Google Analytics 4 Proxy Quick Start Guide

This is a Proxy Integration for GA4. This destination runs on Freshpaint's servers, but emulates a native installation of GA4. That means the integration behaves the same as if you did a native installation of GA4, but the data first flows through Freshpaint before it's sent to GA4. See our docs on proxy integrations for more information.

Google Analytics 4 is an analytics service that enables you to measure traffic and engagement across your websites and apps.

After sending Freshpaint data to Google Analytics 4, you'll be able to analyze the data in order to identify trends and patterns in how visitors engage with your website(s).

For additional information on settings and configurations for the Google Analytics 4 Proxy destination, please see the Reference Guide.

Learn more about Google Analytics 4 here.

Destination Info

• Accepts Track and Identify calls

• Supports HIPAA mode

• Supports forwarding from the Google Tag Manager Integration

• Refer to this destination as Google Analytics 4 Proxy in the Integrations object

  • If you've configured multiple Measurement IDs, you can choose a specific one by suffixing the Measurement ID, such as: Google Analytics 4 Proxy::G-PSW1MY7HB4. You can retrieve this value from the Google Analytics 4 (Proxy) configuration page for the Measurement ID of interest.

  • For other considerations when using multiple Google Analytics 4 Proxy Measurement IDs, see Google Analytics 4 Proxy Advanced Tracking Configurations.

When no suffix is specified, all configured Measurement IDs are selected for inclusion / exclusion.

• Connection Modes:

	Client-side	Server-side (Proxy)
Web
Mobile
Server

Getting Started

What You'll Need

1. Your Google Analytics stream identifiers:

   1. For web streams, find the Measurement ID

   2. For app streams, find the Stream ID and create an API token

2. The Freshpaint Autotrack script tag installed on your site

To set up Google Analytics 4 Proxy with Freshpaint, first follow these steps:

1. Get your Measurement ID. In your Google Analytics account, go to Admin > Data Streams > [select data stream from list] and copy the Measurement ID value

1. Next, go to the Google Analytics 4 Proxy configuration page in Freshpaint and click Configure. Then, configure the app credentials by providing your appropriate ids based on which stream you are tracking.

That's it! Now all you need to do to send an event to Google Analytics 4 Proxy is enable the destination in the Freshpaint event definition:

Navigate to your Freshpaint event, and toggle the destination on to enable the event to be sent to the Google Analytics 4 Proxy destination.

Once the GA4 Proxy integration is enabled, you can now set it as an event destination:

If you have multiple Google Analytics 4 Proxy streams enabled, you'll need to enable each set of IDs separately.

If you're using Google Tag Manager to send data to Google Analytics 4 Proxy, and you have multiple Measurement IDs enabled, you'll need to specify which Measurement ID(s) you'd like to enable the event for in the event tag.

If you are a HIPAA account, you will need to add event properties to the allowlist. If you are not a HIPAA account, you can skip this step.

Freshpaint recommends allowing a number of properties. Many of your Google Analytics reports will not function correctly without these properties. As always, make sure that your choices align with your organization's stance for HIPAA compliance.

Allow recommended properties to GA4 in order to populate data for essential reports

Confirm data is flowing into Google Analytics

The fastest way to confirm if the integration is working is to:

1. Send an event to GA4 via the toggle like in the screenshot above

2. Go to your website and trigger the event you just toggled to send to GA4

3. Wait a few minutes, then check GA4's Realtime overview for the events. To navigate here, go to Reports > Realtime and scroll down to view the events:

If you’re already familiar with GA4’s reporting, you’ll likely have a number of specific reports that you view regularly. Confirm that the data in these reports is as you’d expect it to look.

If you’re new to GA4, we recommend reviewing a few basic standard reports and check for:

• Acquisition > Overview: total users, new users

• Acquisition > User/Traffic acquisition: channel, source and medium

• Engagement > Overview: engagement time, views, event counts

• Engagement > Events: event names, page_view event

• Tech > Tech details: browser, platform/device category, operating system

Data from the previous day may not be ingested and displayed by Google in Reports until 3:30pm ET the following day. Visit the Realtime overview in your Google Analytics account to get a quick view of the data captured within the last 30-minute window.

• Acquisition

  • Overview

  • User/Traffic acquisition

• Engagement

  • Overview

  • Pages and screens

  • Events

  • Technology

• Overview

  • Tech Details