Let me guess. You've been using GA4 for two years now, and you're still clicking through seventeen different screens to answer one simple question: "How's our marketing actually performing?"
Welcome to the club. GA4's default reports are about as helpful as a chocolate teapot when you need real insights. Sure, they look pretty. But try explaining your Q4 performance using the standard "Acquisition" report and watch your CMO's eyes glaze over faster than a Krispy Kreme donut.
Here's the thing—GA4's power isn't in those pre-built reports. It's in the custom reports you build yourself. And with year-end reviews breathing down your neck, now's the time to stop procrastinating and build the reports that actually matter.
I've spent the last year building (and rebuilding) custom reports for marketing teams ranging from scrappy startups to enterprise giants. These five reports consistently deliver the insights that keep marketing teams employed and executives happy.
1. The "Revenue Attribution Reality Check" Report
What it does: Shows you which channels actually drive revenue, not just clicks.
Look, everyone knows that last-click attribution is basically fiction. But most marketers are still using it because... well, because it's the default. This custom report uses GA4's data-driven attribution model to show you what's really happening.
How to build it:
- Go to Explore > Free Form
- Add "Session source/medium" as your dimension
- Include "Purchase revenue," "Conversions," and "Sessions" as metrics
- Set the attribution model to "Data-driven" (not "Last click")
- Add a secondary dimension for "Campaign name"
The results will probably surprise you. That expensive Google Ads campaign might not look so hot when you see how much assist credit goes to your email marketing and organic search.
I built this for a SaaS client last month, and it revealed that their "underperforming" content marketing was actually influencing 40% of their enterprise deals. Guess which budget didn't get cut?
Pro tip: Export this monthly and create a simple chart showing attribution changes over time. Nothing says "I know what I'm doing" like showing attribution trends to stakeholders.
2. The "Customer Journey Sanity Check" Report
What it does: Maps out how people actually find and convert on your site.
Most customer journey reports are either too simple ("they came from Google and bought stuff") or too complex (a spaghetti diagram that requires a PhD to interpret). This one hits the sweet spot.
The build:
- Use the Path Exploration template
- Set "Session source/medium" as your starting point
- Add "Page title" as the next step
- Include "Purchase" as your end point
- Filter for users who completed a conversion
What you'll discover: People don't follow your carefully planned funnel. They bounce around like pinballs, visit your pricing page seventeen times, and somehow end up buying through a blog post about your company culture.
This report helped a B2B client realize that 30% of their enterprise customers were first discovering them through case study pages, not their homepage. They shifted their paid search strategy accordingly and saw a 25% improvement in cost-per-acquisition.
Reality check: Your customer journey probably looks nothing like your marketing funnel. That's normal. The goal isn't to force people into your funnel—it's to optimize the paths they're actually taking.
3. The "Content Performance That Actually Matters" Report
What it does: Shows which content drives business results, not just traffic.
Pageviews are vanity metrics. Time on page is better, but still doesn't tell you much. This report connects your content to actual business outcomes.
Build it like this:
- Start with a Free Form exploration
- Use "Page title" or "Page path" as your primary dimension
- Add "Engaged sessions," "Conversions," and "Purchase revenue" as metrics
- Include "Average session duration" and "Pages per session"
- Filter out thank you pages and admin pages
Now you can see which blog posts, landing pages, and product pages actually move the needle. That viral post with 50,000 views but zero conversions? Yeah, it's not as valuable as the boring FAQ page that converts 8% of visitors.
One e-commerce client discovered that their product comparison pages had a 15% conversion rate—5x higher than their category pages. They started creating more comparison content and saw a 40% increase in organic revenue within six months.
Bonus insight: Sort by revenue per session. The pages at the top of that list should inform your entire content strategy.
4. The "Campaign Performance Deep Dive" Report
What it does: Breaks down campaign performance beyond the surface-level metrics everyone obsesses over.
CTR and CPC are fine, but they don't pay the bills. This report shows you which campaigns drive quality traffic that actually converts.
The setup:
- Free Form exploration (seeing a pattern here?)
- Dimensions: "Session campaign," "Session source/medium," "Device category"
- Metrics: "Sessions," "Engaged sessions," "Conversions," "Purchase revenue," "Average session duration"
- Add a filter for your main traffic sources (Google Ads, Facebook, etc.)
This report reveals the campaigns that look good in your ad platform but fall apart once people hit your website. You'll also discover which device types and traffic sources deliver the highest-value visitors.
A client was celebrating their Facebook campaign's low cost-per-click until this report showed that Facebook traffic had a 40% higher bounce rate and 60% lower conversion rate than Google Ads traffic. Sometimes expensive clicks are worth it.
Advanced move: Create separate views for different conversion types (leads, purchases, signups). B2B companies especially need this since lead quality varies dramatically by source.
5. The "Executive Dashboard" Report
What it does: Gives you the high-level metrics executives actually care about in one clean view.
Your CEO doesn't want to hear about bounce rates and session duration. They want to know: Are we growing? Are our marketing efforts working? Are we going to hit our numbers?
Build the executive view:
- Start with a Free Form exploration
- Dimensions: "Week" or "Month" (depending on your reporting frequency)
- Key metrics: "Active users," "New users," "Conversions," "Purchase revenue"
- Add "Conversion rate" and "Revenue per user" as calculated metrics
- Use date comparisons to show month-over-month or year-over-year growth
Keep it simple. Five metrics maximum. Use clear labels. Add trend lines if possible.
The magic happens when you can walk into a meeting and say, "Revenue is up 15% month-over-month, driven by a 20% increase in new users and a 3% improvement in conversion rate." That's the kind of clarity that builds trust and secures budgets.
Pro tip: Create a version that shows performance by marketing channel. Executives love seeing which investments are paying off.
Making These Reports Actually Useful
Building the reports is just the beginning. Here's how to make them valuable:
Set up automated sharing. GA4 lets you schedule report emails. Use this feature. Your future self will thank you when stakeholders stop asking for "quick updates" every week.
Create comparison periods. Always include month-over-month or year-over-year comparisons. Context is everything in analytics.
Add annotations. When you see a spike or drop, note what caused it. Campaign launches, website changes, seasonal trends—capture the context while you remember it.
Keep them updated. Review your custom reports monthly. What seemed important in January might be irrelevant by November. Archive the reports you don't use and create new ones as your business evolves.
The Year-End Reality Check
Here's what I've learned from building hundreds of these reports: The best analytics setup is the one you actually use. Those beautiful, complex dashboards gathering digital dust aren't helping anyone.
Start with these five reports. Build them this week. Use them for your year-end reviews. Then expand based on what questions they raise.
Because here's the truth nobody talks about—most marketing teams are drowning in data but starving for insights. These reports won't solve every analytics challenge, but they'll give you the clarity to make better decisions and the confidence to defend those decisions when budgets are on the line.
And in January, when everyone's scrambling to understand what happened last year and plan for this one, you'll be the person with the answers. That's a pretty good place to be.
Top comments (0)