Google Announces Improvements for GA4 Audience Builder

As GA4 is quickly approaching, Google has been rolling out updates on a pretty consistent basis. Since the beginning of 2023, they’ve released 14 updates and improvements to Google Analytics 4. On May 17, Google announced updates to the GA4 audience builder. They say it will give more flexibility and control when users build audiences. With new metrics and dimensions available, it should improve options for controlling event value and event count, and the option to match between two dates.

New Dimensions and Metrics

Users can now create their audiences using new dimensions and metrics in the GA4 audience builder, making it a more robust tool. This update brings it more up-to-par with the Universal Analytics audience builder. These new parameters include:

Item-Scoped Dimensions

• Item ID
• Item affiliation
• Item brand
• Item category
• Item category 2
• Item category 3
• Item category 4
• Item list name
• Item name
• Item promotion ID
• Item variant

Item-Scoped eCommerce Metrics

• Item revenue
• Items added to cart
• Items checked out
• Items purchased
• Items viewed in list

Event-scoped eCommerce Metrics

• Item-list click events

Session-based Metrics

• Low engagement sessions

Low engagement sessions is a new metric introduced by Google. Its purpose is to help you identify users that didn’t engage with your website or app. This metric can be used to build an audience of users who had more than three low engagement sessions, which can then be the subjects of more targeted advertising by your paid media team.

Use the Event Value Parameter Alone

Before this latest update, users could only use the event value parameter to modify a specific event. Now, users can use the event value alone without needing to scope it to a particular event.

Full Set of Event Count Operators

Google has expanded the operators users can utilize when using the event count metric to build audiences. Prior to the update, only greater than, less than, and equal to were available, and only when selecting the most recent time period. The new operators include greater than or equal to, less than or equal to, and not equal to. 

Match Between Dates

Google has now introduced a “between match types” option for dates. This can be used to build an audience of users that visited your website during your Memorial Day sale, and advertise to them leading up to Memorial Day in the next year. This option includes the start date and end date. 

What’s Next

We can expect Google to continue to roll out updates and improvements up to and even beyond the July 1, 2023 date. These updates are announced on the official Google Analytics help website. If you want to stay more up-to-date with the latest and greatest for Google Analytics 4, you can sign up for Google Partner Newsletters here. You can also request access to Google’s GA4 Roadmap slides.