If you’ve opened up GA4 as a lead-based business and immediately felt overwhelmed, you’re not alone. It’s a totally different beast compared to Universal Analytics (GA3), and not always the most intuitive, especially if you’re not selling products online.

But, once you get past the confusing layout, GA4 can be powerful for understanding where your leads are coming from and what’s actually working. If you know what  you’re looking for, there’s a lot you can learn about your business’ performance and users’ experience from GA4 – especially when it comes to understanding what drives people to enquire, book, or get in touch.

1. Acquisition reports (where users are coming from)

Head to:
Reports > Acquisition > User acquisition or Traffic acquisition

This is where you’ll find your top-line channel data (where users are coming from).

Now, there are two reports within Acquisition that seem to confuse people in terms of their difference. These are User acquisition and Traffic acquisition. So, I’d like firstly to explain the differences between these.

User acquisition

The User acquisition report is all about new users and how they initially found you. If someone first clicked on a Google search result to get to your site, every single thing they do after that, even if they come back later through an email, will be tied back to that original Organic Search in this report.

The dimensions (the categories of data you see) in this report will usually start with things like “First user source” or “First user medium.” As well, the metrics will break down your New Users count v. Returning Users count. This report is handy for figuring out which of your marketing efforts are best at bringing in brand new customers. It helps you see what’s kicking off those first connections and building your audience from scratch.

Traffic acquisition

Now, the Traffic Acquisition report is more like your “every visit” tracker. It looks at all sessions, whether the person is brand new or has visited you a hundred times before. For each individual visit, it tells you how they arrived that specific time.

So, if someone first came from Organic Search, then later clicked an email link to come back, and then a few days after that clicked a paid ad to visit again, this report would show each of those visits separately. The dimensions here will typically start with “Session source” or “Session medium.” This report is great for understanding your ongoing marketing efforts and seeing which channels are driving overall traffic and getting people to come back again and again. It gives you a real-time pulse on how your campaigns are performing day-to-day.

 

Core differences between User & Traffic acquisition

The core difference boils down to how “credit” is given.

The User Acquisition report effectively gives all the credit to the very first thing that brought a user to your site. Once that first connection is made, everything that user does is linked back to that initial source.

The Traffic Acquisition report, on the other hand, gives credit for each individual visit to the last place the person clicked to get to your site for that particular session (unless it was a direct visit, like typing your URL directly).

 

Quick example of User & Traffic acquisition differences in reporting

Imagine this is someone’s journey:

1. Monday: They find you through a Google search (their first ever visit).
2. Wednesday: They get an email from you and click a link to come back.
3. Friday: They see a paid ad on social media, click it, and buy something.

• In the User Acquisition report, all of that user’s activity, including their Friday purchase, would be linked back to Google / organic because that was their first-ever touchpoint.
• In the Traffic Acquisition report:
  • Monday’s visit would be credited to Google / organic.
  • Wednesday’s visit would be credited to email / newsletter.
  • Friday’s visit (and the purchase) would be credited to paid social.

Basically, User Acquisition tells you how you first hooked new people, while Traffic Acquisition shows you how people are currently arriving for every single visit. Both are super important for getting the full picture of your audience and how your marketing is performing in GA4.

 

Which report should I use?

This handy table below might help to demystify this question:

User acquisition	Traffic acquisition
Which channels are best at bringing new customers?	How much total traffic am I getting from difference channels right now?
Are my campaigns working to bring in first-time visitors?	Are my campaigns working to bring people to my site?

Reviewing campaign performance via UTM usage

While “Session source” and “Session medium” are great for a broad overview, for lead-based businesses running specific marketing campaigns (like an email blast about a new service, or a series of social media ads), you’ll want to get more granular. This is where the “Session campaign” dimension becomes your best friend.

 

How to add “session campaign” to your report:

1. In the Traffic Acquisition report, look for the first column (the default is often “Session default channel group”).
2. Click the little blue plus sign (+) next to it.
3. In the dropdown, navigate to “Traffic source” and select “Session campaign.”

Now, your report will break down your traffic by the specific campaign that brought users to your site for that session. This is incredibly powerful for seeing which individual ads, emails, or content pieces are driving traffic.

