GA4 Guide: 13 Questions to Evaluate Your Agency’s Analytics Approach
February 27th, 2025 by
Key Insights
- GA4 is a powerful tool for tracking user behavior and engagement metrics across devices, giving you a clearer picture of how visitors interact with your site.
- Continuous GA4 tracking, reporting, and analysis enables you to accurately assess your marketing performance, identify trends, and adjust strategies based on real user data.
- Working with a digital marketing agency simplifies actionable GA4 tracking and reporting, but only if the agency prioritizes aligning data with your specific goals.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the foundation of modern marketing analytics, helping websites track user behavior and performance like never before.
Built for a privacy-first web, GA4 moves beyond its predecessor, Universal Analytics, with an event-driven model, cross-platform tracking, and machine learning-powered insights. When properly configured, it helps marketers understand the entire customer journey and optimize campaigns for success.
However, simply enabling GA4 isn’t enough — its value depends on how well it’s set up, monitored, and analyzed.
Many marketers turn to agencies to help make sense of GA4’s data, but not all agencies take the same approach. Some rely on default settings and basic reporting, while others customize GA4 to align with your objectives, ensuring accurate data collection and meaningful analysis.
If you’re considering partnering with an agency to streamline metric tracking, ask these questions to gauge their ability to turn data into impact.
GA4 Guide: Top Questions to Ask Your Agency
1. Which metrics should we prioritize in GA4?
Before trusting your tracking and reporting to an agency, first verify that they monitor the GA4 metrics that drive results. GA4 tracks a ton of data, but only some metrics directly impact your specific goals. Misleading or irrelevant metrics can waste time and resources, and lead to ineffective business decisions.
An experienced agency will know exactly which metrics to track based on your industry and conversion goals, and be able to explain the why behind them.
Sessions, average engagement time, and key event counts are some of the most important GA4 metrics, though their relevance depends on your marketing objectives.
For example, an e-commerce brand may prioritize purchase events and checkout drop-off rates, while a lead generation site may focus on form submissions and engaged sessions. A higher education institution might stress metrics that reflect prospective student interest, such as application starts, request-for-information (RFI) submissions, and organic search traffic to program pages.
2. Which key events and conversions are you tracking for us?
When evaluating an agency, ask how they determine which key events to track and how they define conversions in GA4.
Key events are specific actions you’ve identified as important, like button clicks or purchases. GA4 tracks these to reveal user behavior and engagement. Conversions, built from key event data, feed into Google Ads to improve bidding and campaign performance. Key events measure site success, while conversions turn that success into better advertising results.
The right agency will track the key events or conversions that match your marketing goals, while also reviewing and adjusting tracking as your strategy evolves. Be wary of agencies that just rely on default settings — these often overlook more nuanced metrics that directly influence your marketing outcomes.
3. What insights can you provide about our site/business performance?
Your agency should go beyond just providing basic reports that don’t tell the full story. A good marketing partner will also translate this data into clear recommendations, whether that’s refining content, improving conversion paths, or implementing new marketing efforts to drive stronger results.
They should also evaluate site engagement and business growth by identifying trends in your GA4 performance tracking. Be sure to verify that your agency provides:
- Site performance insights, such as user behavior, page-level interactions, and other engagement metrics, to understand how well your website captures interest and where visitors may be dropping off.
- Business performance insights, such as the traffic sources and content types driving conversions, to assess what works and identify strategies for ongoing growth.
4. How do you ensure GA4 is both set up according to best practices and tracking accurately?
A proper GA4 setup is the backbone of accurate tracking.
Misconfigurations lead to reporting gaps and unreliable data, making it harder to measure performance effectively. Your agency should configure properties, data streams, and event tracking correctly from the start, ensuring enhanced measurement settings are enabled and privacy compliance is in place.
But accurate setup is only half the battle.
Ask your agency how often they’ll audit your setup. GA4 tracking requires ongoing adjustments to stay up-to-date as your website and strategy evolve. The ideal agency will regularly review tracking, refine configurations, and proactively adapt to changes.
5. How do you compare performance over time using GA4?
An all-star marketing agency is proficient in comparing historical and real-time data in GA4 to measure your marketing progress and analyze this data to recommend optimizations for better long-term results.
Ask your agency how they track user engagement, conversion rates, and traffic sources over time to determine what’s improving and what needs attention. Year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter analyses should highlight shifts in customer behavior, marketing effectiveness, and site performance.
Your agency should also factor in seasonality, campaign changes, and market conditions to understand and provide insight into fluctuations.
Make sure they provide clear takeaways on what’s driving performance and offer specific recommendations based on historical trends.
6. What first-party data strategies are you implementing with GA4?
In a privacy-conscious world where third-party cookies are fading, you must ensure your agency prioritizes first-party data strategies.
GA4 enables marketers to track and analyze user behavior without relying on third-party cookies, instead leveraging data from sources like CRM systems, email marketing, and customer interactions. Ask how your agency uses this consented first-party data to build detailed customer profiles while ensuring compliance with privacy laws.
