GA4 Q&A: BigQuery - GA4's Superpower?

Posted on by Jay Murphy

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) has a secret superpower that many marketers might not be aware of: BigQuery integration. This powerful combination can revolutionize your digital marketing efforts, providing insights that were previously difficult or impossible to obtain. Let's dive into what BigQuery can do for your GA4 data and how it can enhance your marketing strategies.

What is BigQuery?

BigQuery is Google's enterprise data warehouse that can be connected to your GA4 property for free. It's a game-changer for marketers who want to dive deep into their data and extract meaningful insights.

The Superpowers of BigQuery with GA4

While BigQuery can't leap tall buildings in a single bound, it can perform a wide range of useful tasks for your digital marketing efforts:

  1. Create "Sessionized" Data: BigQuery allows you to structure your data by product line, division, or any other organizational structure that suits your needs. This capability isn't available out-of-the-box with GA4 events.
  2. Analyze User Marketing Activities: You can easily track the number of purchases, purchases by marketing channel, and purchases by user.
  3. Identify High-Value Items: Analyze different item categories to distinguish between high-value and lower-value items.
  4. Discover Purchase Patterns: Identify categories that are often purchased together or categories with high repeat purchase rates.
  5. Integrate with Looker Studio: Since both BigQuery and Looker Studio are Google products, queries run lightning-fast, enhancing your reporting capabilities.

Common Uses of BigQuery with Google Analytics

According to Google's official documentation, some common uses of BigQuery with Google Analytics include:

  • Combining Google Analytics data with other datasets
  • Accessing unsampled Google Analytics data
  • Performing complex queries and statistical analyses
  • Creating machine learning models based on Google Analytics data

(Google Cloud, (1))

Getting Started with BigQuery and GA4

To make the most of this powerful combination, you'll need to:

  1. Understand how your GA4 data is initially structured in BigQuery
  2. Learn how to flatten the data for basic analysis and reporting
  3. Explore ways to integrate BigQuery with other data sources like your CRM or point-of-sale system

By mastering these skills, you'll be able to unlock insights that can drive your marketing strategies to new heights. Stay tuned for our upcoming posts where we'll dive deeper into each of these topics, helping you harness the full potential of BigQuery with your GA4 data.

Reference: Google Cloud. (1). Google Analytics + BigQuery. Retrieved from https://cloud.google.com/use-case/google-analytics-bigquery#common-uses

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