 

Why UTM tracking is useful

You might notice that Google Ads campaigns automatically show up here (thanks to auto-tagging), but for everything else, i.e. your email newsletters, Meta ads and other social ads – you need to use UTM parameters.

UTM parameters are short snippets of code you add to the end of your URLs (the web address). They tell GA4 exactly where the traffic came from when someone clicks your link.

• utm_source: Where the traffic originated (e.g., newsletter, facebook, linkedin).
• utm_medium: The marketing channel (e.g., email, cpc, social).
• utm_campaign: The specific campaign or promotion (e.g., summer_promo_2025, new_service_launch, webinar_promo).

Example: Instead of linking to yourwebsite.com/services, you might use yourwebsite.com/services?utm_source=email&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=july_service_promo.

 

Why bother with UTMs?

Pinpoint performance

You’ll know exactly which email, social post, or ad variation is sending you traffic and, more importantly, leads. Without UTMs, traffic from an email or ad might just show up as “Direct” or “Referral,” giving you no insight into its specific effectiveness.

Compare campaigns

Easily compare the performance of different campaigns side-by-side. Did your spring email campaign bring in more leads than your Autumn one?

Optimise budget

If you see that “Campaign X” consistently delivers high-quality leads, you know where to invest more effort and budget.

Beyond Google

While Google’s own tools (like Google Ads) often auto-tag, UTMs are essential for all your non-Google marketing efforts.

By consistently using UTMs and customising your Traffic Acquisition report to show campaigns, you transform generic traffic data into actionable insights for lead generation.

 

UTMs & Default Channel Grouping may lead to “unassigned traffic” (solution)

with UTMs, you might stumble upon a frustrating category in your Traffic Acquisition reports: “Unassigned.” This means GA4 couldn’t figure out which default channel group (like “Paid Search,” “Organic Social,” “Email,” etc.) to put that traffic into. For your GA4 data, this can mess with your ability to properly credit your lead-generating efforts.

 

Why does “unassigned” appear?

The main culprit is often that your utm_source and utm_medium values (or sometimes other parameters) don’t exactly match the predefined rules that GA4 uses for its Default Channel Grouping. Google has a specific set of rules for how it classifies traffic into these standard channels. For example:

• GA4 expects an email campaign to have utm_medium=email (or e-mail, e_mail, e mail). If you use utm_medium=newsletter, utm_medium=mailout, or something else entirely, GA4 might not recognise it as “Email” and toss it into “Unassigned.”
• Similarly, if your paid social efforts use utm_medium=social_ads when GA4’s rule for “Paid Social” looks for utm_medium=cpc and a social utm_source, that traffic could become unassigned.
• Other, less common reasons include certain redirects stripping UTMs from URLs, privacy settings or ad blockers impacting data collection, or even misconfigurations in how your GA4 tags are set up (e.g., events firing before the main GA4 configuration tag).

Cleaning up your “unassigned” traffic

Don’t panic if you see “Unassigned” traffic, it’s fixable, and investigating it will make your data much cleaner and more actionable. Follow these steps to see where this unassigned traffic is coming from, and ultimately, put it into a neat channel group!

Identify the culprits:

• • Go to your Traffic Acquisition report.
  • If “Session default channel group” is your primary dimension, look for the “Unassigned” row.
  • Click the little blue plus sign (+) next to the primary dimension column header.
  • Add “Session source / medium” as a secondary dimension (under “Traffic source”).
  • Use the Search bar along the top of your table to pull in only traffic that is “Unassigned”. The Session source / medium column will show you the exact utm_source and utm_medium combinations that GA4 couldn’t classify. For example, you might see yourcrm / newsletter, facebook / social_paid, or simply (direct) / (not set) for genuinely untracked traffic. The example below shows you what we see in our GA4!

