GA4 Reports Longer than 14 Months Without Big Query or Looker Studio Limits
Create “Custom” Standard Reports Relevant To Your Business Needs
There is one significant disadvantage to GA4 compared with GA3 and that is the restricted time-frame of Explorer Reports. This is compounded by the fact that the GA4 Standard reports are considerably less useful than those that had been provided “out of the box” with Universal Analytics. GA4 does however have some much better features that used to cost $100k / year to access in GA3, namely a Big Query connector and full funnel attribution modelling, which is now free to all.
Standard and Explore Reports in GA4
Exploration Reports are needed to do any sort of analysis that is not provided by the Standard Reports but Exploration Reporting data retention lookback window is restricted to the last 14 months worth of Event data. I explain how to increase the data retention period in this other post. There is no such time length restriction for Standard Reports. So in order to do any advanced reporting and look further back than 14 months one option is to make use of Big Query where any and all sorts of queries can be written. Although the ability to connect to Big Query is now possible the cloud configuration and use of bandwidth used to query it, is not.
CONFIGURE THE STANDARD REPORTING WITH “New” REPORTS AND STAY UNCONSTRAINED BY TIME-FRAMES
The “trick” is that all Standard Reports can also be edited and new reports can be added to the main reporting section within GA4. So these new reports can be customised to show the custom events required and they are not restricted to 14 months. It’s not a perfect solution as only fairly simple report templates are available such as:
Trendlines (by day but cannot be grouped by week or month or year)
bar charts and bubble charts
Tables, with secondary dimensions and multiple column metrics
Any of these reports can be exported, as normal, to a csv file from the “share this report” icon in the top right hand side of the screen. This isn’t perfect either as the “table” data is limited to the first 5,000 rows worth but the “trend line” downloaded data is also provided (for the single metric chosen).
CONFIGURE THE LEFT-HAND MENU REPORTING NAVIGATION FROM THE “LIBRARY” FOLDER
Admins can see a “Library” folder icon at the bottom of the left-hand navigation in GA4. Clicking on this “lifts the curtain” on how all the Standard reports have been built. New menu items can be added as needed and customised to specific requirements of the business. Perhaps there is a Marketing Collection, a C-Suite Collection a Dev-Ops Collection, etc. The Structure follows a logical folder hierarchy of:
“Collection” is the drop-down collapsible menu item
Each sub-menu under this is contained within its “Topic”
Each Topic contains the custom reports
There can be a “special” type of report for Overview which provides a snapshot of the underlying reports or standalone report cards
Sidenote on the “Search Console” Collection
These reports are not available as standard in GA4. In order to see them in the Navigation do this:
Link Google Search Console to the GA4 Property (from the Admin Cog)
Click into the Library folder and “publish” the Search Console collection
By default this Collection has already been created automatically but it is not published automatically
New Collection Reports and Insights
I’ve had a few GA4 Properties running since mid-2020 when it was called “Web+App” so I can demonstrate this works with some Event data that could be available as a Standard report but not quite in the form I needed. If you have had GA4 for less than 14 months then this proves that it can be done!
I updated the “Performance Marketing” Collection from the Library with a group of reports listed under the “Enriched Lead Gen Data” Topic. These reports show GA4 ecommerce data I’ve applied to Form Submissions via Google Tag Manager. There is also a report as shown above, where I monitor which “Call to Action” buttons are clicked on and what the click text was. Useful for testing CTA variations and their impact on engagement. Data for these Events started flowing in Nov 2020 and I can look back all the way back i.e. 30 months. I can then download this data as a trend, in aggregate and by some other secondary dimensions if needed.
So although it is good that this is possible and will provide some users with some reassurance, it’s still a very basic data export lacking any of the power that the Explorer Reports wield. Ultimately, a Big Query connection will be needed for most medium to large sized organisations.
