Setting up channel groupings in Google Analytics
Setting up channel grouping in Google Analytics or channel grouping is a way to categorise traffic sources on your website or apps. This helps you to identify and understand where users are coming to your website/e-shop from.
GA4 default channels
Within GA4, there is default channel grouping or default traffic channels. This layout cannot be changed, nor can new channels be added. In case a feed is outside the default setup, it falls into the so-called “Unassigned”. The default grouping is as follows:
- Affiliates
- Audio
- Cross-network
- Direct
- Display
- Mobile Push Notifications
- Organic Search
- Organic Shopping
- Organic Social
- Organic Video
- Paid Other
- Paid Search
- Paid Shopping
- Paid Social
- Paid Video
- Referral
- SMS
GA4 Custom Channels
You can also create your own channels. This is a very useful method if you want to track specific traffic sources that are not included in the default channels, or group some sources into one.
How to create a custom GA4 channel?
Below we describe how to do it. But if you don’t want to deal with that, you can skip this part and contact us directly and we’ll set everything up for you!
To create a custom GA4 channel, go to admin – property – data settings – channel groups – create new channel group:
In the “Create new channel group” fill in the “group name” and “group description”. The name of the new feed and its conditions are entered in the next step after clicking on “add new channel”.
You then create a new resource to which you assign custom conditions. You can choose from: Medium, Source, Source platform, Campaign ID, Campaign name and Default channel group.
Of course, you can combine the conditions via the “AND” or “OR” operators.
For example, if you want to create a channel for users who come to your website or e-shop from a specific Google Ads ad, you can use the following terms:
Name: Google Ads
Campaign ID: (enter your campaign ID here)
Campaign Name: (enter the name of your campaign here)
Group two or more channels into one
In case we need to combine several channels into one, for example for clarity, we can do it in the following way:
Create a new channel group.
We then name it and create a new channel.
We create a new name for the channel and then provide conditions that group either multiple sources into one or two or more of the original default channels. In this case, “AND” and “OR” conditions can be used.
Here is an example of grouping all original channels containing the word “Shopping”.
In the last step, the original channels with “shopping” in the name can then be removed:
How to use channel grouping in GA4?
Once you have created your own channel group, you can use it to filter traffic in GA4 reports. For example, in the Traffic Acquisition report. The default grouping here will be the Session default channel group. Click it and select the custom channel group from the menu. Of course, you can also filter this way within Looker Studio reports.
Don’t want to do that? Leave it to us professionals! We’ll set everything up for you, plan it all out and tailor it to your needs so you don’t have to deal with it at all. Simply fill out the contact form and we’ll set up a FREE consultation with you!
?