Standardise Your UTMs

Once you’ve identified the problematic source / medium pairs, the ideal solution is to adjust your UTM tagging strategy going forward. You will see in our example in GA4 above, we have 4 of our source/mediums coming from Meta ads. Our UTMs for these are ALL different from one another, despite being the same source/medium! This isn’t ideal when keeping your traffic out of Unassigned traffic and should be kept consistent once we make our channel rules moving forward. We recommend you create a consistent UTM tagging guide for your team. Ensure everyone involved in marketing, emails, or advertising uses approved, standardised utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign values that align with GA4’s rules. Consistency is key!

 

Set up “Custom Channel Groupings”

Our next step is to set up Custom Channel Groupings – a powerful answer to keeping  your customised UTM tracking out of Unassigned. Custom Channel Groupings allow you to define your own rules for how GA4 should categorise traffic. This is particularly useful for taking those “Unassigned” source / medium pairs and putting them where they belong.

Here’s how to set up Custom Channel Groupings in GA4:

Step 1: Navigate to “Channel Groups”:

• • • Go to your GA4 property’s Admin section (the gear icon in the bottom left).
    • In the “Property” column, under “Data display,” click on “Channel groups”.

 

 

Step 2: Create a new Channel Group

• • • You cannot edit GA4’s “Default Channel Group.” Instead, you’ll create a new one.
    • Click the blue button “Create new channel group”. (You can also choose to “Copy to create new” from the existing default group if you want to use its structure as a starting point).
    • Give your new channel group a clear “Group name” (e.g. “[Business name] Channel Group”). You can also add an optional description.

 

Step 3: Define your custom Channels:

Now you’ll see a list where you can add, edit, or reorder your channels within this new group. To add a new channel (e.g., to capture those “Unassigned” newsletter leads):

• • • • Click “Add new channel”.
      • Give this new channel a “Channel name” (e.g., “Custom Email Newsletter,” “Paid Social – Facebook”).
      • Click “+ Add condition group”.
      • Here, you’ll define the rules using dimensions like “Medium,” “Source,” “Campaign,” “Source platform,” etc.

Example for “Custom Email Newsletter”:

• • • • • Medium exactly matches newsletter (if that’s what you used in your UTMs).
        • OR
        • Source contains klaviyo (if you use Klaviyo and it passes its name in the source).

Example for “Paid Social”:

• • • • • Medium exactly matches social_ads
        • AND
        • Source exactly matches facebook OR Source exactly matches instagram (If you’re tidying up a messy UTM structure, you can add multiple conditions within a group using “AND” for all conditions to be met, or “OR” for any to be met – see screenshot below of our Paid Social channel details).
      • Click “Save channel” once your conditions are set.

 

 

Step 4: Order your channels

• • • The order of channels in your group matters significantly. GA4 processes traffic rules from top to bottom. As soon as a session or user matches a channel’s conditions, it’s assigned to that channel, and no further rules are evaluated.
    • For example, if you have a broad “Social Media” channel at the top and then a more specific “Paid Social” channel lower down, your paid social traffic might get lumped into “Social Media” if it matches the broader rule first.
    • Generally, place your most specific channels at the top (e.g., specific paid campaigns, niche referral partners) and broader, more general channels towards the bottom (e.g., “Organic Search,” “Direct”).
    • Use the “Reorder” button (or drag-and-drop the channels using the handle on the left) to arrange them.

Step 5: Save your group

• • • Once all your channels are defined and ordered correctly, click “Save group” at the top.

Step 6: Apply your custom group to reports

• • • Now that your custom channel group is created, you need to tell GA4 to use it in your reports.
    • Go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition (or User acquisition).
    • Click the dropdown menu next to the primary dimension (e.g., “Session default channel group”).
    • You’ll now see your custom channel group listed there (e.g., “Session My Business Channel Group”). Select it.
    • You can also set your custom channel group as the primary channel group for your entire property in Admin > Data display > Channel groups, by selecting it from the “Primary channel group” dropdown. This means it will appear by default in your standard reports.

By actively monitoring “Unassigned” traffic and taking these steps to standardise your UTMs and, most importantly, create and use custom channel groupings, you’ll ensure your GA4 reports are clean, accurate, and truly reflect the performance of every single marketing effort driving leads to your business.

2. Understanding user behaviour in Engagement reports

Beyond just knowing where people came from and if they took a key action, you need to understand what they do once they’re on your site. This is where Engagement reports come in.

