How to integrate GA4 with Mediahawk and view your phone calls as conversions
Written by Natalia Selby
Google Analytics 4 (GA4), the newest version of Google Analytics, has been designed to provide more advanced data collection, predictive analytics, and data visualisation for more insightful reporting.
Users and events are the main focus in GA4. The tracking process has been streamlined by combining both website and app data into one unified view to provide a better understanding of the customer journey across platforms.
Through extensive consultation with clients and hours of training, research, and understanding the technical aspects, our integration is the most seamless, powerful, and flexible way to get your call data into GA4. Here, we’ll cover everything you need to know about linking your GA4 account with Mediahawk.
What are the benefits of integrating GA4 and call data from Mediahawk?
Customer journeys don’t just live in websites and on apps. Inbound phone calls are so much more valuable than form fills, so it’s more important than ever for marketers to understand the role that the telephone plays in those journeys.
Unfortunately, GA4 is still only capable of measuring online conversions, so Mediahawk fills in the missing pieces. With its advanced machine learning capabilities, the more data you share with it, the more effective it will be. Integrating GA4 with Mediahawk, you can:
- Send conversion data along with any of the 80+ available data points from Mediahawk as parameters (please note that GA4 limits how many parameters you can send across).
- Use the parameters to easily identify the calls that matter to you.
- Create custom parameters – for example, if you’re using a static number on your Google Business Profile, you can have a custom conversion that just says GBP_call.
- Easily see which pages generate phone calls.
- Track every interaction with your campaigns and see the entire user journey.
Get more precision with conversion events. When sending calls into GA4, if you really think about what makes a successful call for you (such as the length of a call, certain keywords mentioned during the call, call scoring or categorisation, or a page, for example), then you can create a very precise conversion event. For instance, if you include call status and call category parameters then you can create a conversion event that is only tracking your effective calls with a category of lead – giving you a clearer picture of the success of your campaigns.
Use event data for audiences. With dynamic call tracking, you can use the parameter data you send from Mediahawk and create custom audiences, such as an audience of callers who have called up and enquired to retarget. Conversely, you can also create audiences to exclude from retargeting campaigns, such as repeat callers who are customers, or unwanted calls.
Setting up your integration from Mediahawk into GA4
Whether you’re just getting started and setting up a Mediahawk Google Analytics integration from scratch, or if you’ve got an existing integration and need to make the switch, our online support hub has a step-by-step guide to talk you through the process.
There’s a big difference in how events are set up now, and we explain the steps below:
How to create an event in GA4 with Mediahawk
- Choose the event data you want to send to GA4.
- The event(s) will automatically appear in GA4 in the Event section using the name you specified in Mediahawk. This can take 24 hours to appear or when an event is triggered.
- You then create the event parameters as custom dimensions. If you don’t create them as custom dimensions, the event will still work, but you won’t be able to see any additional information in GA4 reports.
- When the event appears in GA4, if you want to use the event as a conversion, you can toggle it in the Events menu under Mark as conversion.
- If you want to create a different conversion event from this Mediahawk event, you can do so in GA4. For example, if you want to send dynamic calls into GA4 but you only want the effective calls to be a conversion event you can do this.
How to create a custom dimension in GA4 with Mediahawk
When creating an event, you need to create the parameters used in Mediahawk as a custom dimension if you want to report on that data in GA4. This is a step required by Google.
- After creating your events in Mediahawk, go to the Admin section in GA4.
- In Admin, in the Property column, click Custom dimensions.
- In the custom dimensions tab, click Create custom dimensions.
- Add a Dimension name – this is how the name will appear in GA4 reports.
- Select the Scope of the dimension – this will be the Event.
- If you want to add a Description, you can
- From the Event parameter dropdown, select the corresponding parameter (please note that event parameters can only be assigned to one custom dimension)
- When complete, click Save and repeat for every parameter used in the Mediahawk integration.
Frequently asked questions about sending call data to GA4
Do I need to update my Mediahawk tracking script?
No, unlike some call tracking providers, you do not need to make any changes to your Mediahawk tracking. Once you’ve set up your GA4 integration (from our integrations homepage), we’ll start passing data through to your GA4 account.
What phone calls are sent to GA4?
Mediahawk sends all calls to GA4, and the in-visit dynamic calls are matched with the Google visitor ID.
We send the following fields to match data in GA4:
- client_id: The client ID from the website (or auto generated to a random string for static/post visit)
- timestamp_micros: The timestamp of the start of the call
- name: Description from the setup in Mediahawk
- action: What you’ve selected to send as the action
- category: What you’ve selected to send as the category
- label: What you’ve selected to send as the label
How quickly can I see my call data in GA4?
Mediahawk sends custom data about the phone call such as call length or service number back to GA4 within five minutes. However, it can take Google up to 24 hours to update the information received.
Please note: Google imports data based on the date they receive it. For example, if a call finishes at 23:59 on Monday, Mediahawk sends it to Google at 1:05am on Tuesday (the next day). The call will be logged in Google on the day they received the call – not the date of the call.
My GA4 data doesn’t match my UA data
If you’re comparing your conversions in GA4 to UA to check that the reporting is accurate, you may find that it doesn’t match. This is because they both track things very differently (UA tracks by session, and GA4 tracks by events). In UA, events are tracked as one per session however, by default, GA4 counts every event. For instance, multiple calls in a session (the same visitor calling two or three times while on your website) is counted as one event in UA. In GA4 it is shown as two or three, so is an accurate count of events.
To check whether your call data is being passed through to GA4 correctly, you should compare your call conversions to Mediahawk. If GA4 and Mediahawk match, that means the data is accurate.
Get started with GA4
If you haven’t yet set up your properties in GA4, do that now. Google provides very comprehensive instructions for doing this on your website and apps. Our Client Success team have a vast amount of experience and are extremely knowledgeable in helping you set up the integration, ensuring that you effortlessly and accurately track your visitor journeys.
Act now and make sure you are effectively tracking all your online and offline conversions in GA4.