This article is in conjunction with the article GA4 Implementation Guide (where I provided the blueprint for GA4 implementation) and the GA4 Migration checklist (step by step guide for migrating to GA4).

In the advanced GA4 setup checklist, I will show you things you must do as soon as you set up a new GA4 property.

1. Change the data retention settings for event and user data from 2 months to 14 months.
2. Link your GA4 property to a BigQuery project so that you don’t lose user-specific data for inactive website users every 14 months.
3. Disable automatic form tracking (via enhanced measurement).
4. Change the reporting identity to ‘device based’ to minimise the negative impact of data threshold on GA4 reports.
5. Change the session timeout setting in GA4 to 7 hours and 55 minutes.
6. Change the ‘Adjust timer for engaged sessions’ setting to 60 seconds.
7. Filter out internal traffic.
8. Configure the List unwanted referrals.
9. Activate Google Signals for your GA4 property.
10. Set up a GA4 test property.
11. Link your GA4 property to your Google Search Console Account to start populating your GA4 reports with search console data ASAP.
12. Link your GA4 property to your Google Ads account, as Google ads data does not flow retroactively into your GA4 reports.
13. Remove all unwanted query parameters from your page path ASAP to reduce the impact of ‘(other)’ in GA4 reports.
14. Adjust your conversion window.
15. Verify Data Consent Settings.
16. Monitor average daily event volume at the GA4 property level (Reports > Engagement > Events).

#1 Change the data retention settings for event and user data from 2 months to 14 months. 

The default setting is 2 months. This means that you lose event and user specific data for inactive website users in GA4 after 2 months.

#2 Link your GA4 property to a BigQuery project so that you don’t lose user-specific data for inactive website users every 14 months.

#3 Disable automatic form tracking (via enhanced measurement).

All form interaction data collected by GA4 ‘automatic form interaction tracking’ is completely way off. 

GA4 tracks form submissions even when a user does not submit the form. You should not enable this tracking feature. 

Otherwise, it could inflate your overall event count.

#4 Change the reporting identity to ‘device based’ to minimise the negative impact of data threshold on GA4 reports.

Note: Any change to the reporting identity is retroactive and does not permanently change your data.

#5 Change the session timeout setting in GA4 to 7 hours and 55 minutes.

By default, a GA4 session expires after 30 minutes of users’ inactivity.

Users can return to your website multiple times within a few hours on the same day. 

Therefore, all such user activities should be part of the same session; hence, GA4 should record only one session.

You can accomplish this by using GA4’s maximum session timeout, which is 7 hours 55 minutes—basically, the entire working day.

A session timeout of 30 minutes or less is not recommended unless your website automatically signs out a user after 30 minutes or less of inactivity.

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#6 Change the ‘Adjust timer for engaged sessions’ setting to 60 seconds.

So a session would not be recorded as an engaged session until it is at least 60 seconds long.

It is fair to count a session as engaged if a user has been on your website for at least a minute.

The default 10 seconds threshold for an engaged session doesn’t make sense.

#7 Filter out internal traffic.

Internal traffic is traffic generated by you or your employees, suppliers, and other service providers (like your developer) to your website.

These people are not your target audience, so we don’t need to track them.

Internal traffic can easily skew your website usage metrics and therefore must be filtered out from your GA4 reports.

#8 Configure the List unwanted referrals.

GA4 allows you to set condition(s) that identify unwanted referrals and prevent them from being reported as referral traffic via a feature called the ‘List unwanted referrals’.

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#9 Activate Google Signals for your GA4 property.

Google Signals is an advertising reporting feature through which GA4 can collect cross-device data from those website users who have signed in to one of their Google accounts (Gmail, YouTube, etc) and have turned on ad personalization.

When you activate Google Signals for your GA4 property, you can:

1. More accurately track users across different devices and platforms.
   
2. Remarket to more website users across devices.
   
3. Analyze users’ data by age, gender and interest.

Disabling Google signals is not recommended, esp. if you use GA4 audiences for Google Ads.

“If you disable collection of Google-signals data, you will not have access to cross-platform reporting, remarketing lists based on Analytics data, advertising reporting features, or demographics and interests.” – Google.

“If you disable the collection of Google-signals data, then the same user could be counted multiple times across different devices, as Google Signals measures users across devices.”- Me

#10 Set up a GA4 test property.

A GA4 test property is like a typical GA4 property but is used only for testing purposes.

A GA4 property comes with only one reporting view (unless you are using the GA4 Subproperty feature of GA4 360).

So whenever you change one of the settings of your GA4 property, you permanently change the way the data is collected, processed and reported in your reporting view.

Every change you make to your GA4 property setting(s) has the potential to permanently inflate/skew your current analytics data.

So you need to create a separate GA4 property just for testing purposes.

#11 Link your GA4 property to your Google Search Console Account to start populating your GA4 reports with search console data ASAP.

Bonus Tip >> Use the ‘Bulk Data Export‘ feature so that you start storing search console data in your BigQuery project ASAP.

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#12 Link your GA4 property to your Google Ads account, as Google ads data does not flow retroactively into your GA4 reports.

#13 Remove all unwanted query parameters from your page path ASAP to reduce the impact of ‘(other)’ in GA4 reports.

#14 Adjust your conversion window.

Set your conversion window to 7 days for Acquisition conversion events and 30 days for all other conversion events for click-through conversions to get the most accurate reporting possible in GA4.

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#15 Verify Data Consent Settings.

Review which Google services can receive consented personal data from the European Economic Area (EEA):

#16 Monitor average daily event volume at the GA4 property level (Reports > Engagement > Events)

If you run a high-traffic website, make sure you are not collecting unnecessary event data, esp. at the expense of business-critical information.

This can help you not exceed the data API quota limits and/or the daily BigQuery export limits.