Google Analytics: what it is and how to measure your marketing
Google Analytics: what it is and how to measure your marketing
Google Analytics is Google's free tool that collects and organizes access data for websites and applications. It shows how many people visit your pages, where they come from, what they do, and which actions they complete, allowing you to measure marketing results and make decisions based on data, not assumptions.
Moisés Schwan Bach
Operations Manager · First Brazil
Operations Manager
Introduction
Most companies invest in a website, traffic, and content without knowing for sure what brings a return. Without measurement, every marketing decision becomes a gamble: you don't know which channel brings in customers, which page converts, and where money is being wasted.
Google Analytics exists to solve this. It is the tool that transforms the anonymous activity of a website into clear numbers: how many people arrived, by which path, what they did, and how many completed an important action, such as filling out a form or making a purchase.
In this article, you will understand what Google Analytics is, how it works, what has changed in the current version (GA4), and how to use it to measure real marketing results, without relying on guesswork.
Introduction
Most companies invest in a website, traffic, and content without knowing for sure what brings a return. Without measurement, every marketing decision becomes a gamble: you don't know which channel brings in customers, which page converts, and where money is being wasted.
Google Analytics exists to solve this. It is the tool that transforms the anonymous activity of a website into clear numbers: how many people arrived, by which path, what they did, and how many completed an important action, such as filling out a form or making a purchase.
In this article, you will understand what Google Analytics is, how it works, what has changed in the current version (GA4), and how to use it to measure real marketing results, without relying on guesswork.
Introduction
Most companies invest in a website, traffic, and content without knowing for sure what brings a return. Without measurement, every marketing decision becomes a gamble: you don't know which channel brings in customers, which page converts, and where money is being wasted.
Google Analytics exists to solve this. It is the tool that transforms the anonymous activity of a website into clear numbers: how many people arrived, by which path, what they did, and how many completed an important action, such as filling out a form or making a purchase.
In this article, you will understand what Google Analytics is, how it works, what has changed in the current version (GA4), and how to use it to measure real marketing results, without relying on guesswork.
How does Google Analytics work?
Google Analytics works from a small piece of code installed on the website (the Google tag) that records each interaction as an event. Every time someone opens a page, scrolls, clicks a button, or submits a form, this code sends the information to Google's servers, which organize everything into reports.
In the current version, called Google Analytics 4 (GA4), the model is based on events, not on page sessions as before. This means that each user action is measured individually, providing a more accurate reading of people's real behavior, even when they transition between the website and the app.
The process has three simple steps:
Collection: the tag captures interactions on the website or app.
Processing: Google groups and organizes these events by user, source, and behavior.
Reporting: the data appears in dashboards that you can filter by period, channel, page, or audience.
Installation is usually done along with Google Tag Manager or directly in the website code, and data collection begins from the moment the tag goes live; data prior to installation is not recovered.
How does Google Analytics work?
Google Analytics works from a small piece of code installed on the website (the Google tag) that records each interaction as an event. Every time someone opens a page, scrolls, clicks a button, or submits a form, this code sends the information to Google's servers, which organize everything into reports.
In the current version, called Google Analytics 4 (GA4), the model is based on events, not on page sessions as before. This means that each user action is measured individually, providing a more accurate reading of people's real behavior, even when they transition between the website and the app.
The process has three simple steps:
Collection: the tag captures interactions on the website or app.
Processing: Google groups and organizes these events by user, source, and behavior.
Reporting: the data appears in dashboards that you can filter by period, channel, page, or audience.
Installation is usually done along with Google Tag Manager or directly in the website code, and data collection begins from the moment the tag goes live; data prior to installation is not recovered.
How does Google Analytics work?
Google Analytics works from a small piece of code installed on the website (the Google tag) that records each interaction as an event. Every time someone opens a page, scrolls, clicks a button, or submits a form, this code sends the information to Google's servers, which organize everything into reports.
In the current version, called Google Analytics 4 (GA4), the model is based on events, not on page sessions as before. This means that each user action is measured individually, providing a more accurate reading of people's real behavior, even when they transition between the website and the app.
The process has three simple steps:
Collection: the tag captures interactions on the website or app.
Processing: Google groups and organizes these events by user, source, and behavior.
