Stack the Deck in Your Favor With GA4 Summary Cards to Analyze Your Website

Knowing your way around the latest incarnation of Google Analytics will take practice because it’s so different from the last version. Today, let’s look further at Summary Cards.

Every Overview Report found in the Reports menu is a screen of assembled Summary Cards. Each Summary Card is a visualization that displays the data from a specific aspect that relates to the Overview Report you are looking at. We looked at one such Summary Card last time, the Users by Country card.

The information on each Summary Card is displayed through dimension, metrics, and visualization. “Dimension” is usually described through text, like when we changed the filter from Users by Country to Users by City in our previous post. “Metrics” is the quantitative measurement, as in the number of User visits recorded from each city. “Visualization” is the kind of chart used to display the Dimension and Metrics. In our case, it was a list and a bar graph.

All three of these elements can usually be modified as you wish, depending on the kind of Card. Also, most Cards have a blue invitation on the bottom to open a more detailed view of the data report.

Many Summary Cards are already pre-made for your use and the Overview Reports you look at may already include some. You can modify the Cards that are there, rearrange how they appear on the Overview Report, or delete the Cards that aren’t important to your business.

Some of the commonly used Summary Cards are:

• Realtime           
  This shows you the number of Users on your website within the last 30 minutes and where their devices are located. (Remember, Users are actually measured by device, so one human who visits your site via their computer and then via their phone is counted twice.)
• Insights 
  Insights often point out anomalies such as more visitors during a time period than expected. This is also where you’ll find recommendations from GA4's AI.
• Users by Country
  As previously noted, this card details where your Users (devices) are located and it can be modified to measure by City or Region, whichever is most important to your business.
• User activity over time
  Track the trends of active users to see how they grow or dwindle over time.
• Views by Page title and screen class
  See a list of the pages on your website that are getting the most views.
• Event count by Event name
  Remember that everything a User does on your website is now called an “Event.” Events can be clicks, page scrolling, or other User engagements. This card displays your top events.
• Conversions by Event name
  A Conversion is a special kind of Event. It is defined as “user action that’s valuable to your business.” Your top conversions are listed in this card.
• Conversions by Platform
  The platforms noted are “Web,” “iOS,” and “Android,” which may or may not be of interest to your business marketing strategies.

You can create a customized Overview Report by assembling your choice of Summary Cards, but there are already Cards assembled in Collections for your use. That, however, is a discussion for another day!

Not everyone has completed the switchover from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4. If you haven’t because you’re too busy or too frustrated, let us take this task off your list. Give us a call and let us help!

Photo by Kristóf Sass-Kovan

Kate GingoldKate Gingold

I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.

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I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.

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