Custom dimensions and metrics

GA4‘s custom dimensions and metrics allow you to gain insights about your users and how they interact with your site or app. These are unique parameters that need to be created to be able to work with such data, for example, at the report level.

Custom dimensions

These are custom event parameters that are not tracked automatically in GA4. Primarily, these are unique parameters related to a specific business. Thus, an example of a custom dimension might be a form ID or shipping and payment price.

Custom metrics

Custom metrics are numeric values that can be tracked in GA4. You can use them to measure various aspects of user behaviour, such as time spent on a page, number of clicks on a button, or number of conversions.

The difference between these two

The main difference between custom dimensions and metrics is that custom dimensions can have either an event scope or a user scope, while custom metrics always have an event scope. This means that custom dimensions can be set for user, event, or item levels (product or service information fields), while custom metrics can only be used for the event level (event-scoped).

How to create them

Creating custom dimensions and metrics is done in GA4 under: admin – property – custom definitions – custom dimensions/metrics.

After clicking “create custom dimension” you can select at which level you want to create the metric.

However, the first thing to know is which dimensions and metrics need to be created. Custom dimensions and metrics copy the event parameters that are sent through Google Tag Manager.

How to use them?

Once we have created all the necessary dimensions and metrics and set parameters against them in GTM, we can see the values of the dimensions and metrics in GA4 under: engagements – events.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. We will be happy to help you! Just click below and fill out the form and we’ll get back to you.