Reporting: the data appears in dashboards that you can filter by period, channel, page, or audience.
Installation is usually done along with Google Tag Manager or directly in the website code, and data collection begins from the moment the tag goes live; data prior to installation is not recovered.
What data and metrics does Google Analytics show?
Google Analytics shows who accesses your website, where they come from, what they do, and what converts. The metrics are divided into four major business questions:
How many people? Users, new users, and sessions.
Where did they come from? Acquisition channels (organic search, paid traffic, social media, email, direct access).
What did they do? Most visited pages, engagement time, triggered events, and engagement rate.
What converted? Configured conversions, such as sign-ups, contacts, and sales.
The central point is the traffic source. This is how you find out if your ad investment is bringing in qualified visitors or if organic content is sustaining growth. By crossing source with conversion, Google Analytics answers the question that matters most: which channel actually generates results, and not just clicks.
These insights become even more useful when connected to other tools in the ecosystem, such as Google Ads, allowing you to track the journey from the ad to the final conversion.
What data and metrics does Google Analytics show?
Google Analytics shows who accesses your website, where they come from, what they do, and what converts. The metrics are divided into four major business questions:
How many people? Users, new users, and sessions.
Where did they come from? Acquisition channels (organic search, paid traffic, social media, email, direct access).
What did they do? Most visited pages, engagement time, triggered events, and engagement rate.
What converted? Configured conversions, such as sign-ups, contacts, and sales.
The central point is the traffic source. This is how you find out if your ad investment is bringing in qualified visitors or if organic content is sustaining growth. By crossing source with conversion, Google Analytics answers the question that matters most: which channel actually generates results, and not just clicks.
These insights become even more useful when connected to other tools in the ecosystem, such as Google Ads, allowing you to track the journey from the ad to the final conversion.
What data and metrics does Google Analytics show?
Google Analytics shows who accesses your website, where they come from, what they do, and what converts. The metrics are divided into four major business questions:
How many people? Users, new users, and sessions.
Where did they come from? Acquisition channels (organic search, paid traffic, social media, email, direct access).
What did they do? Most visited pages, engagement time, triggered events, and engagement rate.
What converted? Configured conversions, such as sign-ups, contacts, and sales.
The central point is the traffic source. This is how you find out if your ad investment is bringing in qualified visitors or if organic content is sustaining growth. By crossing source with conversion, Google Analytics answers the question that matters most: which channel actually generates results, and not just clicks.
These insights become even more useful when connected to other tools in the ecosystem, such as Google Ads, allowing you to track the journey from the ad to the final conversion.
What is the difference between GA4 and the old Universal Analytics?
The difference is structural: Universal Analytics measured sessions and pageviews, while Google Analytics 4 measures events and is built for a cookieless scenario. This change was not optional — on July 1, 2023, standard Universal Analytics stopped processing new data, and GA4 became the only active version of the tool (Google, 2023).
The main changes in GA4 are:
Event-based model: every interaction is an event, which provides more measurement flexibility.
Cross-platform: measures website and app in an integrated way, within the same property.
Less dependency on cookies: uses data modeling to handle tracking loss caused by blocks and privacy rules.
Focus on engagement and conversions: replaces legacy metrics, such as the traditional bounce rate, with engagement indicators.
In practice, anyone using the tool before 2023 had to recreate their measurements in GA4. Reports and historical data from Universal Analytics ceased to be accessible after July 1, 2024 (Google, 2023), which reinforces the importance of keeping active and documented tracking.
What is the difference between GA4 and the old Universal Analytics?
The difference is structural: Universal Analytics measured sessions and pageviews, while Google Analytics 4 measures events and is built for a cookieless scenario. This change was not optional — on July 1, 2023, standard Universal Analytics stopped processing new data, and GA4 became the only active version of the tool (Google, 2023).
The main changes in GA4 are:
Event-based model: every interaction is an event, which provides more measurement flexibility.
Cross-platform: measures website and app in an integrated way, within the same property.
Less dependency on cookies: uses data modeling to handle tracking loss caused by blocks and privacy rules.
Focus on engagement and conversions: replaces legacy metrics, such as the traditional bounce rate, with engagement indicators.
