My Step-By-Step Blueprint For Learning and Mastering Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

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Last Updated: December 31, 2022

What are GA4 User properties?

User properties are attributes used to define segments of your user base, such as language preference or geographic location.

By default, Google Analytics 4 automatically logs some user properties like the ones below:

Technically speaking, the custom dimensions which have user scope are called the user-scoped custom dimensions (also known as user properties)

User-scope means the value of the custom dimension is calculated and sent once for each user. 

Google recommends that you use a user-scoped custom dimension to identify static or slowly changing attributes of your website/app users like changes in the subscription plan, membership level, game difficulty level, etc.

You can create a user-scoped custom dimension by registering a parameter with user scope in the GA4 user interface.

In GA4, the values of custom dimensions and custom metrics are supplied by logged event parameters.

So, before you create a user-scoped custom dimension, you need a logged event parameter in your GA4 reporting view, and this parameter must have user scope. 

In other words, you cannot create a user-scoped custom dimension by registering a parameter with event scope. 

For example, the page_title has event scope, so you cannot register this parameter as a user-scoped custom dimension.

You can only register parameters as user-scoped custom dimensions if they have user scope. 

You can also create a user-scoped custom dimension before logging the event parameter, but that is not best practice for creating user-scoped custom dimensions.

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How to create and pass a user scope custom parameter along with an event?

Before creating a user-scoped custom dimension, you need a user-scoped parameter that is logged (recorded) in your GA4 reporting view. 

Let us suppose that you want to send the client ID custom parameter (with user scope) along with an event to your GA4 reporting view.

To send the client ID with user scope, you need to either create or edit a GA4 event tag in your GTM account and then send the client ID event parameter as a user property:

From the screenshot above, we can conclude that we are sending the client ID via the ‘client_id_custom‘ user property (aka user-scoped custom dimension) along with the event ‘get_user_data‘.

Note: If you want to learn more about sending client ID to your GA4 property, check out this article.

Once you start sending the client ID as a user property to your GA4 reporting view, navigate to the DebugView report:

Find and click on the user property named ‘client_id_custom= ……‘:

You should now be able to see one of the captured client IDs:

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How to create a user property in GA4

Let us suppose you want to register the user-scoped custom parameter ‘client_id_custom’ as a user-scoped custom dimension. 

To do that, follow the steps below:

Step-1: Navigate to your GA4 property view and then click on the ‘Configure’ link:

Step-2: Click on ‘Custom Definitions’

Step-3: Click on the ‘Create custom dimensions’ button:

Step-4: Enter the name for your custom dimension. This name will appear in your GA4 reports, so use a descriptive name:

Note: You can always change the dimension name later if you need to. 

Step-5: Set the dimension scope to ‘User’:

Note: Once you have set the scope, you cannot change it later.

Step-6: Select the parameter ‘client_id_custom’ from the ‘User property’ drop-down menu and then click on the ‘Save’ button:

Note: Once you have selected a user property, you cannot change it later.

You should now see your new custom dimension listed under the ‘Custom dimensions’ section:

Once a full 24 hrs have elapsed, your user-scoped custom dimension should be available in the various GA4 reports. 

However, the user-scoped custom dimension won’t appear as a data card in every event report where you (or GA4) pass the user-scoped parameter along with the event. The data card appears only for event-scoped custom dimensions.

Then navigate to Engagement > Events report in your GA4 reporting view:

Click on the ‘get_user_data’ event:

You will see the report on the ‘get_user_data’ event, but you won’t see a separate data card for the user-scoped custom dimension ‘Custom Client ID’:

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Applying user-scoped custom dimensions via ‘Add Comparison’

Once you have registered a logged event parameter as a user-scoped custom dimension, you can then apply the custom dimension to any GA4 report via the ‘Add Comparison’ feature.

In GA4, we use the ‘Add Comparison’ feature (instead of segments or filters) to evaluate and compare a subset of data. 

Let’s apply the ‘Custom Client ID’ user-scoped custom dimension we created earlier to the Traffic Acquisition report.

Follow the steps below:

Step-1: Navigate to the Traffic Acquisition report in your GA4 reporting view:

Step-2: Click on the ‘Add Comparison’ button:

You should now see an overlay on the right-hand side of your screen like the one below:

Step-3: Select the ‘Custom Client ID’ dimension from the ‘Dimension’ drop-down menu:

Step-4: Click on the ‘Dimension Values’ drop-down menu:

Step-5: Select one of the client IDs and then click on the ‘OK’ button:

Step-6: Click on the ‘Apply’ button:

You should now see the new comparison added to the Traffic Acquisition report:

Navigate to any other GA4 report, and you should see the same new comparison applied to the report.

That’s how you can apply user-scoped custom dimensions to GA4 reports via the ‘Add Comparison’ feature.

The advantage of registering a user-scoped event parameter as a user-scoped custom dimension is that you can report on the same user-scoped event parameter for as many events as you like without passing the same parameter repeatedly for each event.

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Applying a user-scoped custom dimension as a secondary dimension

Once you have registered a logged user-scoped event parameter as a user-scoped custom dimension, you can then apply the custom dimension as a secondary dimension to any GA4 report which contains a data table.

For example, the User Acquisition report contains a data table:

Click on the ‘+’ button next to the ‘User medium’ primary dimension to apply a secondary dimension to the data table:

Click on ‘Custom (User-scoped)‘ from the drop-down menu:

Click on ‘Custom Client ID‘:

You should now see the ‘Custom Client ID’ user-scoped custom dimension applied to the User Acquisition report as the secondary dimension:

That’s how you can apply a user-scoped custom dimension to GA4 reports as a secondary dimension.

Note: Just like event-scoped custom dimensions, you can also apply user-scoped custom dimensions to the Analysis Hub reports.

Archive user properties in GA4

Since Google Analytics provides only 25 custom user properties, if at any time you exceed the limit or do not want to continue with an existing user property, you can archive any of the current user properties which are no longer needed or are of less importance.

Follow the below steps to archive a user property:

Step-1: Navigate to your GA4 property view and then click on the ‘Configure’ link:

Step-2: Click on ‘Custom Definitions’.

Step-3: Click on the three dots menu next to the user property (aka user-scoped custom dimension) you want to delete:

Step-4: Click on the ‘Archive‘ option:

Step-5: Click on the ‘Archive’ button:

Note: Archiving a user property is permanent. It cannot be undone, and the corresponding data cannot be restored. Any segment or funnel using this user property in Analysis would stop working.

Adding the user property to your website via gtag.js

User properties can be set either by calling the gtag(‘set’) command in your website if you are using the global site tag (gtag.js) tagging framework or using Google Tag Manager.

Here I will be creating a user property ‘User_Location’ as an example.

You can pass user properties using the following command.

gtag(‘set’, ‘user_properties’, {

User_Location: ‘United States’,

});

Your final code will look like below:

<!– Global site tag (gtag.js) – Google Analytics –>

<script async src=”https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=MEASUREMENT_ID”></script>

<script>

window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];

function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}

gtag(‘js’, new Date());

gtag(‘config’, ‘MEASUREMENT_ID’); // GA4 Measurement ID

gtag(‘set’, ‘user_properties’, {

User_Location: ‘United States’,

});

</script>

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Frequently asked questions about GA4 User Properties (User scope custom dimension)