Marketing Analytics with GA4
Google Analytics 4 is the most powerful free analytics tool available — and most marketers use 5% of it. This course teaches you GA4 from the new event model through to attribution, funnel analysis, and building dashboards that drive actual decisions. You will leave with a working analytics stack, not just theoretical knowledge.
What you'll learn
Course outline
Free — no account needed
Why GA4 Is Different — The New Data Model
The event-based model that replaces sessions and pageviews — and why it is actually more powerful
Events and Parameters — The GA4 Data Model in Practice
What every event should include and how to structure custom tracking for your business
Your First Exploration Report — Custom Analysis in GA4
Build reports that answer specific business questions instead of looking at default dashboards
Full course — $49 one-time
Setting Up Conversions and Key Events
Track the actions that matter to your business and connect them to revenue
Attribution — Understanding Which Channels Drive Sales
The models that determine which marketing channels get credit for conversions — and why it matters
Audience Segments and Cohort Analysis
Understand how different user groups behave — and what that tells you about retention and growth
Connecting GA4 to Google Ads and Search Console
Close the loop between marketing spend and analytics to make data-driven budget decisions
Building a Marketing Dashboard That Tells the Story
Create a weekly marketing report that drives decisions rather than just reporting numbers
Get the full course
8 lessons — GA4 setup through attribution and a Looker Studio marketing dashboard.
Written by the RadarTrek editorial team · Reviewed June 2026
About this course
Marketing analytics is the practice of using data to understand which marketing activities drive business results — and making decisions that allocate budget and effort toward what works. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the foundational platform for web analytics, and understanding it deeply means you can track the full customer journey from first visit to conversion, build audiences for retargeting, and generate the reports that inform marketing strategy. This GA4 tutorial covers setup, configuration, reporting, and strategic analysis.
Marketing analytics skills are valuable for performance marketers, growth teams, and founders who want to make data-driven decisions. After completing this course you will be able to configure GA4 correctly (including event tracking, conversions, and user properties), interpret traffic and conversion reports, connect GA4 data to Google Ads for optimised bidding, and use GA4's exploration features to answer the non-standard questions your business actually needs answered.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between GA4 and Universal Analytics?
Universal Analytics modelled web traffic around sessions and pageviews. GA4 models everything as events — including pageviews. This makes GA4 more flexible for tracking complex interactions but requires more initial configuration. GA4 also uses a different attribution model, handles cross-device tracking better, and integrates more tightly with Google Ads and BigQuery. Universal Analytics was sunset in 2023 and is no longer collecting data.
How do I set up conversion tracking in GA4?
In GA4, conversions are events you mark as important. First, ensure the event fires when the desired action occurs — a form submission, checkout completion, or sign-up confirmation. Then in GA4 Admin, navigate to Events, find the event, and toggle it as a conversion. For custom events not automatically tracked, you add tracking code or configure events in Google Tag Manager. This course covers both methods.
What is attribution in marketing analytics?
Attribution gives credit to marketing touchpoints that contributed to a conversion. Last-click attribution gives all credit to the final touchpoint. Data-driven attribution uses machine learning to distribute credit across all touchpoints based on their actual contribution. GA4 defaults to data-driven attribution, which is more accurate but harder to interpret. Understanding attribution is critical for making correct budget allocation decisions.
How do I connect GA4 to Google Ads?
Linking GA4 to Google Ads allows Google Ads to import your GA4 conversion events for campaign optimisation and lets you create GA4 audiences for remarketing. Setup involves going to Admin in GA4, selecting Google Ads links, and connecting your account. Once linked, you can import GA4 conversions into Google Ads and they appear as available conversion actions for bidding strategies.
What reports should I look at every week?
A weekly analytics review should cover: total sessions and users (is traffic growing?), conversion rate and total conversions (are we achieving business goals?), traffic by channel (which channels are growing or declining?), top landing pages by conversions (what content drives the most value?), and user acquisition by source/medium (where are new users coming from?). GA4's default reports cover most of this.