Create a GA4 property and data stream, and install the tag on a website.
Set up Google Analytics 4 (GA4) yourself, under a Google account the business owns. Agencies and designers often set it up under their own Google account. When that happens, the business has no control over it and can lose the data if that person leaves.
When Priya asked her web designer for the GA4 login for her maths centre (Priya is an invented example), the designer wasn't sure which account it was under. The centre's GA4 property turned out to be in the designer's own Google account, along with a dozen other clients' sites. Priya could see the reports only because someone had once shared them with her. If the designer left, the maths centre's data would go with them.
The steps below follow the order you'll meet them in GA4.
GA4 has three levels. The account is the top level, and a business usually has one. A property sits inside an account and holds the reports, settings and data. Most small businesses need one property for their website. A data stream sits inside a property. There is one stream for each data source: a website, an iOS app or an Android app.
Create the account under a Google login the business controls. A shared business address is better than one person's personal Gmail.
Then give each person access at the level they need. A designer who installs the tag needs editor access to the property. An owner who only reads reports can have viewer access. You can remove anyone's access later without losing data.
When you create the property, GA4 asks for a time zone and a currency. If the business sells in Singapore, pick Singapore and SGD. The time zone sets where each day starts and ends in reports, so it matters when you compare days against your own sales records.
Next, add a web data stream using the site's address. GA4 gives the stream a measurement ID that starts with "G-". This ID links the website to the property, so note it down somewhere you can find it.
The Google tag is the code that sends events from the site to GA4. You can install it in three ways, and you need only one.
The direct method is to paste GA4's code snippet into the head section of every page. It suits a hand-built site where someone is comfortable editing code.
The second way is your website builder's integration. Most popular website builders and online shop platforms have a settings page or plugin where you paste the measurement ID, and they add the tag for you. This is the easiest path for most small businesses, and it usually survives theme changes. Priya's site runs on a website builder, so she pasted the measurement ID into the builder's analytics settings and saved.
The third way is Google Tag Manager, a free tool that holds all your tags in one container. You install the Tag Manager code once, then add GA4 and other tags inside it without editing the site again. It's worth learning if you'll run several tags or need custom events, which lesson 3.4 may need. It is one more thing to learn, though, so a business with one simple site can start without it.
Whichever way you choose, install the tag only once. A common reason every page view gets counted twice is a tag installed through both the builder and Tag Manager.
Owners and staff visit their own site far more often than any customer does, for example to check prices or fix typos. On a small site, these internal visits can make up a noticeable share of traffic and distort every rate. GA4 handles this with an internal traffic filter.
Start by defining internal traffic by IP address in the web data stream's tag settings. For Priya, that means the centre's office internet connection. Then go to the property's data filters and find the internal traffic filter. It starts in a testing state, and you have to switch it to active. Once it's active, visits from matching addresses are left out of reports.
Keep two cautions in mind. First, home broadband IP addresses can change from time to time, so check the rule now and then. Second, once the filter is active, your own test visits disappear as well. When you test tags or events, use a phone on mobile data instead of the office connection.
GA4 keeps detailed, user-level data for a limited time only, and the default is the shorter option. Retention doesn't affect standard reports. It limits how far back explorations can look, and that matters in module 4. Under the property's data collection settings, find data retention, choose the longest period offered and save. Google's GA4 help centre lists the current retention options.
Analytics involves personal data, so your cookie banner and privacy notice should say that you use analytics and why. Google's consent mode lets tags adjust to what each visitor accepts. When a visitor declines, the tags send less data or none. If you use a cookie banner tool, check that it supports consent mode before you buy or configure it. Your consent and privacy obligations in Singapore are covered in lesson 3.3 of the course "Paid ads: Meta, Google and TikTok", titled "Consent, privacy and the PDPA".
To check the setup, open the site in a browser, then open the realtime report in GA4. This report shows active users and the pages they are on right now. If the internal traffic filter is already active, view the site on mobile data so your visit isn't filtered out. Within a minute or so, you should see at least one active user and the page being viewed.
If nothing shows after a few minutes, check these usual causes in this order, then test again:
a typo in the measurement ID the tag installed on a staging version of the site instead of the live one an ad blocker in your own browser
When your own visit shows up, the setup is working, and you are ready to do the same for your own site.
Create a GA4 property and data stream for your site, install the tag, then visit the site and check that your visit shows up in the realtime report.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).