In practice, anyone using the tool before 2023 had to recreate their measurements in GA4. Reports and historical data from Universal Analytics ceased to be accessible after July 1, 2024 (Google, 2023), which reinforces the importance of keeping active and documented tracking.
What is the difference between GA4 and the old Universal Analytics?
The difference is structural: Universal Analytics measured sessions and pageviews, while Google Analytics 4 measures events and is built for a cookieless scenario. This change was not optional — on July 1, 2023, standard Universal Analytics stopped processing new data, and GA4 became the only active version of the tool (Google, 2023).
The main changes in GA4 are:
Event-based model: every interaction is an event, which provides more measurement flexibility.
Cross-platform: measures website and app in an integrated way, within the same property.
Less dependency on cookies: uses data modeling to handle tracking loss caused by blocks and privacy rules.
Focus on engagement and conversions: replaces legacy metrics, such as the traditional bounce rate, with engagement indicators.
In practice, anyone using the tool before 2023 had to recreate their measurements in GA4. Reports and historical data from Universal Analytics ceased to be accessible after July 1, 2024 (Google, 2023), which reinforces the importance of keeping active and documented tracking.
How does Google Analytics help measure marketing results?
Google Analytics helps measure marketing by linking every promotional action to a concrete result on the website. Without it, it is impossible to know if a campaign generated sales or just spent budget. With it, every dollar invested has a trackable path to conversion.
Three direct uses for a commercial operation:
Compare channels: see which source (ad, organic, social, email) brings in more conversions, not just more visits.
Identify bottlenecks: find out on which page people abandon the journey before converting.
Justify investment: show, with data, where it is worth increasing or cutting budget.
This analysis is the foundation of any Growth Marketing strategy: decisions guided by data, tested and adjusted continuously. Google Analytics represents nearly half of the web precisely because it fulfills this role; in July 2026, it was used by 48.1% of all websites and held an 83.4% market share among traffic analysis tools (W3Techs, 2026).
It is worth noting: Google Analytics shows what happened on the website, but it does not replace the analysis of the commercial operation. It is strongest when integrated with a CRM and sales tracking, so that marketing data connects directly with revenue results.
How does Google Analytics help measure marketing results?
Google Analytics helps measure marketing by linking every promotional action to a concrete result on the website. Without it, it is impossible to know if a campaign generated sales or just spent budget. With it, every dollar invested has a trackable path to conversion.
Three direct uses for a commercial operation:
Compare channels: see which source (ad, organic, social, email) brings in more conversions, not just more visits.
Identify bottlenecks: find out on which page people abandon the journey before converting.
Justify investment: show, with data, where it is worth increasing or cutting budget.
This analysis is the foundation of any Growth Marketing strategy: decisions guided by data, tested and adjusted continuously. Google Analytics represents nearly half of the web precisely because it fulfills this role; in July 2026, it was used by 48.1% of all websites and held an 83.4% market share among traffic analysis tools (W3Techs, 2026).
It is worth noting: Google Analytics shows what happened on the website, but it does not replace the analysis of the commercial operation. It is strongest when integrated with a CRM and sales tracking, so that marketing data connects directly with revenue results.
How does Google Analytics help measure marketing results?
Google Analytics helps measure marketing by linking every promotional action to a concrete result on the website. Without it, it is impossible to know if a campaign generated sales or just spent budget. With it, every dollar invested has a trackable path to conversion.
Three direct uses for a commercial operation:
Compare channels: see which source (ad, organic, social, email) brings in more conversions, not just more visits.
Identify bottlenecks: find out on which page people abandon the journey before converting.
Justify investment: show, with data, where it is worth increasing or cutting budget.
This analysis is the foundation of any Growth Marketing strategy: decisions guided by data, tested and adjusted continuously. Google Analytics represents nearly half of the web precisely because it fulfills this role; in July 2026, it was used by 48.1% of all websites and held an 83.4% market share among traffic analysis tools (W3Techs, 2026).
It is worth noting: Google Analytics shows what happened on the website, but it does not replace the analysis of the commercial operation. It is strongest when integrated with a CRM and sales tracking, so that marketing data connects directly with revenue results.
How to start using Google Analytics safely?
