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Getting Google Analytics 4 setup and installed on your Joomla website.
Google Analytics 4 is a complete upgrade of the analytics suite with a whole new user interface and ways of tracking your users compared to the older Universal Google Analytics. The main benefit is being able to track users on both website and mobile apps using the same tracking codes.
Getting the new tracking property working on your Joomla site is easy and already works with the existing release of Google Analytics for Joomla.
We have a complete guide to installing the Google Analytics plugin for Joomla in our Resources area of our website. Simply follow the basic steps of installing the plugin as you would any extension for Joomla, and then navigate to the configuration page for the plugin.
If you have not signed up to Google Analytics before, start with that process at the Google Analytics website.
Follow the steps to setup your account and create a new tracking property.
Log in to your Google Analytics account and click on the Admin cog on the bottom left of your admin screen.
This brings up the admin screen where you can create new Accounts, Properties or Views.
Click ADMIN -> SETUP ASSISTANT -> TAG INSTALLATION and then WEB as your tracking type for Google Analytics 4
Click on, SETUP ASSISTANT under property and then click on TAG INSTALLATION and choose WEB since we are setting up the account for website tracking.
A new screen will appear with your Measurement ID in the top right corner. Copy this to configure on your website.
At this point, you can simply pass this measurement ID on to your web developer or web manager who may be looking after your website. Otherwise, you can continue with logging into your website and configuring the Google Analytics plugin.
Log in to the administrator area of Joomla and go to EXTENSIONS -> PLUGINS and search for Google Analytics. Just typing in “Google” is enough.
Click on the plugin name System – Google Analytics to load the plugin configuration screen.
Here you will see a few tabs from the plugin overview, description and instructions tab and the Options tab.
Click on the OPTIONS.
In the field for Google Analytics Tracking ID, paste in your Measurement ID that was obtained from your Google Analytics account.
Click SAVE AND CLOSE and you’re done.
To ensure that what you have done is all working correctly, we should test to see if there is any real-time traffic flowing to your website.
Navigate to the frontend of your website and click around on the site to trigger Google Analytics. Loading the frontend of your website should be more than enough.
Navigate back to your Google Analytics account in a different browser window or tab and go to the Real-Time Analytics screen.
You can see from the screenshot that there is currently one lonely visitor on my website, which is me. Good to know just how popular this site is :).
If you’re not seeing any traffic here in the Realtime screen, it might be worth trying a few Chrome Extension tools that will help debug the issues.
This Chrome extension will display all the Google related tracking codes that are being triggered.
This will help you debug if you’re tag is being fired at all.
If you don’t see your tag appearing, then there may be an issue with the implementation.
If you can see the tag firing here, check that you have the correct tracking ID or measurement ID associated with the account that you are using in Google Analytics.
If you find our plugin useful, please feel free to leave a rating and review on the Google Analytics Plugin page on the Joomla Extension Directory.
If you require help with your integration, please don’t hesitate to contact the team at Niche Extensions.