Head to: Reports > Engagement > Overview, Pages and screens, or Events

Engagement Overview

This report gives you a quick look at how engaged your users are. Keep an eye on metrics like “Engaged sessions” and “Average engagement time per session.” An “engaged session” in GA4 is more than just a quick visit; it means someone spent at least 10 seconds on your site, looked at more than one page, or did something important like trigger one of your conversion events. For lead businesses, high engagement often means people are genuinely digging into your content and services.

Pages and Screens

This report shows you which pages on your website are the most popular. For a lead business, this is super important:

• • Are people visiting your service pages before getting in touch?
  • Are specific case studies or blog posts sparking more interest?
  • Are there pages where people bounce off quickly, suggesting they’re not finding what they need?
  • Always check your key “money pages” (like your “Contact Us” page or detailed service pages) to see how much attention they’re getting.

Events

While the Conversions report focuses on your big wins, the main Events report at Reports > Engagement > Events shows all the different actions happening on your site. It can be a lot to take in at first, but it’s useful for:

• • Spotting unexpected ways users are interacting with your site.
  • Making sure all your custom events are working correctly.
  • Finding those smaller actions (like clicking a specific download button) that might be a step towards a lead, even if they’re not a formal “conversion” yet.

 

Tracking what matters in the Engagement reports

For lead-based businesses, a “purchase” isn’t usually your main goal. Instead, you’re looking for specific actions that show someone is really interested in your services, things like submitting a contact form, asking for a demo, downloading a brochure, or clicking a phone number to call you. In GA4, these important actions are called Events and live in the Engagement Reports, and when you tell GA4 an event is important for your business, it becomes a Conversion (or “Key event”).

You’ll need to set up these events to accurately track your leads. Once they’re flowing into GA4 and marked as conversions, you can find this crucial data in the Reports > Engagement > Conversions section. This overview shows you how many times each of your key lead actions has happened. You can also pick a specific conversion in your Acquisition reports to see exactly which marketing channels led to those valuable inquiries or demo requests.

If you  want to learn more about setting up GA4 events in Google Tag Manager, learn it here!

 

3. Using Demographic & Tech reports to understand users

Getting to know your audience beyond just how they arrived helps you fine-tune your marketing and improve their experience on your website.

User attributes overview

Head to: Reports > User > User attributes > Overview

This report gives you insights into things like the age, gender, interests, and where your users are located. For lead-based businesses, this is vital for:

• • Targeting: Are your leads coming from the geographic areas you actually serve? Are you attracting the right age group or type of person for your services?
  • Content strategy: Knowing what your users are interested in can help you write better blog posts, website content, and even social media messages that truly resonate with your ideal customers.

Tech overview

Head to: Reports > User > Tech > Overview

This report tells you what devices (computers, phones, tablets), browsers (Chrome, Firefox), and operating systems your users are on.

• • Website optimisation: If most of your users are on their phones, is your website perfectly designed and easy to use on a small screen? If you notice a lot of people using an older web browser, does your site still look good for them?
  • Performance: Seeing common browsers or device types can help you pinpoint any technical glitches that might be making it hard for users to engage and potentially costing you leads.

 

4. Using Explore to dive into user journeys

While the standard reports are fantastic starting points, GA4’s Explorations section is where you can truly become a data detective and build your own custom reports tailored to how your leads move through your site. Think of it as a powerful sandbox where you can play with your data.

Head to: Explore (left-hand navigation)

 

Funnel exploration

This is arguably the most powerful tool for lead generation. You can map out the exact steps a user takes to become a lead and easily see where they’re dropping off.

Example Funnel:

• • • Step 1: They view a service page.
    • Step 2: They view your contact us page.
    • Step 3: They submit a contact form (your key event).

This funnel would show you the percentage of people who move from checking out services to visiting your contact page, and then actually sending an enquiry. You can instantly see where your “leaks” are and focus your efforts on fixing those weak spots. Below, we’ve developed a funnel simply for demonstration purposes to. As you can see, it will show you completion rate, abandonments and abandonment rate at each phase of your funnel. You can even filter/”break down” your data by a range of elements such as Event name, Gender, Country, Device Category or First user medium. So, if you want to view the funnel of a particular channel or group of users – you can do that!

