How to see automatically collected parameters in GA4 reports
Follow the steps below:
Step-1: Navigate to your GA4 reporting view.
Step-2: Click on ‘Events’ (under ‘Engagement’):
Step-3: Scroll down and then click on an event name. Let’s click on the ‘page_view’ event:
You should now see the detailed report about the ‘page_view’ event:
Step-4: Click on the ‘PARAMETER NAME’ drop-down menu on the right-hand side:
Step-5: Scroll down the drop-down list and then you should be able to see all the automatically collected parameters:
Custom parameters
You can also manually send one or more parameters along with an event via GTM. Such parameters are called ‘Custom parameters’.
There are two types of custom parameters:
Text parameters
Number parameters
#1.1 Text parameters
The value of such parameters is not a number.
You can register text parameters as custom dimensions in the GA4 user interface. But you should not register them as custom metrics.
If you want to use text parameters in your GA4 reports then you would need to register them as custom dimensions in the GA4 user interface.
#1.2 Number parameters
The value of such parameters is a number.
You can register number parameters as custom metrics in the GA4 user interface. But you should not register them as custom dimensions.
If you want to use number parameters in your GA4 reports then you would need to register them as custom metrics in the GA4 user interface.
Note: Event category, Event action, Event label and Event Value parameters are used in GA3 but not in GA4. However, you can still pass such information about an event in GA4. You just don’t use the ‘category-action-label-value‘ format in GA4.
User properties are like user scoped custom dimensions of Universal Analytics. They are used to describe the attributes of your website/app users.
There are two types of user properties:
Predefined user properties.
Custom user properties
#3.1 Predefined user properties
These are automatically collected user properties.
You don’t need to write any special code or add a tag to collect such user properties. You also don’t need to register them in the GA4 user interface before you can use them in your reports.
Following are examples of predefined user properties:
Age
Country
Gender
Interests
Language
Device category etc
#3.2 Custom user properties
These are the user properties defined by you. You would need to register them in the GA4 user interface before you can use them in your reports.
Note: You can create up to 25 unique user properties per GA4 property.
Best practice for naming custom events and parameters
Use lower case for event/parameter names. And if your name has got two or more words then separate the words by an underscore.
For example:
webinar_signups (instead of Webinar Signups)
excel_chart_optins (instead of Excel Chart options)
website_leads (instead of website-leads)
The following event names are reserved and cannot be used as the name of custom events:
ad_activeview
ad_click
ad_exposure
ad_impression
ad_query
adunit_exposure
app_clear_data
app_install
app_update
app_remove
error
first_open
first_visit
in_app_purchase
notification_dismiss
notification_foreground
notification_open
notification_receive
os_update
screen_view
session_start
user_engagement
The following parameter name is reserved and cannot be used as names for custom parameters:
firebase_conversion
Your parameter names can not begin with:
google_
ga_
firebase_
Best practice for naming user properties
The following user property names are reserved and cannot be used as the names for custom user properties:
first_open_time
first_visit_time
last_deep_link_referrer
user_id
first_open_after_install
Your user properties names can not begin with
google_
ga_
firebase_
How to send an event along with a parameter to GA4
Let’s track clicks on a button as an event and then send this custom event to GA4 via GTM. Let’s also pass the button caption as additional information, along with the event via a parameter.
This exercise will help you gain a better understanding of the concept of events and parameters.
Measurement protocol is a set of rules which your application must follow in order to send event data directly to the Google Analytics servers from any device/system which can be connected to the internet.
A basic understanding of how measurement protocol works can help you greatly in understanding event parameters.
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