Visitor analytics (GA4)

How do I install GA4?

Create a Google Analytics account and property, then add the Google tag from your web data stream to your website. Think of a property as a box that collects the data for one website.

If your web agency is setting it up, check two things before launch: that the property was created under your business's account, and that you have administrator access.

On the day you install it, update your privacy policy too. If you note that you use GA4 and what for on the same day, you won't forget.

Screen names can change, so this covers only the general flow. For detailed screens, see the setup guides in Analytics Help.

1. 01Sign in to Google Analytics with a Google account for your business, not a staff member's personal account.
2. 02Create an account and property, and set the time zone to South Korea and the currency to Korean won.
3. 03Add a web data stream and enter your website address to get a measurement ID starting with "G-".
4. 04Enter the measurement ID in your website builder's analytics settings, or add the Google tag code to every page.
5. 05Open your website on your phone and check that the visit shows up in the Realtime report.
6. 06Check the data retention period and extend it to 14 months if needed, and give your agency only the access it needs.

What is an "event" in GA4?

GA4 records every customer action as an event. Opening a page, scrolling and tapping a button are each one event.

Among your events, you mark the ones that matter most to you as "key events." They used to be called "conversions," and the Korean interface shows them as "major events." A standard property can mark up to 30, but 2–3 are plenty for a small business.

Name custom events with lowercase English letters and underscores, and once you pick a name, don't change it. Names are case-sensitive, and if you change one midway, it's hard to view it alongside past data.

Enhanced measurement counts many actions without any extra code, so it's a good place to start. But actions that differ by business, like completed bookings, aren't captured automatically, so you have to set them up yourself.

Which GA4 reports should I look at first?

At first, learning just three reports is enough. Use the Realtime report to check that installation worked, and the Traffic acquisition report to see where customers came from.

The Pages and screens report shows which pages get read most. Look at key event numbers alongside it and you can spot pages that get lots of views but few bookings.

The Traffic acquisition report shows channel names such as Organic Search (search), Organic Social (social media), Direct (visits where the address was typed in or no source was recorded) and Referral (links from other sites). Menu locations may change with updates.

GA4 doesn't show in detail which search terms brought customers in. Check search terms in Google Search Console and Naver Search Advisor, and look at what visitors did after arriving in GA4; splitting it this way connects a customer's whole path from start to finish.

What should I watch out for when reading GA4 numbers?

"Users" in GA4 doesn't exactly equal the number of real people. The same customer visiting on a phone and a computer can be counted as two, and some visits are missed in browsers that clear cookies or block tracking.

Links opened in KakaoTalk chats or some apps may not keep their source and get counted as Direct. That's why it's a good idea to add UTM tags to links you send by text or KakaoTalk.

If you and your staff open the website often, those visits get mixed into the numbers too. Set up a filter to exclude internal traffic, or keep it in mind when reading the numbers.

So it's best to treat GA4 numbers as a way to see trends rather than an exact customer count. If you look at the direction, such as whether visits grew from last month or which channel got bigger, small errors won't throw you off.

What are common GA4 setup mistakes?

The most common one is installing it and then never looking at it. If you don't decide what to count, all you have is visitor numbers, and those alone rarely tell you what to fix.

Once setup is done, act like a customer at least once. Tap the booking button, send an inquiry, and check that those events show up in the Realtime report; this catches most setup mistakes.

It's also common for data to stop when you rebuild the website or change its address and forget to move the tag. Be sure to put "check analytics tag" on your redesign checklist.

Looking at reports without changing anything is a missed opportunity too. Analysis means finding one thing to fix in the numbers, fixing that page and then checking the same number again next month.

• The property is created under the agency's account, so you don't have administrator access
• A builder integration and manually added code overlap, so every page view is counted twice
• The data retention period was never checked, so older exploration data can't be viewed
• Customer names, phone numbers or emails are put into event values (Google's policy forbids sending personally identifiable information)
• Only visitor numbers are tracked, with no key events like bookings or inquiries

What should I track for my type of business?

Set one or two actions closest to revenue as key events and count the steps before them as regular events, and you'll see the flow. The button customers press last differs by business.

A cafe counts directions button taps and group order inquiries; a hair salon counts booking button clicks and completed bookings. For a craft studio, class sign-up form submissions work well, and for a tutoring academy, consultation form submissions and call button clicks.

You don't need to check the numbers every day. Compare with the previous month once a month and note the dates you changed your website, and later you'll be able to tell what worked.

If others look at the numbers with you, share a table of event names and what they mean. Writing something like "reserve_click = booking button click" lets you and your staff or agency talk while looking at the same numbers.