Reach & Retarget for Google Analytics 4

Reach & Retarget allows you to connect your Google Analytics 4 account. With Wistia analytics in Google, you can “retarget” audiences based on media engagement.

Connecting Google Analytics 4

To connect to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), head to Account > Integrations. On the Integrations page, scroll down to the “Reach & Retarget Integrations” section.

Alert
You need to be the Account Owner or a Manager to access the Integrations page.

Once you click “Connect,” you’ll be prompted to log into Google and select your Google account that has access to your GA4 instance.

Tip
We suggest that you connect this integration with an account that has “Admin” and/or “Edit” access to the Google Analytics property you’d like to connect to Wistia.

Once authenticated, you will see a form with three fields to complete:

  1. Analytics Account: select from your GA4 compatible Analytics Accounts in the dropdown menu.
  2. Web Property: select a GA4 compatible Web Property from the dropdown menu.
  3. Web Data Stream: there is one data stream for each Web Property.
Pro-Tip
Google recommends having only one web stream.

All three must be set up in Google Analytics prior to setting up the integration with Wistia. You can find resources on setting these up from Google here.

Alert
In order to connect to a GA4 web property, Wistia needs to create and add two Event scoped Custom Dimensions to it, however GA4 has a limit of 50 Custom Dimensions per web property. If there are already more than 48 Custom Dimensions defined on your web property, either active or inactive, the integration won’t connect. To check how many Custom Dimensions you have defined, open GA, click Admin, select the web property in question from the center column, and then select Configure > Custom Definitions > Custom Dimensions.

Once connected, the integration will be listed in the “Configured” section of your Integrations page.

Sending Event Data

Once the integration is connected, Wistia will start to send event data to the GA4 account that you’ve selected. The following events will be tracked:

  • wistia_play
  • wistia_50_percent_played (and 25, 75, 95)
  • wisita_subscribe
  • wistia_seconds_played
  • wistia_clicked_link_https_wistia_com (the URL will be what you define)
  • wistia_conversion
  • wistia_eventbrite_conversion_12345678 (event id)
Note
The conversion and clicked link events are only applicable to video plays. The subscribe event is only applicable to Channels.

How We Send Data

Event data in GA4 comes with a few different properties - Event Name and event parameters (which contain Event Category, Event Label). Event Names are the events that occurred and Labels are always the name of the media where the action occurred.

If a media is embedded by itself as a standalone video embed, its events will have a category of “Video." If it’s embedded as a standalone audio embed, the category will be “Audio.”

If the media being played is part of a Channel embed, the category will be “Channel: [Name].” This will make it easier for you to attribute and measure activity to specific Channels embedded on your website, as well as differentiate where events are coming from.

The Google Analytics Dashboard

Navigate to Reports > Engagement > Events. This page shows all of your collected events. It includes:

  • Event name
  • Event count
  • Total users
  • Event count per user

Depending on how many types of events you have in your installation, you may see a lot of things here. A standalone embed will use the “Video” or “Audio” type, and Channel embeds will have the “Channel” type.

Here, you’ll see a list of the events available to you, which is what we push using the categories we covered earlier. There are some defaults included, but this is where your custom events would also appear if you configured any. The default events are: wistia_play, wistia_50_percent_played (and 25, 75, 95) and wistia_conversion.

Audiences and Promote

In order to create and retarget audiences through the GA4 integration, you’ll need to create audiences directly within GA4. This is because Google does not currently have an API for audience data in GA4.

Once audiences are manually set up in Google, this data can be passed from Wistia. You can find steps on how to manually set up audiences in GA4 here. To get started, head to Configure > Audiences.

Alert
Audiences in GA4 are not retroactive. This means you should set up audiences as quickly as possible for the integration to pass this data.

FAQs

What if I already have audiences set up in Universal Analytics?

Existing audiences in Universal Analytics are not compatible with GA4. You will need to set up audiences in GA4.

Can I use Universal Analytics and GA4 at the same time?

Yes! Wistia will send events to each platform when both integrations are enabled. In fact, Google recommends this.

Universal Analytics has the option to add a Google Ads account ID, does GA4?

While the Wistia integration with GA4 does not currently have this option, you will still need to link your GA4 account to your Google Ads account in order to use GA4 audiences to retarget in Google Ads. The instructions on how to do so can be found from Google here.

Can I convert my Universal Anlytics web properties to GA4?

At this time, we don’t have a solution for converting a UA web property to GA4. This requires manually mapping each event label, category, and action. You can read more about mapping web properties here.

What do I do if I have too many Custom Dimensions?

You need to have two Event scoped Custom Dimensions available in order to connect the integration (the maximum number you can have is 50). Remove two Custom Dimensions in order to connect the integration.