Learning Google Analytics 4

The fast path, with AI

The fast path here is not what you expect. A language model does not have your Analytics data and should not have it; what genuinely gets faster is designing the measurement. That is, going from a business question to whether a ready-made report already answers it, to exactly which exploration is needed if it does not, to what has to be sent if the required event does not exist at all. A model does those three quickly and correctly, because the job is mapping language onto structure. Before any of it comes one simple check nobody runs and that saves the most time: make sure the tag actually loads on a cached page too. A cheap fast model is enough for this; our current pick is in the <a class="text-link" href="/en/ai/">AI section</a>.

1. First run the shell command below against a real page of the site. It pulls the tag file address out of the HTML itself and checks what that address returns. If you get a 404, the rest of this lesson is meaningless until you fix it.
2. Copy your current event list from Admin and the Events page. Only the event names are needed, no user data at all; keep that line.
3. Run the stage two prompt with your business question and that list. The output must say plainly which ready-made report answers it, or if none does, the required exploration with its technique, dimensions and metrics named.
4. If the output says the required event does not exist, put the suggested snippet on the site and test it in DebugView. Until you have seen the event in DebugView, nothing has been built.

Copy-ready recipe

U="https://example.com/"

# Pulls the tag file address out of the page itself and checks it comes back healthy.
# If the site defers scripts, the address may sit in data-src.
H=$(curl -s -A "Mozilla/5.0" "$U")
SRC=$(printf '%s' "$H" | grep -oE '(data-)?src="[^"]*(gtag|analytics|gtm)[^"]*"' | head -1 | cut -d'"' -f2)
echo "tag: $SRC"
curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code} %{size_download}\n' "$SRC"

---- Stage 2: the model prompt ----

Role: measurement designer for Google Analytics 4. You have no access to this
site's data and know no numbers from it.

Business question:
{question, for example: how many people open the consultation form and abandon it}

Events that exist in the property right now:
{list of event names}

Answer in exactly three parts:

1) Does a standard report already answer this? If yes, name the report and its
   path and stop there.
2) If not, specify the exploration needed: technique, dimensions, metrics,
   filters and date range. If the range needed is longer than two months, say
   plainly that the data retention setting has to be 14 months.
3) If the required event is not in the list above, give the suggested event name
   and its parameters, plus a ready gtag snippet.

Rules:
- Write no number about this site. You do not have its data.
- If the suggested event has a standard Google name, use that name rather than
  inventing one.
- If the question cannot be answered from Analytics data at all, say so and say
  where the answer does come from.

Before you trust the output: Finish two things yourself. First, any event the model suggests has to be seen in DebugView before you build a report on it; a snippet that looks right and does not fire is exactly the case that shows no error anywhere. Second, move no user data through this workflow. Google's own policy is that no data may be passed to it that could identify an individual, and page URLs and titles are where that data usually slips through unintentionally. A list of event names is enough for this job and nothing more is needed.