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Google Analytics 4 Server-Side Reference

Destination Info

  • Accepts Track calls

  • Supports HIPAA mode

  • Refer to this destination as Google Analytics 4 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::G-PSW1MY7HB4. You can retrieve this value from the Google Analytics 4 (Server-Side) configuration page for the Measurement ID of interest.

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

  • Connection Modes:

Client-sideServer-side

Web

Mobile

Server

Events

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

All events will be sent to GA4 from Freshpaint's servers. Your website will not send data directly to GA4. Instead, your website and all other sources will send data to Freshpaint, which is translated then sent to GA4. Freshpaint will send your data server-side to Google’s Measurement Protocol API.

Events sent from Freshpaint to GA4 will show up as standard GA4 events. From there you can use your events in any of the GA4 reports and use it to generate insights into your business.

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. 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:

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.

Page View Events

Freshpaint will automatically send a page_view event to Google Analytics. This page view event will behave the same as the native Google Analytics page_view event.

Manually sending a page view event to Freshpaint by calling freshpaint.page() is not currently supported.

GA4 Event and Property Naming Conventions

GA4 will only accept GA4 event/property names that follow a certain convention. Valid GA4 event and property names:

  1. Contain only alphanumeric characters & underscores

  2. Start with a letter

Don't worry! If you provide an invalid event/property name, Freshpaint will handle this for you. We will replace all characters other than the alphanumeric & underscores, with underscores, and if the event/property name doesn't start with a letter, we will prefix it with 'FP_'.

Making the switch to Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 is fully equipped to support your measurement needs today and into the future. Google will be turning down Universal Analytics, so it is recommended you to make the switch to Google Analytics 4 as soon as possible. To get help in migrating to GA4, you can refer to Google's docs here.

On July 1, 2023, standard Universal Analytics properties will no longer process data. You'll be able to see your Universal Analytics reports for a period of time after July 1, 2023. However, new data will only flow into Google Analytics 4 properties.

Differences Between Native Google Analytics 4 and Freshpaint Google Analytics 4 Server Side

Out of the box there will be some differences between a native Google Analytics 4 integration and a Freshpaint Google Analytics 4 Server Side integration. These are currently the following:

  • Reduced Geo-location accuracy for HIPAA customers only - We will reduce the geo-location accuracy to remain in compliance with HIPAA guidance. Google Analytics uses the IP address to geo-locate the user. Freshpaint will replace the IP address of the customer with another IP address within the same State and Country.

Analytics that look at City or Region will produce inaccurate results within Google Analytics due to the IP address replacement, however this is necessary in order to remain HIPAA compliant.

  • Realtime overview will not show users currently on the page.

  • Time on page not captured out of the box.

  • Enhanced event measurement not supported out of the box. If you have enhanced event measurement enabled, a native Google Analytics integration will capture a number of events out of the box that Freshpaint does not. If you are interested in capturing these events, contact support@freshpaint.io for assistance in capturing the properties.

  • URL path not sent to Google Analytics by default. For non-pageview events, Freshpaint will by default not send the path of the event to Google Analytics. To add the URL path to your events, you can use a send built-in property transformation.

If you would like more parity with a native Google Analytics 4 installation, check out our Google Analytics 4 Proxy destination.

Configuration Settings

Event Transformations

Set up transformations to modify your data before it's sent to your destination. Read more about transformations here.

Event and Parameter Name Limitations

The Google Analytics Measurement Protocol limits the amount of characters in event and parameter names as follows:

  • Event names must be 40 characters or fewer, may only contain alpha-numeric characters and underscores, and must start with an alphabetic character.

  • Parameter names (including item parameters) must be 40 characters or fewer, may only contain alpha-numeric characters and underscores, and must start with an alphabetic character.

You can read more about that in Google's documentation here.

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