How to Set Up GA4 with GTM for Magento 2: A Step-by-Step Guide

• By Sagar
• 29-10-2024
• Digital Marketing

GA4 data analysis is a perfect tool for online store owners. It provides the tracking and analysis features you need for your Magento 2 site. When integrated with GTM, GTM offers many features for data analysis and decision-making.

In this blog, we will guide you through the complete configurations that Magento 2 store owners have to perform to configure GA4 tracking with GTM. By the end of this article, you will have learned how to set up analytics that work and supply correct data about what your customers are really doing in your store.

Why Integrate GA4 with Magento 2 via GTM?

• Broader Tracking: GA4 provides a more extensive view of user interactions than Universal Analytics, offering enhanced event tracking and insights into transaction-level data crucial for understanding customer behavior.
• Better Data Accuracy: GTM simplifies tracking code management, reducing errors and ensuring data accuracy, which is vital for data-driven decisions on platforms like Magento 2.
• Flexibility and Control: GTM allows you to manage tags without altering the Magento 2 codebase, offering flexibility in tracking without disrupting the site.
• Future-Proofing: GA4 is the future of Google Analytics, and integrating it now prepares your store for upcoming changes in analytics technology.

Events in GA4

GA4 focuses on a variety of event tracking, which provides more information about how users interact with your business than the standard page tracking as compared to the older Universal Analytics. Key event types include:

Default Events: Automatically tracked events like pageviews or scrolls, providing baseline user engagement data.

Enhanced Measurement Events: Specific interactions such as file downloads or video views are tracked automatically without extra tagging.

Custom Events: These are user-defined events like button clicks or purchase completions, offering the flexibility to track any user action on your site.

Methods to Add Google Analytics 4 to Magento 2

To integrate GA4 with GTm, the Magento 2store owners have the below two options:

Use an Extension: Using a Magento 2 GA4 extension to add GA4 is less challenging and faster if you set it. This extension also makes the whole setup configuration process as easy as possible while working in sync with Google Tag Manager (GTM). It is built with all the basic eCommerce events included, meaning that you can have it fully set up within 30 minutes. This method, therefore, is convenient to those who do not have time to or are not interested in mastering the technicalities of service use and want their results as soon as possible.

Set up Manually: For the manual setup, you may want to choose this one if you want a more practical approach and if you have certain preferences to be met. As the name reveals, this method involves integrating the GA4 tracking code to the Magento 2 store without automating any events, even the ecommerce ones. It might force the developers to alter or increase the number of custom scripts required to monitor those events. Although the approach provides more control over the process, such a technique is more time-consuming and requires greater technical expertise.

How to Integrate Magento 2 GA4 with GTM?

Step 1: Create a Google Analytics 4 Property

The first step is to create a GA4 property. Follow these steps:

1. Log into Google Analytics: Sign in with your Google account on the Google Tag Manager website.

2. Create a New Property:

• Click on the Admin gear icon on the bottom left.
• Under the Property column, click on Create Property.
• Enter a name for your property, and select your time zone and currency.
• Click Next and fill out your business information.
• Click Create to finalize the property setup.

3. Set Up Data Streams:

Click on the Web option under the Data Streams section.

Enter your website URL and name the stream.

Click on Create Stream to generate the stream.

Now, you’ll have a measurement ID that starts with "G-"—this is your GA4 tracking ID.

Step 2: Set Up Google Tag Manager (GTM)

1. Sign Up for Google Tag Manager using a google account.

2. Create a New Account:

• Click on Create Account and fill out the necessary details.
• Under Container Setup, enter your website name and choose Web as the platform.
• Click Create to set up your GTM account.

3. Install GTM on Your Magento 2 Store:

• Once your container is created, you'll receive a GTM code snippet.
• Copy the code and log into your Magento 2 admin panel.
• Navigate to Content > Design > Configuration.
• Select the store view you want to configure and click Edit.
• Under the HTML Head section, paste the GTM code into the Scripts and Style Sheets area.
• Save the configuration and clear the cache.

Your Magento 2 store is now set up with Google Tag Manager.

Step 3: Set Up GA4 in GTM

Now that both GA4 and GTM are set up, you need to connect them:

1. Log into Google Tag Manager: Open your GTM account and container.

2. Create a New Tag:

• Click on Tags in the left-hand menu and then click on New.
• Name your tag, something like "GA4 Configuration".

3. Choose Tag Type:

• Click on Tag Configuration and select GA4 Configuration.
• Enter your GA4 measurement ID (the ID you copied earlier that starts with "G-").

4. Set Trigger:

• Click on Triggering and select All Pages to fire this tag on every page of your website.

5. Save and Publish:

• After setting the trigger, save your tag and click Submit to publish the changes.
• This step ensures that GA4 is tracking every page on your Magento 2 store.

Step 4: Configure Enhanced eCommerce Tracking

1. Create a New Tag in GTM:

• Go back to Tags and create a new tag named "GA4 Ecommerce".
• Choose GA4 Event as the tag type.
• In the Event Name field, enter view_item, add_to_cart, purchase, etc., depending on the event you want to track.

2. Link to GA4 Configuration Tag:

• Under Configuration Tag, select the GA4 Configuration tag you created earlier.

