GA4 Analytics Setup
Your GA4 Reports Are Live. But Are They Telling You the Truth?
From £250 for a clean, commercially configured Google Analytics 4 setup - built to show you exactly where your pipeline comes from, including the AI traffic your current reports are missing entirely.
Most agencies have GA4 installed. Very few have GA4 working. There's a difference between a property that fires and a property that's configured to track the decisions that matter - conversions, inbound enquiries, candidate registrations, and the growing volume of sessions arriving from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini that standard setups classify as Direct and never attribute correctly.
GA4 is not a plugin you activate. It's a commercial intelligence layer. When it's built properly, you stop guessing which channels are working and start making decisions based on evidence.
Key Takeaways
- A misconfigured GA4 property is worse than no data - it builds false confidence in the wrong channels.
- Standard GA4 installations miss AI and LLM-driven traffic entirely, attributing it to Direct and burying one of your fastest-growing acquisition sources.
- Conversion tracking, channel groupings, and filtered views aren't optional extras - they're the difference between a report and a revenue tool.
- Every setup tier delivers a clean handover, so your team knows exactly what's been built and why.
Why Most GA4 Setups Fail Recruitment Agencies
GA4 was designed as a blank canvas. Out of the box, it tracks page views and little else. Without custom events, your form submissions aren't conversions. Without filtered views, your own team's sessions are inflating traffic numbers. Without channel groupings, you can't separate paid from organic from AI-referred - and you're making retainer and budget decisions on data that doesn't reflect reality.
We've audited GA4 properties for agencies who believed they had clean data, only to find untracked conversions, no AI session segmentation, and bounce rates distorted by internal IP contamination. The reports looked fine. The decisions based on them weren't.
If you're presenting monthly performance data to leadership or clients, it needs to be accurate. If you're attributing pipeline to channels, those attributions need to be correct. That starts with GA4 being built properly.
Choose Your Setup
GA4 Foundation Setup - £250
- Gets your Google Analytics 4 property live and correctly configured from day one.
- Includes property and data stream creation, GA4 and Google Search Console linking, and core event tracking so your site is capturing the right signals immediately. The right starting point if you have no GA4 in place and need a clean, compliant foundation before anything else.
- Ideal for: Agencies launching a new site, switching platforms, or starting from scratch with no existing GA4 property.
GA4 Commercial Configuration - £595
- Everything in Foundation, plus the setup that makes your data commercially useful.
- Includes custom event and conversion tracking mapped to your specific goals - form submissions, job applications, contact page interactions, or registration completions. We add channel groupings so organic, paid, direct, and referral traffic are cleanly separated, filtered views to exclude internal traffic from your reporting, and a performance dashboard so your team can read results without needing to build reports from scratch.
- Ideal for: Agencies that need GA4 to support decisions - not just record sessions - and want reporting that holds up in leadership reviews.
GA4 Intelligence Setup - £995
- The complete build for agencies that treat inbound performance as a board-level metric.
- Everything in Commercial Configuration, plus a dedicated AI and LLM traffic channel group that isolates sessions arriving from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and other AI surfaces. This is traffic that standard GA4 configurations attribute to Direct and lose entirely - sessions from high-intent users who found your agency through an AI answer, not a search result. We also include Semrush data alignment, regex-based source filtering to catch referrer-stripped AI sessions, a Looker Studio performance report structured around the metrics that matter, and a full handover document so your team understands exactly what's been built and how to use it.
- Ideal for: Agencies running monthly SEO or AEO retainers, tracking AI share of voice, or presenting channel-level performance data to leadership or clients.
What's Included Across Every Tier
Every GA4 setup we deliver includes:
- Clean property and data stream configuration
- GA4 and Google Search Console linking
- Internal IP filtering to protect data integrity
- A written handover document covering what's been built
- A brief onboarding call so your team can use what we've set up
No setup is handed over without documentation. You should always know what's inside your own analytics.
Who This Is For
- GA4 Foundation is for agencies starting fresh - a new site, a platform migration, or a clean slate after years of outdated Universal Analytics data.
- GA4 Commercial Configuration is for agencies that already have GA4 in place but know it isn't tracking the right things. If you've ever opened your reports and questioned whether the numbers are accurate, this is where you start.
- GA4 Intelligence Setup is for agencies running active SEO or AEO programmes who need their analytics infrastructure to match the sophistication of their strategy. If you're producing monthly executive summaries, tracking AI visibility, or making retainer investment decisions based on channel data, your GA4 needs to be built at this level.
FAQs
Do I need GA4 if I already have Universal Analytics data?
Universal Analytics stopped processing data in July 2023. If you haven't migrated, you have no live analytics. GA4 is the current standard and needs to be configured correctly to be useful.
Can you fix an existing GA4 property rather than rebuild it?
Yes. If you have a GA4 property already in place, we can audit it and apply the correct configuration at the relevant tier without starting from scratch.
What's the AI traffic channel group and why does it matter?
Sessions arriving from AI platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity are often stripped of referrer data, meaning standard GA4 attributes them to Direct traffic. We build a custom channel group using regex filters to correctly identify and segment these sessions. As AI-driven discovery grows, this becomes an increasingly important part of your attribution picture.
How long does setup take?
Foundation setups are typically complete within two to three working days. Commercial and Intelligence setups run three to five working days depending on the complexity of your conversion events and reporting requirements.
Can this be added to an existing Kaizen retainer?
Yes. If you're an existing client, GA4 Intelligence Setup can be added as a one-off project and aligned with your monthly reporting framework at no extra configuration cost.
Ready to Trust Your Data?
If your GA4 isn't built to commercial standard, every decision you make from it is built on guesswork. Book a 15-minute call and we'll confirm which setup tier is right for your current setup and goals.