To start using Google Analytics, you create a free account, generate a GA4 property, and install the measurement tag on your website. From there, the step that separates a useful report from a meaningless dashboard is setting up conversions — the actions that matter to the business, such as form submissions, WhatsApp clicks, or purchases.
A lean starting path:
Create the account and property at analytics.google.com, one property per website or app.
Install the tag, directly in the code or via Google Tag Manager.
Mark conversions that represent real results, not vanity.
Connect Google Ads and CRM, where applicable, to unite media and revenue.
The sensitive point is privacy. In Brazil, the collection of browsing data is subject to the LGPD, which requires cookie notices, consent where applicable, and care with information retention and anonymization. The tool offers the controls, but the legal responsibility lies with the one collecting the data.
Setting up analytics correctly, linked to the commercial operation, is part of the work of a Growth Partner: it is not enough to install the tool, you must turn data into decisions. It is this link between measurement and action that separates a company that collects numbers from one that grows based on them.
How to start using Google Analytics safely?
To start using Google Analytics, you create a free account, generate a GA4 property, and install the measurement tag on your website. From there, the step that separates a useful report from a meaningless dashboard is setting up conversions — the actions that matter to the business, such as form submissions, WhatsApp clicks, or purchases.
A lean starting path:
Create the account and property at analytics.google.com, one property per website or app.
Install the tag, directly in the code or via Google Tag Manager.
Mark conversions that represent real results, not vanity.
Connect Google Ads and CRM, where applicable, to unite media and revenue.
The sensitive point is privacy. In Brazil, the collection of browsing data is subject to the LGPD, which requires cookie notices, consent where applicable, and care with information retention and anonymization. The tool offers the controls, but the legal responsibility lies with the one collecting the data.
Setting up analytics correctly, linked to the commercial operation, is part of the work of a Growth Partner: it is not enough to install the tool, you must turn data into decisions. It is this link between measurement and action that separates a company that collects numbers from one that grows based on them.
How to start using Google Analytics safely?
To start using Google Analytics, you create a free account, generate a GA4 property, and install the measurement tag on your website. From there, the step that separates a useful report from a meaningless dashboard is setting up conversions — the actions that matter to the business, such as form submissions, WhatsApp clicks, or purchases.
A lean starting path:
Create the account and property at analytics.google.com, one property per website or app.
Install the tag, directly in the code or via Google Tag Manager.
Mark conversions that represent real results, not vanity.
Connect Google Ads and CRM, where applicable, to unite media and revenue.
The sensitive point is privacy. In Brazil, the collection of browsing data is subject to the LGPD, which requires cookie notices, consent where applicable, and care with information retention and anonymization. The tool offers the controls, but the legal responsibility lies with the one collecting the data.
Setting up analytics correctly, linked to the commercial operation, is part of the work of a Growth Partner: it is not enough to install the tool, you must turn data into decisions. It is this link between measurement and action that separates a company that collects numbers from one that grows based on them.
Frequently asked questions
Is Google Analytics free?
Yes. Google Analytics has a free and complete version, which is sufficient for most businesses to measure visits, traffic sources, and conversions. There is also Google Analytics 360, a paid version aimed at large volumes of data and specific corporate needs, with more advanced limits and features.
Do I need to know how to code to use Google Analytics?
Not to analyze the data. Reading reports on users, channels, and conversions is accessible to any marketing professional. The technical part focuses on tag installation and conversion tracking setup, which is typically done once, with the support of whoever manages the website or via Google Tag Manager.
What is the difference between Google Analytics and Google Ads?
Google Ads is the paid advertising platform where you create and pay for campaigns. Google Analytics measures how people behave after they arrive at your website from any source. Integrated, they show the complete journey: from the ad click to the final conversion recorded on the website.
Does Google Analytics comply with the LGPD?
Google Analytics can be used in compliance with the LGPD, but this depends on the configuration. It is necessary to inform about the use of cookies, obtain consent where applicable, and adjust data retention and anonymization. The responsibility for legal compliance lies with the company collecting the data, not just the tool.
First Brazil
First Brazil
First Brazil is a growth agency with operations in Brazil and the United States, specializing in civil construction and real estate, integrating digital marketing, sales structuring, and AI automation. It builds acquisition systems that connect paid traffic, CRM, web development, and sales processes for builders, developers, and modular construction companies.
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