This GA4 tip will save you time in the future

Published 8 months ago • 1 min read

Hello Reader,

I hope you are having a great week so far.

Now, a serious question about GA4.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could mark important moments in GA4?

Like that big code release, the start of your holiday sale, or when the site went down for 2 hours?

Well… that’s exactly what GA4 annotations do.

They’re like sticky notes on your charts, giving context to your data.

So in the future, you don’t have to scratch your head wondering, “Why the sudden spike?”

This is a long-awaited feature that was added to GA4 earlier this year.

Why are they useful?

Annotations turn your analytics into a story.

Context: You’ll know what external events caused spikes or dips.
Collaboration: Your whole team can see what happened, not just the person who remembers.
Smarter decisions: Instead of guessing, you’ll connect cause → effect much faster.

There are multiple cases where annotations helped pinpoint an issue caused by a new code release or a new analytics tracking setup.

💡 Make it a habit. Anytime something significant happens with your marketing, tracking, or website. Drop in an annotation in GA4. Future-you will thank you!

How to Add Annotations in GA4

1. Open Reports in GA4.

2. Click on the annotations icon (top right, looks like a sticky note).

3. A side menu will open, then click on “Create annotation”.

4. Add a title + description (e.g. “Black Friday campaign started”) and pick the date.

5. Save it. Done ✅

6. Now you can see a little purple sticky note below your charts in the reports.

7. When you hover over that date on your chart, the annotation will show up.

Happy analyzing,

Robert

P.S. Ready for more? Then this is how I can help you:

🎓 GA4 for Ecommerce COURSE: Learn how to use GA4 specifically for Ecommerce, the best reports, and the most useful metrics & dimensions. Learn how to turn data into insights in my 6-step system and with real-world examples.

📱 Schedule a one-to-one call: Do you need help with a specific issue, or are you stuck with web analytics implementation? Book a call with me and utilize my seven years of experience.

📣 Promote your business to 2000+ Ecommerce professionals: Put your business in front of freelancers & in-house ecommerce pros at a 39% open rate!

Was this email useful?

👍 / 👎

Unsubscribe · Preferences
600 1st Ave, Ste 330 PMB 92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2246

📊 Is server-side tracking worth it?

Hi Reader, This week, I was explaining to a colleague the difference between traditional client-side tracking and server-side tracking. And I realized I haven’t talked about this before in this newsletter. You’ve probably heard the term floating around in your company, but what does it actually mean in non-technical words? Let me explain it. What is server-side tracking? The short answer: The difference lies in WHERE the data is sent to a third-party domain or your own domain Before telling...

6 months ago • 4 min read

One Trick to Organize Your Content Pages in GA4

Hello Reader, It's been a few weeks since my last email. But today I want to talk about a super useful feature that you can use in GA4. Now, let's say you have 86 different content pages. It's kinda hard to get insights by looking at them separately. Wouldn't it be nice if you could look at them by topic or by author? That's where GA4 content grouping comes in! What are Content Groups? Think of them as folders for your website pages.Instead of GA4 showing you every single URL, you can group...

8 months ago • 1 min read

📊 Don't use GA4 for A/B test tracking, here's why

Hello Reader, After a few days of heatwave here in the Netherlands, I can finally get back to work... now that my brain has stopped melting in my home office.I have no airco 😅 I came across this post by Lucia van den Brink, and it’s a great reminder:Don’t use GA4 to track your A/B tests.Here's the post: Then one of the OGs of CRO chipped in with his advice: So basically, you need one source of truth. Unfortunately, GA4 is not it. But with BigQuery, you can get pretty far. Then, you or someone...

10 months ago • 1 min read