Recent Improvements to Google Analytics 4 You Should Be Leveraging

Google Universal Analytics is currently being phased out in favor of Google Analytics 4 (GA4). As this transition takes place, GA4 features are being continuously introduced and upgraded.

In this article, I’ve identified three of the most important recent improvements to GA4 that you should be taking advantage of:

• new ecommerce item-scoped dimensions and metrics allowing you to better analyze your products and services,
• enhanced Google Analytics search functionalities enabling easier access to information about a given GA4 property or account and faster navigation to other ones, and
• new Data quality icon features and Google Analytics 360 sampling controls providing an improved reporting experience for properties with large and complex data.

Here’s what you need to know about the new improvements:

New ecommerce item-scoped dimensions and metrics

In January 2023, the following ecommerce item-scoped dimensions and metrics were introduced:

  Dimensions

• 𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚖_𝚊𝚏𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗
• 𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚖_𝚟𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚝
• 𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚐_𝚊𝚖𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝
• 𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚐_𝚝𝚒𝚎𝚛
• 𝚃𝚊𝚡_𝚊𝚖𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝

Metrics

• 𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚖𝚜_𝚊𝚍𝚍𝚎𝚍_𝚝𝚘_𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚝
• 𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚖𝚜_𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚍_𝚘𝚞𝚝
• 𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚖𝚜_𝚌𝚕𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚍_𝚒𝚗_𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝
• 𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚖𝚜_𝚌𝚕𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚍_𝚒𝚗_𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗
• 𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚖𝚜_𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚍
• 𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚖𝚜_𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚍_𝚒𝚗_𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝
• 𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚖𝚜_𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚍_𝚒𝚗_𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗

These new dimensions and metrics make more detailed information available within item scope. For example, you can now see how many times the checkout process was initiated for a specific item.

Please remember that when you are preparing reports in GA4, item-scoped dimensions should be combined with item- or event-scoped metrics to get reporting metrics. For example, you can get:

• the reporting metric 𝚙𝚞𝚛𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚜𝚎_𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 (the number of times a specific item was purchased) by combining the item-scoped dimension 𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚖_𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎 with the item-scoped metric 𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚖_𝚙𝚞𝚛𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚜𝚎𝚍
• the reporting metric 𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚖_𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 (the number of items in a given category that were purchased) by combining the item-scoped dimension 𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚖_𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚐𝚘𝚛𝚢 with the item-scoped metric 𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚖𝚜_𝚙𝚞𝚛𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚜𝚎𝚍
• the reporting metric 𝚙𝚞𝚛𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚜𝚎𝚜 (the number of purchases on your website or app) by combining the item-scoped metric 𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚖_𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚐𝚘𝚛𝚢 with the event-scoped metric 𝚙𝚞𝚛𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚜𝚎𝚜

More background information on GA4 ecommerce dimensions and metrics is available here.

Enhanced Google Analytics search functionalities

The Google Analytics search bar has been updated to allow you to:

• open the settings for the current property entering the keyword 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚝𝚢
• open the settings for the current account by entering the keyword 𝙰𝚌𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 
• navigate to one of your other Google Analytics 4 properties by entering its property ID or name, web stream ID, or app stream ID.

This feature empowers you with more convenient and user-friendly navigation. Find out more about it here.

Improved reporting experience for properties with large and complex data

As of February 2023, you can now find: 

1. a Data quality icon at the individual card level.

Previously, the Data quality icon appeared at the top of the Reporting snapshot report and overview reports. However, different messages can apply to different cards. With this update, Google Analytics more precisely shows which messages apply to each card in a report so that you’ll be aware of the specific cards that are under thresholding and which ones contain unsampled data.

2. a new (𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫) row message in the Data quality icon.

The (𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛) row appears when a report has dimensions causing less common data exceeding cardinality limits to be grouped into an (𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛) row.

In this new (𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛) message, you are presented with several options to reduce or eliminate these cardinality limits:

• For all properties, 𝙲𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚊𝚗 𝚎𝚡𝚙𝚕𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 creates the same report in Explore. Note: the (𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛) row never appears in Explore because it uses raw, event-level data.
• For Google Analytics 360 properties, 𝙴𝚡𝚙𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚊 flags the report as high priority. Note: you may flag up to 100 reports per property as high priority. Google Analytics permanently removes the (𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛) row from the reports you've flagged.

3. new sampling controls for Google Analytics 360 properties.

The following new sampling controls allow you to adjust the level of precision and speed in your explorations:

• The 𝙼𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚞𝚕𝚝𝚜 option uses the maximum sample size possible to provide results that are the most precise representation of the full data set.
• The 𝙵𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚞𝚕𝚝𝚜 option uses a smaller sampling size to give faster results (option selected by default).

Follow this link to learn more about the (𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛) row and data sampling.

We hope you find these updates useful. If you have any questions about them or other ways you can get the most out of GA4 for your business, we have the answers! We help clients succeed with the platform every day, are fully up to speed on its latest capabilities, and look forward to sharing our knowledge with you.

In the meantime, be sure to check out:

1. recordings of two free GA4 workshops my colleague Julia Kazlova led to present our best practices for its reporting suite and several of its most impactful metrics: 

• One covers how to self-audit and improve your GA4 implementation.
• The other provides practical tips and insights for fully utilizing GA4's advanced metrics and reporting use cases.

2. Migrating to Google Analytics 4, our 7-step guide to a successful transition from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4. Get it below!