Using GA4 Exploration for Reporting? You Might be in Trouble.

GA4 Explore feature is for data exploration and analysis. It allows you to build a view using various dimensions, metrics, and segments to analyze GA4 data.

(Side note: If you are not familiar with GA4 Explore then check this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0wfKrL3Qz0)

However since GA4 has limited reporting capabilities many organizations end up using  GA4 Explorations to build the reports.

If you are on of those organizations then keep in mind that data retention in your standard reports and GA4 explore are different and the undelaying data tables are also different. These two combined can create a problem for you, particularly the data retention timeframe.

Undelaying Data Tables

Standard reports are based on aggerated data since the standard reports have a standard structure they can be based off of the aggregated data tables.

Explore on the other hand is built by users and they do a mix and match of various metrics, dimensions, segments, analysis technique, visualization etc., GA4 need to reply on raw data to provide what users are looking for.

These differences can sometime leads to different numbers in standard reports versus what you get in GA4 explorations.

This is not a big deal as long as you understand that all web analytics data is inaccurate.  It is precise but not accurate.

Data Retention

Since GA4 standard reports reply on aggregated data it is relatively a lot cheaper to store the data for Google than if there were to store the entire raw data set. Hence, standard reports contain the data from the day you started collecting it. So you will be able to go back years if you need to.

GA4 explore, on the other hand, is based on raw (or relatively raw) data. As a result, the storage cost of for Google to store the data for all the free accounts is huge. So they limit the data they store for exploration. By default you can only go back 2 month but you can extend it to a maximum duration of 14 months.

So if you ever need a report with data that was collected more than 14 months ago then you will be out of luck.

Your options

1. Find a way to get the same report using standard/custom reports and not explorations.

2. Send the data BigQuery and recreate the report in Looker studio or some other data visualization/reporting tool.

Even if you choose option 1, keep option 2 as a backup.
Always store your data in BigQuery so that you don't have to regret later.

Here are the steps to get your GA4 data in BigQuery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3vrKaMdtkw

If you need help with GA4, BigQuery etc. then contact me for no obligation consultation.

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1. GA4+BigQuery

2. Digital Analytics Jobs Weekly

3. Digital Analytics Insights

Do you have a GA4 questions? If yes then email them to me at [email protected]