GA4 Setup Checklist: 20 Settings Most Businesses Get Wrong

Why GA4 Setup Errors Are So Common

Google Analytics 4 launched with dramatically different defaults from Universal Analytics. Many of these defaults are wrong for most businesses — leading to missing data, inflated session counts, or compliance issues. This checklist covers the 20 settings that cause the most problems in GA4 properties we audit.

Data and Retention Settings

1. Data retention set to 2 months (default): GA4's default data retention is 2 months. This means your Explorations reports can only query the last 2 months of event-level data. Fix: Admin then Data Settings then Data Retention then set to 14 months.

2. Google Signals not enabled (or enabled without consent): Google Signals provides cross-device reporting and demographics data — but requires user consent under GDPR. Either enable it with proper consent controls in place, or disable it if you cannot obtain consent for it.

3. Granular location and device data disabled incorrectly: This setting controls whether GA4 collects city-level and device-level data. Disabling it unnecessarily reduces your segmentation capability. Check that this matches your Privacy Policy and consent framework.

Traffic and Data Quality

4. No internal traffic filter: Your office, team, and developer browsing inflates your session and event counts. Fix: Admin then Data Streams then Configure tag settings then Define internal traffic, then Admin then Data Filters to activate the filter.

5. No referral exclusion for payment processors: If your checkout redirects through Stripe, PayPal, or another payment processor, returning users from that redirect are counted as new sessions from the payment processor. Add payment processor domains to your referral exclusion list.

6. No cross-domain tracking for multi-domain setups: If you have a separate checkout domain or subdomain that is not part of your primary domain, sessions break at the domain boundary without cross-domain configuration.

Conversion Tracking

7. Wrong events marked as conversions: GA4 allows you to mark any event as a Key Event (conversion). Many setups have page_view or session_start marked as conversions — meaningless and inflating conversion counts.

8. No conversion events configured at all: Some GA4 properties have zero key events defined — meaning no conversion data is flowing to Google Ads for Smart Bidding.

9. Purchase events not verifying transaction IDs: Without transaction_id deduplication, page refreshes and back-button navigation can trigger duplicate purchase events. Always include a unique transaction_id with every purchase event.

Google Ads Integration

10. GA4 not linked to Google Ads: Without the Google Ads link, GA4 conversions cannot be imported into Google Ads for Smart Bidding. Fix: Admin then Google Ads Links.

11. Using both GA4 imported conversions AND Google Ads tag conversions: Double-counting conversions in Google Ads causes Smart Bidding to over-report and over-bid. Choose one source per conversion action.

Enhanced Measurement

12. Enhanced Measurement scroll threshold wrong: Default scroll tracking fires at 90% scroll depth. For long-form content this is a useful signal; for landing pages with above-the-fold CTAs, it fires almost never. Adjust based on your content type.

13. File download tracking not configured: Enhanced Measurement tracks file downloads automatically, but only for the default file extension list. If your valuable downloads are PDFs or custom file types, verify they are included.

Audience and Reporting

14. No custom channel groupings: GA4's default channel groupings may not match how you think about your traffic. Create custom channel groupings that reflect your actual paid and organic channel mix.

15. Explorations not using custom date comparisons: The standard date comparison in Explorations defaults to showing absolute numbers without comparison periods. Set up comparison periods to identify trends, not just current state.

Privacy and Compliance

16. No Consent Mode implemented: In the EU and UK, collecting analytics data without user consent is a legal risk. Consent Mode v2 allows GA4 to model conversions for non-consenting users while respecting privacy.

17. IP anonymisation not confirmed: GA4 anonymises IPs by default — but verify this is still the case after any recent changes to your GA4 configuration.

BigQuery and Advanced

18. BigQuery export not enabled: The free BigQuery export gives you raw event-level data for the last 60 days. Enabling it retroactively only captures data from the enable date — so every day without it is data permanently lost for advanced analysis.

19. User ID not implemented for logged-in users: If your site has user accounts, passing the User ID to GA4 enables cross-device user identification and dramatically improves your returning user data quality.

20. No regular auditing schedule: GA4 configuration drifts as new events are added, team members change settings, and business needs evolve. Schedule a quarterly GA4 audit to catch misconfigurations before they corrupt long-term trend data.

Summary

These 20 issues appear in the majority of GA4 properties we audit. Addressing them takes a few hours but prevents months of data quality problems. Start with data retention (item 1) — it is the only setting where delay permanently destroys historical data.

See our GA4 Setup & Audit service for a comprehensive property review.

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