The Christmas season is harvest time for e-shops. During last Christmas, Czech e-shops took roughly CZK 70 billion, and this year revenues are expected to grow by a further 5 to 10 % year on year. Will you manage to get the maximum insight out of this rush of visitors, or will badly configured analytics cost you valuable data? In this article we will reveal how to set up GA4 correctly for the Christmas season.
Summary for Those Who Don’t Have Time to Read the Whole Article
- GA4 has been a necessity since July 2023. Universal Analytics no longer measures new data. Without GA4 you lose all the data, and not only from the Christmas traffic.
- The data layer is the foundation of successful measurement. Without it you cannot accurately measure where customers drop out of the purchase process.
- You must exclude internal traffic and payment gateways. Otherwise your data will be skewed and your decisions based on wrong numbers.
- Data-driven attribution shows the real value of channels. Not every conversion comes from the last click. GA4 reveals which channels really help to sell.
- RFM analysis and customer segmentation tell you who deserves extra care and who needs to be approached again.
Does it sound complicated? We will be happy to help you with the correct GA4 setup.
Basic GA4 Setup for E-commerce
GA4 is an event-driven platform – the old Universal Analytics setup is not carried over into it automatically. In July 2023 Google ended standard Universal Analytics, so since summer 2023 no data has flowed into UA.
Implementing the Tracking Code and the Data Layer
The first step is to create a GA4 property and deploy the tracking code. We recommend Google Tag Manager (GTM), which lets you manage tracking codes flexibly without a developer’s intervention.
For e-commerce websites, set up a data layer (dataLayer). It passes information about products, prices and categories. The data layer is essential in GA4, especially for e-shops, because it reliably measures order details.
You might also be interested in: The Importance of the Data Layer Before Launching Campaigns for Big Events
Measuring E-commerce Events
For e-commerce, set up enhanced event measurement:
- Product list view and click-through to a product detail,
- adding a product to the basket (add_to_cart),
- checkout start (begin_checkout),
- purchase completion (purchase).
Don’t forget to mark the events as conversions in GA4. Typically purchase (order completion) will be your main conversion.
Data Cleanliness
When you and your employees visit your own website, GA4 counts it as ordinary visits. That skews the data. That is why GA4 offers a function for excluding internal traffic. Just define the IP addresses of your employees and their visits will not be counted in the statistics.
When a customer completes an order with you, they are often redirected to the payment gateway page, where they enter their payment details. After paying, they return to your website. GA4, however, evaluates this as if the customer had come from the payment gateway and attributes the conversion to it. By excluding payment gateways you ensure that the conversion is correctly attributed to the real source of the visit.
GA4 for Websites Offering Services
GA4 is not useful only for e-shops, it can be used for services too. It tracks every interaction as an event – form submission, registration, price list download or a click on a phone number.
Create a custom event for a specific action and mark it as a conversion. From that moment you will see how many people contacted you, where they came from and what they did on the website before deciding to write to you. This is exactly the information you need to improve your website and marketing.
The Customer Journey to Conversion
The customer journey is often convoluted. A person may see your product for the first time on Facebook, get to it a second time via a search engine, a third time from a newsletter and only then buy it.
GA4 offers tools for analysing the whole journey:
- Creating a custom conversion path report – You see the most common sequences of channels leading to a conversion. GA4 uses data-driven attribution, which means it automatically splits the credit for a conversion among several touchpoints.
- Funnel analysis – Build a funnel and track how customers progress through the individual steps. GA4 lets you detect where the most users drop out.
Once you understand how people behave, you can remove obstacles and invest more efficiently.
Advanced Data Analysis
Once you have GA4 set up correctly and are collecting quality data, the most interesting part comes: analysis that shows you who your customers are and how they behave. The following methods will help you get the most out of the data.
Customer Segmentation
In GA4, create audiences and segments based on behaviour. Segmentation reveals different types of customers and their needs.
RFM Analysis
The RFM model divides customers by when they last bought (Recency), how often they bought (Frequency) and how much they have spent in the past (Monetary). RFM analysis helps you identify your most valuable customers as well as the groups at risk of not buying from you again.
Read more about what RFM analysis is and how to segment customers.
Average Order Size
Track the average number of items in the basket. GA4 has a metric called Items per Purchase. Even a small increase in this metric can raise revenue significantly.
Products Bought Together
Market basket analysis looks for patterns in which products customers buy together in a single order. For example, you find that 70 % of people who bought a laptop also bought a mouse and a mouse pad. On that basis you create a bundle of these products at a more favourable price.
At Christmas, when people buy several gifts at once, market basket analysis can significantly increase the average order value.
Advanced GA4 Configurations
Advanced configurations are useful mainly for larger e-shops or for those who want to connect online and offline data together.
Measurement Protocol and Server-Side Measurement
Measurement Protocol makes it possible to send data to GA4 directly from a server. It is handy for offline conversions (sales by phone) or transactions from a physical shop. You can also implement server-side measurement for more accurate data and higher reliability.
TIP: Server-Side Tracking: Why It Matters Especially in Q4
Connecting with Other Tools
Set up the connection of GA4 with Google Ads to use audiences and conversions in your ads. Prepare a dashboard in Looker Studio with daily revenue, the number of orders and the average order value.
For in-depth analysis, export data to BigQuery. There you can combine GA4 data with your CRM system and get a complete view of the customer across channels.
Customising the Interface
GA4 lets you customise report collections to your needs. Add your own reports (for example the classic Source/Medium report or a report focused only on PPC campaigns). In the Explorations section you can analyse data interactively and build funnels and cohorts.
Leave nothing to chance and set up GA4 so that you make full use of this year’s Christmas.
Conclusion
Christmas puts extreme demands not only on logistics but on analytics too. Whoever has measurement ready will gain a competitive advantage from the data. Don’t wait until it is too late. Check and fine-tune your GA4 setup now so that you enter the Christmas season prepared.
Frequently Asked Questions
Universal Analytics worked for me, why do I have to switch to GA4?
Universal Analytics stopped processing data for standard accounts on 1 July 2023. GA4 is the only currently supported version of Google Analytics.
Does GA4 make sense even for websites that don’t sell anything online?
Yes. GA4 measures any goals you like, such as submitted forms, meeting bookings, video plays and so on. Set up measurement of whatever is important for your business.
How will GA4 help me understand the customer journey?
GA4 uses a data-driven attribution model, which splits the share of a conversion among several channels. In the interface you will find the conversion path report and funnel reports for visualising how users progress.
Sources
Radio Prague International, 2025. V letošní vánoční sezoně e-shopy v ČR čekají nárůst tržeb na 73,5 až 77 mld. Kč. [online] Available at: https://cesky.radio.cz/v-letosni-vanocni-sezone-e-shopy-v-cr-cekaji-narust-trzeb-na-735-az-77-mld-kc-8868340
Ivanova Y., 2025. Automatic Analysis of Customer Data (RFM Analysis) Using Google BigQuery. Netpeak US Blog. [online] Available at: https://netpeak.us/blog/automatic-analysis-of-customer-data-rfm-analysis-using-google-bigquery/
Brameld S., 2025. Everything you need to know about GA4 data-driven attribution. Growth Method Blog. [online] Available at: https://growthmethod.com/data-driven-attribution/