By now, most businesses know that GA4 is here.
You know it’s replaced Universal Analytics. You know you probably need it.
But for a lot of business owners we speak to, the next question is much simpler: “Ok, but what does it actually do?”
That’s what this blog is for. We’re not talking setup buttons, or developer walkthroughs, or techy jargon.
We're talking about what GA4 can actually show you once it’s running properly, and why that matters for your business.
It’s Not Just Tracking Page Views Anymore
Let’s start with the big shift:
Universal Analytics (the old one) basically tracked pageviews.
You saw how many people landed on certain pages, how long they stayed, and where they came from.
GA4 tracks what people actually do.
Everything in GA4 revolves around events, small interactions that give you far more useful insight than just "they looked at the page."
Here are just some of the things GA4 can track out of the box (or with a proper setup):
Form submissions
Button clicks (phone number clicks, email links, brochure downloads)
Scroll depth (how far people actually read)
Video plays (how much they watched)
File downloads
Ecommerce purchases
Custom events that are unique to your business
You stop asking “How many people came to the site?”
And start asking “What did they actually do while they were here?”
It Tracks People, Not Just Sessions
One of the key reasons Google rebuilt Analytics is because customer behaviour has changed.
People use:
Desktop at work
Mobile on the train
iPads at home
Apps instead of websites
GA4 is built to track users across all those touchpoints. It’s designed around the customer journey, not just browser sessions.
That’s why you’ll see reports showing:
Where people first found you (search, social, ads, referrals)
What pages or products they came back to
Which device they used at each stage
How long they stay engaged (measured by new engagement rate metrics)
It builds a much clearer picture of your full funnel.
GA4 Tells You Which Marketing Is Actually Working
Most businesses have multiple marketing channels running at once:
Google Ads
Facebook Ads
SEO campaigns
Email marketing
LinkedIn
Organic social
Paid partnerships
The question is: which ones are actually driving leads?
When set up properly, GA4 can show you:
What channels brought in your best enquiries.
What pages people visited before they filled in your contact form.
How many leads came from ads vs organic search.
Which campaigns led to real sales conversations.
It’s not just about seeing numbers, it’s about understanding where your next sale actually started.
You Can Custom Build The Reports You Actually Need
One of the biggest fears with GA4 is that all the old reports people were used to have changed or disappeared.
And yes, the standard reports look different.
But that’s because GA4 wants you to build reports that are actually relevant to your business, not just read whatever Google gave you by default.
Inside GA4 you can:
Customise your standard reports
Build “Explorations” for deep-dive reports
Create Funnels that map your actual customer journey (from first visit to enquiry to sale)
Compare behaviours across audiences, campaigns, devices, or even locations
You’re not stuck with one-size-fits-all dashboards anymore. You’re building reports that answer real questions your business has.
You Get Better Data For Sales, Not Just Marketing
This is the part a lot of directors and sales teams overlook.
GA4 isn’t just for your marketing agency. It helps your sales conversations too.
When your team can see:
What blogs or pages a prospect read before they enquired
How many times they visited before converting
What products or services they engaged with
Which campaign originally brought them in
… you’ve got much better context for every sales call.
You're not guessing. You’re working with full buyer journey data.
You Can Even Predict What Might Happen Next
One of the newer features inside GA4 is Predictive Metrics, where machine learning starts to spot patterns in your customer behaviour.
You can build audiences and reports that show:
Likelihood of purchase
Potential customer churn
Projected lifetime value
High-value traffic sources
It’s not perfect, this isn’t Minority Report.
But it does start nudging your business toward smarter targeting and more efficient campaigns.
This Is Where The Setup Actually Matters
Here’s the important bit: none of this happens automatically.
When businesses try to “just install GA4” themselves, what they usually get is:
The default pageview data (which is fine, but basic)
A handful of automatic events (scrolls, clicks, etc.)
No meaningful conversion tracking
No custom reporting
That’s why a proper GA4 setup is critical.
The real power only kicks in when you:
Build custom events for your forms, downloads, phone calls and enquiries
Link your Google Ads account
Integrate your CRM if possible
Clean up your referral data so you’re not tracking junk traffic
Use Google Tag Manager to keep everything streamlined
Build proper dashboards your team can actually use
GA4 Is Still Evolving (And Why That’s Good)
Unlike Universal Analytics, which basically stayed the same for years, GA4 is still evolving as we head deeper into 2025.
Google continues to:
Roll out new reports
Improve integrations
Refine the machine learning
Simplify reporting customisation
This is a platform built for the next decade of business tracking, not the last decade.
And that’s why it’s worth getting it set up properly now.
So, Do You Need GA4? (Yes, But Only If You Want Proper Insight)
If your website is:
Generating leads
Running ads
Tracking ecommerce sales
Feeding your sales pipeline
Or simply playing any role in your marketing
… then yes. You need GA4.
But you don’t just need it installed.
You need it configured to fit your business.
Because when it’s done right? You stop flying blind.
And you start making smarter decisions every week.
What To Do Next
At Surge, this is exactly where we help.
We don’t just “install” GA4.
We build a full measurement plan.
We track the things that actually affect your business.
We create reports your team will actually use.
And we train you to read your numbers confidently, without needing to become a data analyst.
You shouldn’t be guessing what’s working in your marketing.
If you want GA4 to finally make sense, and start pulling its weight for your business, get in touch.
We’ll get you fully set up, once and for all.