GA4 Audiences setup and use in Looker Studio for beginners

Understanding Audiences in GA4

Audiences in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) represent a crucial tool for marketers and analysts. They allow you to group users based on shared attributes or behaviors. This enables you to tailor your marketing strategies and personalize content, enhancing user engagement and conversion rates. GA4's audience functionality provides a dynamic way to track and segment users not just based on past behavior but also on predictive metrics, which can forecast future actions.

This section provides a brief explanation of the Audience functionality for beginners and the actual process of utilizing it in Looker Studio.

The Difference Between Audiences and Segments in GA4

While both audiences and segments are used for grouping users, they serve different purposes and are used in distinct contexts. Segments are primarily used for analysis within GA4, allowing you to filter data retrospectively. In contrast, audiences are proactive tools that you can create to engage with user groups in real-time across various platforms, including Google Ads, marketing campaigns, and personalized site experiences.

In addition to user segments, session segments and event segments can also be created, which can be traced back to past data. On the other hand, they can only be used in GA4 exploratory reports.

Audiences can only be created in the USER segment. It can only be applied to data after the audience has been created, not before. However, the advantage is that they can be used in GA4 standard reports, Looker Studio, Big Query, etc.

It is important to understand the difference between segments and audiences and to use them for different purposes.

Setting Up Audiences in GA4

Now let's actually create an audience. We will skip the details of setting up an audience here.

Go to the "Audience builder" in GA4

Click on admin, then audiences.

 Define the inclusion criteria based on events, user properties, or other conditions

In this case, the audience is the user who generated the "contact" event.Enter the name of the event you wish to set and set the displayed event.

Although not described in detail here, advanced settings such as multiple conditions, exclusion conditions, and sequencing can also be specified.

 When you have finished setting up your audience, give it a name and click Save.

 You have now created your audience.

Audience Constraints

• You cannot create more than one of the same audience name.
• It may take 24-48 hours for users to be added to an audience.
• A maximum of 100 audiences can be created per GA4 property. The paid version allows up to 400 audiences to be created.
• Audiences can be archived, but please note the following:.
• Once archived, audiences are completely deleted and cannot be accessed or restored.
• It may take up to 48 hours after archiving before you can create an audience with the same name.
• Once an audience is created, you cannot change the criteria, but you can change the following: Audience Name、Description、Audience Trigger

Utilizing GA4 Audiences in Looker Studio

Now let's use the audience you have created in Looker Studio.
You can read more about how to create reports in Looker Studio in this article.

Use the above article to create a report using GA4 as the data source.This time we will display the number of landing page sessions per audience. This allows you to see which pages your target users are coming to your site from.

Select table from the insert menu at the top.

Next, select the dimensions and metrics to be displayed as shown in the following image.

When the table appears, it is complete. In this way, we can make better use of GA4 data by making use of audiences.

When the table appears, it is complete. In this way, we can make better use of GA4 data by making use of audiences.

Looker Studio for GA4 Report

Create GA4 reports in Looker Studio, where GA4 audiences are also available. We also offer free report templates that you can use immediately.

Free GA4 Report Template

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