A great agency will integrate first-party data with GA4 insights to refine targeting and improve campaign performance. Whether it’s segmenting high-value customers, personalizing ad strategies, or improving attribution modeling, they’ll have a set strategy in place that helps you make the most of your first-party data.
7. How are you aligning GA4 data with our business goals?
To maximize the value of GA4, your agency should link the data it collects directly to your business objectives, whether you’re focused on customer acquisition, retention, or driving revenue.
Ask how they customize dashboards to reflect the KPIs that matter most for your business. For example, if increasing revenue is your priority, they should focus on metrics like sales conversion rates and customer lifetime value. If retention is key, engagement and repeat visits will be top priorities.
The right agency will go beyond standard reporting, integrating GA4 data into your broader marketing strategy. They will help you understand how tracking specific actions — like the right customer engagement metrics or the proper attribution models — aligns with and accelerates your growth goals.
8. How do you approach reporting to ensure it’s actionable?
Data without context is just noise. While visually appealing dashboards and charts are helpful for spotting trends, they don’t provide the insights needed to drive meaningful action.
Effective reporting goes further by interpreting the data, identifying key takeaways, and outlining specific recommendations. Your agency should be able to explain what’s working, what’s not, and what adjustments will improve performance.
Ask for examples of how they’ve used analytics to refine strategies for other clients. Clear, data-driven recommendations should be a core part of their reporting approach, not an afterthought.
9. How do you ensure reporting balances automation with human expertise?
Automated GA4 reports streamline data collection and reporting, saving time on routine tasks like traffic tracking and goal completion.
However, without human analysis, they lack context, actionable strategies, and clarity on how to boost campaign performance.
Ask how your agency decides what aspects of reporting to automate and which require a human touch. For example, automated reports might track page views or bounce rates, but a human team analyzes shifts in user behavior, identifies patterns, and recommends adjustments to your strategy.
10. My data in GA4 doesn’t match Meta, Google Ads, my backend website data, etc. Why?
Differences between your GA4 data and platforms like Meta, Google Ads, or your backend website are often due to how each system tracks and reports data. These platforms use distinct tracking methods, attribution models, and reporting windows, which can lead to discrepancies.
For instance, GA4 and Google Ads might attribute conversions differently, and Meta may have its own tracking system, leading to varied numbers for the same event. On top of that, backend website data tends to show all activity, while GA4 might sample or filter out some data to simplify reporting.
A great agency will help you navigate these differences, explain where the discrepancies come from and why they happen, and ensure you make decisions based on the most accurate, relevant insights.
11. Why can’t we track everything?
Digital marketing tools like GA4 offer great potential, but privacy restrictions and technical hurdles limit the data available to track. Some of the most disruptive limitations come from:
- Privacy technologies: Tools like Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) and ad blockers limit data collection. ITP blocks third-party cookies, preventing tracking across sites, while ad blockers stop tracking scripts from loading, which reduces the data available for analysis.
- Cross-device and multi-session tracking: Without user login data, it’s difficult to connect interactions across different devices or sessions. This makes it hard to track a complete user journey when someone switches from mobile to desktop or returns to your site after some time.
- UTM parameters: These parameters, used for tracking campaign performance, can be impacted by browser settings or device restrictions. Some browsers automatically strip UTM parameters from URLs, causing data loss, and switching devices or browsers may break the connection between sessions.
Despite these limitations, a skilled agency will help you make the most of the data you can track, ensuring you still gather valuable learnings to shape your strategy.
12. Is GA4 tracking 100% accurate?
As much as we’d like it to be, no tracking tool, including GA4, is perfect.
While GA4 offers advanced features, it’s important to understand that it has shortcomings and is not 100% accurate. Your agency should be transparent about these challenges and explain how they mitigate inaccuracies.
The right agency will focus on trends and directional insights, using data to estimate what’s working and what isn’t, even when it’s not perfectly precise. They will help you understand the broader picture and guide you in making informed decisions based on overarching trends.
13. How do you stay updated on GA4 changes and best practices?
GA4 is always evolving, and marketers need to stay on top of the latest updates to ensure accurate tracking and data-driven insights.
Ask your agency how they keep up with new GA4 changes and best practices. Do they attend industry conferences or webinars, follow thought leaders and key blogs in analytics, or engage with Google’s product updates and announcements? Agencies serious about GA4 will also beta-test new features or use Google’s official training resources to remain ahead of the curve.
If they show how they’re using the latest and greatest GA4 features for current clients, that’s typically a good sign.
Get More From Your Google Analytics Data With Search Influence
Your brand deserves an agency that truly understands GA4 and knows how to turn data into results. At Search Influence, we take an expert approach to advanced, strategic tracking and reporting.
Our experienced team dives deep into user behavior across devices and platforms, uncovering trends that drive smarter, data-backed decisions. We focus on the metrics that matter most to you, aligning GA4 insights directly with your marketing goals to ensure you’re always measuring what counts. Our GA4 dashboards are customized to streamline reporting while providing clear, actionable insights that help you optimize performance.
Ready to maximize the impact of your GA4 data? Get in touch with us today, and let us refine your tracking strategy to fuel long-term growth.
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