Connecting Google Analytics 4
To connect to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), head to Account > Integrations. On the Integrations page, scroll down to the “ Advertising Integrations” section.
Note
You need to be the Account Owner or a Manager to access the Integrations page.
Once you click “Connect,” you’ll be prompted to log into Google and select your Google account that has access to your GA4 instance.
Tip
We suggest that you connect this integration with an account that has “Admin” and/or “Edit” access to the Google Analytics property you’d like to connect to Wistia.
Once authenticated, you will see a form with four fields to complete:
Analytics Account: select from your GA4 compatible Analytics Accounts in the dropdown menu.
Web Property: select a GA4 compatible Web Property from the dropdown menu.
Web Data Stream: there is one data stream for each Web Property.
Use Page GA4 Configuration: Defer GA4 configuration to your website’s GA4 configuration and fallback to the selected Web Data Stream
The first three must be set up in Google Analytics prior to setting up the integration with Wistia. You can find resources on setting these up from Google here.
Note
In order to connect to a GA4 web property, Wistia needs to create and add two Event scoped Custom Dimensions to it, however GA4 has a limit of 50 Custom Dimensions per web property. If there are already more than 48 Custom Dimensions defined on your web property, either active or inactive, the integration won’t connect. To check how many Custom Dimensions you have defined, open GA, click Admin, select the web property in question from the center column, and then select Configure > Custom Definitions > Custom Dimensions.
Once connected, the integration will be listed in the “Configured” section of your Integrations page.
Using Page GA4 Configuration
When setting up your GA4 integration in Wistia, you can choose to "Use page GA4 configuration” by clicking the checkbox when configuring the integration.
This allows the Wistia player to adopt the GA4 settings on your webpage, including the Web Data Stream Measurement ID where data will be sent. In cases where this feature is disabled or if no configuration is present on a web page, Wistia will load and configure the page with the data stream chosen during setup under “Web Data Stream.”
Note
If you are connecting GA4 for the first time, this checkbox will automatically be enabled. For existing GA4 integrations prior to this release (1/10/24), this feature is disabled. You will need to opt in by checking the “Use page GA4 configuration” checkbox and clicking “Save” on the integrations page.
Once a web page is configured and GA4 “use page GA4 configuration” is enabled, be sure to embed a media on your webpage.
Note
We suggest validating that data is flowing to GA4. Keep in mind that data typically takes about 24 hours to populate in GA4. If you’d like to get a bit more technical, you can add the Google Analytics Debugger extension to your browser and turn it on. Navigate to where your video is embedded and open the browser’s console. You will see GA4 events logged as they happen. Seeing the Google Tag ascii art let’s you know the debugger extension is working. Alternatively, you can set up a Debug session in GA4 - this also requires the GA debugger extension and may be easier than verifying events in the Console.
Custom Dimensions
If a property is selected when setting up the integration, we create three custom dimensions in GA4 for it. These custom dimensions make the fields Video Hashed Id, Channel Hashed ID, and Video Name available for reporting in GA4.
For properties not configured in Wistia, you will need to manually create the custom dimensions. If this is the case, the three custom dimensions need the following values:
Dimension Name | Scope | Event parameter |
Channel Hashed Id | Event | channel_hashed_id |
Video Hashed Id | Event | video_hashed_id |
Video Name | Event | event_label |
Sending Event Data
Once the integration is connected, Wistia will start to send event data to the GA4 account that you’ve selected. The following events will be tracked:
wistia_play
wistia_50_percent_played (and 25, 75, 95)
wisita_subscribe
wistia_seconds_played
wistia_clicked_link_https_wistia_com (the URL will be what you define)
wistia_conversion
wistia_eventbrite_conversion_12345678 (event id)
Note
The conversion and clicked link events are only applicable to video plays. The subscribe event is only applicable to Channels.
How We Send Data
Event data in GA4 comes with a few different properties - Event Name and event parameters (which contain Event Category, Event Label). Event Names are the events that occurred and Labels are always the name of the media where the action occurred.
If a media is embedded by itself as a standalone video embed, its events will have a category of “Video." If it’s embedded as a standalone audio embed, the category will be “Audio.”
If the media being played is part of a Channel embed, the category will be “Channel: [Name].” This will make it easier for you to attribute and measure activity to specific Channels embedded on your website, as well as differentiate where events are coming from.
The Google Analytics Dashboard
Navigate to Reports > Engagement > Events. This page shows all of your collected events. It includes:
Event name
Event count
Total users
Event count per user
Depending on how many types of events you have in your installation, you may see a lot of things here. A standalone embed will use the “Video” or “Audio” type, and Channel embeds will have the “Channel” type.
Here, you’ll see a list of the events available to you, which is what we push using the categories we covered earlier. There are some defaults included, but this is where your custom events would also appear if you configured any.
The default events are:
wistia_play
wistia_50_percent_played (and 25, 75, 95)
wistia_conversion
Audiences and Promote
In order to create and retarget audiences through the GA4 integration, you’ll need to create audiences directly within GA4. This is because Google does not currently have an API for audience data in GA4.
Once audiences are manually set up in Google, this data can be passed from Wistia. You can find steps on how to manually set up audiences in GA4 here. To get started, head to Configure > Audiences.
Note
Audiences in GA4 are not retroactive. This means you should set up audiences as quickly as possible for the integration to pass this data.
FAQs
I turned on the new functionality, why don’t I see the changes reflected in my GA4?
The configuration is cached for up to 24 hours. To see an immediate change, make any update to your media to “bust” the cache.
Universal Analytics has the option to add a Google Ads account ID, does GA4?
While the Wistia integration with GA4 does not currently have this option, you will still need to link your GA4 account to your Google Ads account in order to use GA4 audiences to retarget in Google Ads. The instructions on how to do so can be found from Google here.
What do I do if I have too many Custom Dimensions?
You need to have two Event scoped Custom Dimensions available in order to connect the integration (the maximum number you can have is 50). Remove two Custom Dimensions in order to connect the integration.
Why is there is a discrepancy in page loads between Wistia and GA4?
If there is a discrepancy in analytics between Wistia and GA4, it often stems from cookie banners on a website. The Wistia player does not use cookies, so analytics are immediately tracked upon page load. Since GA4 uses cookies to track activity, website visitors must accept the cookie banner in order for their activity to track in GA4. If this step is ignored, GA4 will not track the data that Wistia does without cookies. If you would like Wistia and GA4 analytics to match, you can use Privacy Mode via the Player API.