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GA4HELPER
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Building GA4 Helper in Public.... Kinda?

Brie E Anderson•August 12, 2025•Product Updates

What's is GA4 Helper today? How did we get here? Where are we going?! 😳

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I wanted to document this journey better… Well… I have documented a lot of it, but at this point, most of what I documented isn’t even related to what you’ll see on GA4 Helper. Lol, whatever, here is to "getting started."

Feel free to jump to what interests you 😊

Table of Contents

A little back story

I have been working in Google Analytics for over 10 years at this point. And when Google Analytics 4 rolled out, my life at the time looked very different from what it does now.

I was the Director of the Digital Marketing Program at WSU Tech. I was writing and teaching curriculum. I was married, and my wife was trying to get pregnant. I was heavily involved in the SEO community, and I was making a name for myself as a pseudo “Marketing Strategist” (as in, I was a generalist who just loved learning everything I could about marketing and would take whatever freelance work came my way). Oh, and there was this global pandemic.

October of 2020, the day GA4 came out, I was literally teaching Google Analytics setups to my students. The night before, I double-checked that the free tech stack we were using supported GTM and ran through a Universal Analytics setup. But when I went to teach it, I clearly remember saying “and you’ll get an ID that starts with UA-” but when the screen loaded, it was a G- ID.

Even at that moment, I knew GA4 was going to replace UA. It wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when. But I will say, there was NO WAY it could replace UA the way it was currently built… Right? 😅

I started creating content about GA4 in early 2021 (I had a lot more time for content after I quit my job at WSU Tech to go all-in on BEAST Analytics). I talked about GA4 relentlessly. Trying to make sense of it myself while also trying to help other people understand it.

I was asked to talk about GA4 at MozCon that year, and it’s been a whirlwind ever since.

The majority of my income from BEAST Analytics comes from GA4-related work. Every client starts with an audit. I handle implementation, then we move into USING the data once we know it’s clean and reliable.

How GA4 Helper started (kinda)

I worked on a ton of GA4 accounts, and after doing a few, I realized it was a pain in the ass. I made a "GA4 Fundamentals Checklist," half for myself but mostly to share with my network.

GA4 Setup Checklist

Once I had done a couple of dozen audits, I realized people were making the same mistakes over and over again… And it was costing people A LOT of data.

So I decided to document and share those results in a blog post!

Tallied GA4 Settings Issued

Then entered Magai and Nick Eubanks. Nick was the first one to introduce me to the idea of “tools” as a lead magnet. And so it began..

GA4Helper hasn’t even launched yet, and it’s been

  • A Chrome Extension that crawls your Google Analytics 4 settings

    • I got most of the way done with this late last year, but ended up getting stuck. I could never get it to work the way I wanted it to.

  • A Google Tag Manager Documentation tool (got a little off track here because of a large project I was working on lol)

    • I built this on my BEAST site, and I use it internally, but after floating it to a few people, I realized it wasn’t overly “wanted” or “needed”

  • A GA4 audit tool

    • Once I learned how to use Claude, Cursor, GitHub, and Netlify, things ramped up QUICKLY. I’m super stoked at where we are today.

What GA4 Helper Does Today

As of today, GA4 Helper has an automated 30+ point audit.

IT IS NOT AI!

It pulls your actual admin setup via the GA4 Admin API, pulls your actual data using the Data API, and runs checks based on a logic I have created.

You can view a breakdown of the retrieved data below.

Property Configuration

This is where many things go wrong for people. Many people will never discover some of the most essential settings in GA4. This screen serves as both documentation of the setup and a few checks/warnings.

GA4 Helper - Configuration Settings

  • Property Configuration

    • Timezone

    • Currency

    • Industry category

  • Data Retention

    • 2 or 14-month retention period (for standard GA4 accounts)

    • If user data reset is enabled

  • Google Signals

    • Whether or not it’s turned on

  • PII Detection in URLS

    • List of URLS with potential PII in them

  • Cross-Domain Tracking

    • List of all hostnames being reported on

  • Data Filters

    • List of any potential unwanted referrals

Event Configuration

The primary reason companies implement analytics is to track the most important events on the site. Being able to access whether those things are happening quickly is essential.

This screen documents the Key Event setup and Enhanced Measurement settings for the property.

GA4 Helper - Event Settings

  • Enhanced Measurement status for all events

    • Page views

      • Whether or not it captures page views on history changes or not

    • Scrolls

    • Outbound clicks

    • Site search

      • Whether or not it’s configured correctly / actually working

    • Video engagement

      • Whether or not related parameters are also registered

    • File downloads

    • Form interactions

      • Whether or not associated parameters are also registered

  • Key Events (Conversions)

    • How many are registered

    • What events are registered as Key Events

    • When they were registered

Attribution

Perhaps one of the least understood aspects of GA4 is how attribution works and its impact on reports. This screen breaks down all of the attribution settings for the property in plain English.

imageGA4 Helper - Attribution Settings

  • Attribution Settings

    • Attribution model

    • Channels that get value

    • Conversion windows

Integrations

The audit also looks at the status of some of the most critical integrations in GA4.

GA4 Helper -Integration Checks

  • Google Ads Links

    • Number of accounts linked

  • Search Console Integration

  • BigQuery Links

  • Measurement Protocol

    • Presence of any API secrets

Customizations

Lastly, one of the most significant issues I see in GA4 accounts is the use of customizations. People tend to do way too many (and frankly wrong) customizations or none at all.. And doing NONE can lead to a loss of data.

This screen documents all customizations made to events, dimensions, and metrics.

GA4 Helper - Customization Checks

  • Customizations

    • GA4 Created Events

      • List of GA4 created events and related conditions

    • GA4 Event Modifications

      • List of modified events and their modifications

    • Custom Dimensions

      • Number of registered dimensions

      • Setup of current custom dimensions

    • Custom Metrics

      • Number of registered metrics

      • Setup of current custom metrics

Already in the wings…

The reality of it is, this is the first thing I’ve ever built and shared with anyone, and frankly, I don’t know what I’m doing. Lol

I have a lot of work to do to fix the UI. Primarily focused on ease of use and intuitiveness, I’m also reviewing all the links and ensuring everything remains relevant.

However, I have gotten a little excited and already started building:

  • A Progress Tracker

    • This saves your scores with a timestamp and shows you how much you’ve increased or decreased when you rerun your audit.

  • A Recommendation / Fix Wizard

    • This will provide step-by-step instructions on how to make the recommended fixes

I'm so incredibly excited (and nervous) to share this with everyone! I hope you give it a try and let me know what you think 😊