3. Set Up Triggers:

• The triggers will depend on the event you want to track. For example, for purchases, you might set up a trigger on the order confirmation page.

4. Save and Publish:

• After configuring the event, save the tag and publish it.
• This will allow you to track specific eCommerce actions, providing more granular data in GA4.

Step 5: Test and Verify

Before you conclude, it’s crucial to test that everything is working as expected:

1. Use Google Tag Assistant:

• Install the Tag Assistant Legacy Chrome extension to test your GTM implementation.
• Visit your website, and the extension will display which tags are firing.

2. Check Real-Time Data in GA4:

• Navigate back to Google Analytics and, under the Real-Time reports, verify that there is data entering the system.
• You should navigate through pages, add products to the cart, make a purchase, and check whether all actions are recorded.

Step 6: Monitor and Optimize

Once everything is set up and verified, monitor the data from your GA4 reports:

• Review Metrics: Key areas to monitor include the number of users or sessions, bounce rate, and number of conversions.
• Set Goals: Within the newly updated platform GA4, create goals that align with your business's goals.
• Optimize Campaigns: Employ the data in the marketing campaigns to enhance the functionality and performance of the website.

Why is GA4 better than Universal Analytics(UA)?

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the current version of Google’s best pick of free analytics tools, and it is significantly more advanced than Universal Analytics (UA). But what makes GA4 better than Universal Analytics, and when is the time to switch? Use the following breakdown to know how GA4 is ahead of it:

Event-Based Tracking-

Recording user interactions is the primary difference between GA4 and Universal Analytics. Universal Analytics did a lot of pageview and session tracking—essentially showing you where users were throughout your site. In doing so, you lose a ton of insight into how users are actually interacting with your site. GA4 is based more on event-type tracking. This gives it the power to observe a far broader set of interactions that can happen between your users, such as button clicks, video plays, and form submissions. This level of granularity gives you a better idea than ever before as to what users are up to on your site, which in turn results in more detailed data collection for greater insights and decision-making capabilities.

Cross-Platform Tracking-

This is the digital era where users just don't stick to one device or platform. The behavior rendered those insights invisible to Universal Analytics because it was most commonly used for tracking website activity. Additionally, unlike UA, which is primarily for tracking mobile apps, there are limitations for what can be effectively tracked in purchase paths to user engagement with GA4 designed to work at the cross-platform level, giving you an all-inclusive understanding of your customer's journey. It does this by seamlessly following users with multiple identities across the desktop and on mobile browsers or apps, providing a complete view of how customers interact between your website vs. app. You can follow events (clicks) and conversions on all channels for better insight.

Enhanced Analytics through AI and Machine Learning-

The great thing about GA4 is that it has advantageous AI and machine learning built in for making these discoveries automatically. GA4, for instance, is able to notify you of large shifts in your data—like an uncharacteristic decrease or increase in traffic. This will provide you with some insights that can be quickly tracked rather than having to be discovered by searching through reports. In addition, GA4’s predictive metrics, such as purchase probability or potential revenue, can provide insight into what drives user action and allow you to make more intelligent choices about your marketing strategy. This is AI-based information that the old Universal Analytics simply won't provide.

Privacy and Data Control-

GA4 has been developed with privacy in mind as new privacy laws become more stringent across countries. It provides fine-grained data control to enable business rules such as GDPR and CCPA equivalents. GA4 also makes storing your data more within your control to a certain point, and deleting user data also becomes easier when needed. Universal Analytics was not made to address these modern privacy concerns, so if businesses want to better prepare for impending data threats and start building that relationship with their users, then GA4 is really the way forward.

Future-Proofing Your Analytics-

GA4 is the future of Google Analytics. In fact, UA will eventually be retired, so switching now ensures you future-proof your operation. You are paving the way for your business to leverage Google's newest analytics advancements and remain ahead of the curve into perpetuity when you get on GA4.

Conclusion

Installing Google Analytics 4 (GA4) for Magento with GTM is critical to monitoring user behavior on your website. By following the steps in this guide, you will confirm that your tracking is accurate and complete, leaving no ambiguity when making decisions.
By connecting GA4 to GTM, you are incorporating more than just one element into your eCommerce stack—you will be equipping yourself with a tool that enables tracking and analysis of user behaviors on a granular level that was not possible in legacy analytics. This combination brings you the data needed to track key events (examples: product views, adding items to the cart, or purchasing) and gives context to your customer's journey.

Flexibility is one of the strong points of GTM use. You can directly manage all your tags from a single interface, allowing you to easily modify or add new ones as requirements change throughout the life of tracking. Automating these changes streamlines your workflow and limits the possible errors that could arise from doing all of this yourself each time.

GA4 has some of the most useful and informative features that you can implement to optimize your store. The data you collect will also energize your ability to optimize marketing strategies, enhance user experience, or simply increase conversion rates.

In conclusion, implementing GA4 + GTM in your Magento 2 store is not merely a technical good-to-have; it must be seen as a strategic initiative that will shape the business's precise commercial extensibility. By doing so, you are setting yourself up for a more data-driven methodology in managing your eCommerce store—and with that will ideally come excellent results. So make use of the new possibilities in GA4, get GTM going, and witness your Magento 2 store flourishing with informed decisions.