Path exploration

The path exploration tool is a visual tool that helps you understand the actual flow of users through your website or app. Unlike a Funnel Exploration, which requires you to define specific steps in a rigid order, Path Exploration is more free-flowing. It’s fantastic for discovering unexpected common routes, identifying confusing loops, or seeing what happens right before (or after!) a key action. Each “branch” or “node” in the diagram represents a page view or an event that happened on your site. The lines connecting them show the paths users took, and the thickness of the lines indicates how many users followed that particular path.

Example funnel

• Step 1: page_view (where page_location contains /services/)
• Step 2: page_view (where page_location contains /contact-us/)
• Step 3: form_submit_contact (your conversion event)

This funnel would show you the percentage of people who move from looking at services to visiting your contact page, and then actually submitting a form. You can instantly see where your “leaks” are and focus your efforts on fixing those drop-off points.

 

The ways that we use pathing reports

Discovering unplanned journeys (forward pathing)

You can start with a specific page (like your homepage or a landing page for an ad campaign) and see all the different pages users visit after that point. For example, if you launch a new blog post, you can use a Path Exploration starting from that blog post to see if readers then go to a service page, a case study, or immediately leave. This helps you understand if your content is successfully nudging them towards a lead-generating action.

• • How to set it up: You’ll choose a “Starting Point” – this could be an Event (like session_start to see what everyone does after landing) or a Page (page_view for a specific URL). Then, GA4 will draw out the subsequent pages or events.

Tracing back to a conversion (reverse pathing)

This is where Path Exploration truly shines for lead generation. You can pick an ending point – usually one of your lead conversion events (e.g., form_submit_contact, demo_request_complete). GA4 will then show you all the different paths users took leading up to that conversion.

• • Why it’s powerful: This helps you identify common sequences of pages or actions that result in a lead. Did most people visit your “Services” page, then your “About Us,” and then the contact form? Or did they primarily come from a specific product page before converting? Understanding these successful paths can help you optimise those pages and guide more users down similar routes.
  • How to set it up: Instead of a “Starting Point,” you’ll select an “Ending Point” – typically your lead conversion event. GA4 then reverses the flow to show you the steps that came before.

Spotting friction points and loops

The visual nature of Path Exploration makes it easy to spot problematic user behaviour.

• • Loops: Do you see users repeatedly bouncing back and forth between two pages? This “looping behaviour” often indicates confusion or a dead end. For example, if users keep going between a service page and an FAQ page, perhaps the service page isn’t clear enough. Identifying these loops helps you fix content or navigation issues that might be deterring leads.
  • Sudden drop-offs: While Funnel Exploration shows drop-off between predefined steps, Path Exploration can highlight unexpected exits from any point in the journey.

 

Putting it all together for lead-based business reporting

Reading GA4 reports isn’t just about looking at numbers; it’s about asking smart questions and finding answers that help your lead-based business grow.

• Find your best lead sources: Use the Acquisition reports, combined with your conversion data, to figure out which marketing channels bring in the most good quality leads, not just lots of visitors. If your paid ads bring in fewer visitors but a much higher percentage of real inquiries, that’s incredibly valuable information.
• Smooth out your user journey: Use Engagement reports and Funnel Explorations to discover where people are getting stuck or leaving your site before they become a lead. Is your contact form too long or confusing? Is there crucial information missing from a service page?
• Test and improve: GA4 gives you the data to make confident decisions. Don’t be afraid to try out changes to your website or marketing campaigns based on what you learn, then jump back into GA4 to see if those changes made things better.

GA4, with its focus on events and flexible reporting, might seem incredibly daunting at first. But for lead-based businesses, getting the hang of these reports and explorations is absolutely essential. It’s your roadmap to understanding your potential customers, making your website better at getting leads, and ultimately, bringing in more qualified business for you. Start simple, focus on those key actions that show interest, and you’ll soon find GA4 to be an incredibly powerful tool for your business growth. Good luck! 😊