Through its enhanced measurement feature on Google Analytics 4 (G.A.4), Google is trying to make it easier for you to track things on your website. Think of this tool as “automatic” tracking of certain things: pageviews, scrolling, video views, etc.

But before you get too excited, let’s take a closer look at what enhanced measurement does, and what it fails to do.

What is G.A.4 enhanced measurement?

With enhanced measurement, you can enable automatic tracking for various standard interactions. Once enabled, when a user takes certain actions, enhanced measurement sends events to G.A.4 automatically. Although this feature can be useful, it may not provide the depth of information that you want.

Through enhanced measurement you can enable automatic tracking for various standard interactions, including:

Pageviews: G.A.4 can track when users navigate to a new page on your website.

Scroll Tracking: G.A.4 can detect when users scroll through your content and trigger an event when they reach certain points on the page.

Outbound Clicks: G.A.4 can track clicks on links that lead users away from your website (external links).

Site Search: If your website has a search function, G.A.4 can track user searches and the search terms they use.

Video Engagement: G.A.4 can track user interactions with embedded videos, such as play, pause, and completion.

File Downloads: G.A.4 can track when users download files from your website.

How do I implement G.A.4 enhanced measurement?

Find enhanced measurement under Settings, Data Streams:

https://www.legalisi.com/wp-content/themes/lisi/assets/images/GA4-Enhanced-Measurement-Settings.gif

If you have yet to install G.A.4 on your website, first check out How To Install Google Analytics 4 for Your Law Firm, then implement enhanced measurement.

What are common issues with G.A.4 enhanced measurement?

Yes, this feature can augment your data collection, but it has limitations. 

Scroll Tracking

When someone scrolls to the bottom of your site, G.A.4 enhanced measurement logs a scrolled event for that user. That’s helpful, to a degree. 

But, using Google tag manager and custom scroll tracking allows you to track scrolls in whatever percentage you like (typically 10, 25, 50, 75, 90, 100), providing more valuable insight.

Takeaway: You can get one data point with enhanced measurement scroll tracking; you can get six data points using custom scroll tracking in Google tag manager. 

File Downloads

This is another feature with good intentions, but beware. Plugins must package downloads with one of the following extensions to take advantage of this feature:

Accepted extensions:

• .doc/docx
• pdf
• mp4
• ppt
• exl
• csv

If your law firm uses software or a plugin to provide printed attorney bios or practice area pages from their website, they may not produce one of the accepted file extensions. 

Takeaway: If file downloads are an important metric for your team, make sure your tool is compatible with enhanced measurements or use Google tag manager for custom tracking. 

Video Engagement

Do you embed YouTube videos on your website? Theoretically, the video engagement feature would tell you:

• when users start the video; 
• how far they progress in the video; and
• if they complete the video.

But, like scroll tracking, this automatic feature only passes to G.A.4 when the video is complete. If you want metrics even when viewers don’t finish the video, you will need to use Google tag manager.

Also, the YouTube JavaScript must be enabled for the feature to work.

If you use Google tag manager, there is a setting to enable this A.P.I. automatically. 

Alternatively, you could adjust the embed code each time you place a video on your website. 

Takeaway: We recommend using Google tag manager to custom-track video engagement.  The additional scroll depth percentages provide much needed context when analyzing video performance on your website. 

Conclusion

Overall, G.A.4 enhanced measurement is a valuable tool that can help legal marketers gather important insights about their website and user behavior. Understanding how to implement and use this tool can give legal marketers a competitive advantage, improve their R.O.I., and create more targeted marketing campaigns.