Until now, when Google Analytics introduced the standard measurement tag, the only hit sent to Google Analytics was “pageviews.” Therefore, the number of hits per month is equal to the number of page views, so it was easy to estimate the number of hits.
Now let’s see how this number of hits changes in Google Analytics 4.
Definition of number of hits in GA and GA4
For GA
Up until now, Google Analytics has used two main sources of calculation for the number of hits: “page views” and “(custom implemented by yourself) events.” is.
Of these, “events” are not sent unless you implement them yourself, so “page views” = “hits” for sites that do not do event tracking.
For GA4
In the case of Google Analytics 4, page views are also measured by events. However, it doesn’t matter that pageviews are being measured by events.
There are two things to consider about GA4 hit counts. The first is that “session start” and “new user measurement start” are measured as events, so that hits that were not counted as hits in Google Analytics until now will be counted as hits. . The second is that automatic events such as “scroll”, “engagement”, and “exit link click” will be counted in the number of hits.
Differences in targets for counting hits between GA and GA4
Below is a summary of what hits are counted when you don’t customize your tracking code at all. It seems that more hits will be counted than before.
| user behavior | For GA | For GA4 |
|---|---|---|
| View page | subject | subject |
| Start session | Not applicable | subject |
| Start measuring new users | Not applicable | subject |
| page scroll | not automatically measured | subject |
| behavior with engagement | not automatically measured | subject |
| Clicking the exit link | not automatically measured | subject |
If you haven’t measured page scrolls, engagement behavior, and exit link clicks, it’s difficult to calculate in advance what the numbers will be after the transition to GA4. “” and “starting measurement of new users” should correspond to “sessions” and “new users” in GA so far.
From now on, I would like to look at these figures in the actual GA/GA4 of the same site.
Survey on actual site
Below, we will look at the number of events and hits on the actual site, assuming that no customizations have been made to GA/GA4. In Google Analytics,
- Number of new users … Equivalent to first_visit event in GA4
- Number of sessions … Equivalent to session_start event of GA4
- Number of page views … Equivalent to page_view event of GA4
Extract the From Google Analytics 4,
- Total Events … Total number of all automatically sent events
- Number of action events … Counts scroll, engagement, and click, which are automatic events that are sent along with user actions.
- Number of viewing events … Events sent with page loading, page view, session start, first_visit are counted. Equivalent to “total number of events – action events”
and as these comparative figures
- The ratio of view events… (GA4 view events) / (GA new users + GA sessions + GA pageviews), which theoretically should be close to 1.
- Ratio of total hits … (total number of events in GA4) / (number of pageviews in GA), Ratio for calculating the expected number of hits when uncustomized GA is migrated to GA4 as it is. It is for calculating how much increase rate will be from the number of hits so far.
I would like to think about it.
Site 1
Theoretically, the ratio of the number of viewing events should be 1, but in reality it was about 0.45, which is a result that the number of GA4 transmission hits was smaller than expected. Next, we also asked for the “total number of hits ratio”, but the average was about 4.2, which is about four times the number of page views in Universal Analytics.
Viewed Events Ratio: 0.45, Total Hits Ratio: 4.2
site 2
Theoretically, the ratio of the number of browsed events should be 1 for Site 2, but in reality it was about 0.45, and the number of sent hits for GA4 was lower than expected. Also, the “ratio of total hits” was about 3.2 on average, which was lower than Site 1, but still the number of hits was about 3 times the number of page views of Universal Analytics.
Viewed Events Ratio: 0.45, Total Hits Ratio: 3.2
site 3
At Site 3, the “ratio of viewing events” was the closest to the theoretical value among all the survey results, at about 0.8. Even if it is close, it is 0.8, so it is not as theoretical. Also, looking at the “total number of hits ratio”, the average for this site was about 2.2, which was the lowest figure in this survey.
Viewed Events Ratio: 0.8, Total Hits Ratio: 2.2
To predict the number of hits in GA4
At first, I thought it would be possible to roughly estimate the number of hits in GA4 by multiplying the number of GA page views by a certain multiplier, but this multiplier is about 2.2 to 4.2 for the three sites surveyed this time. This resulted in a double difference.
However, if the index used to calculate this multiplication rate is not “the number of GA page views” but “the number of new GA users + the number of GA sessions + the number of GA page views”, this multiplication rate will fluctuate. It has decreased significantly to about 1.4 to 1.6 (here, 1.50 with a gap).
In other words, by using this multiplication factor, it becomes possible to roughly estimate how much the number of hits will change when a site currently using GA is migrated to GA4.
The estimation formula is
1.5 × (GA new users + GA sessions + GA pageviews)
becomes. If you are doing event measurement with an existing GA and want to migrate the same events as they are, you need to add the number of events to this estimation formula.
Things to be aware of when introducing GA4
Although there is no official announcement from Google yet, it is expected that a paid version of the product that supports the current Google Analytics 360 will also appear in GA4. The hit limit of the current free version of Google Analytics is 10 million hits, while the hit limit of the free version of Google Analytics 4 has not been announced at this time.
Assuming that the maximum number of hits for the free version of GA4 is 10 million hits, which is the same as Universal Analytics, even sites that were able to process 5 to 6 million page views with the free version of GA until now can be changed to GA4. It will be in the form of over 10 million hits alone.
Perhaps in GA4, the hit count threshold will not be 10 million hits, but it will be updated to a larger number, but at the moment there is no such movement, so we will not move forward. You should keep an eye on it.
The biggest concern is that sites that have been using the free version of GA with 5 to 6 million page views per month will need to install the paid version because the free version cannot cover all the costs by introducing GA4. is to become
I can’t say anything for sure at this point, but I think you should keep in mind that “just by making it GA4, the number of hits will increase more than twice as much as before”.
