecycle menu, this is under “View user engagement & retention”.

Go to Reports > bottom left, click on “Library”.

Look under “Collections”.

Use the three dots to select the option in the collection you need:

• Unpublish: remove from menu
• Edit: change report names or reports
• Make a copy: create a copy of the menu
• Rename: rename the menu title (not recommended)
• Delete: remove the menu permanently.