Connect Google Analytics 4 in Wistia
Note
You must be an Account Owner or Manager in Wistia to connect the integration.
On the “Integrations” page in your account settings, open the “Advertising” tab.
Click “Connect” below the Google Analytics 4 integration description.
Once you click “Connect,” you’ll be prompted to log in to Google and select your Google account with access to your GA4 instance.
Click “Allow” to grant Wistia permission to access your Google Analytics data.
Tip
We suggest you connect this integration using an account with “Admin” and/or “Edit” access to the Google Analytics property.
Once authenticated, you’ll be prompted to confirm the following account and property details:
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 fields must be configured in Google Analytics before connecting the integration in Wistia. Refer to Google's documentation for setting up Analytics for your website.
Note
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 will not connect.
To confirm how many custom dimensions you have defined in GA4, click "Admin" at the bottom left of the page, then select "Data display" and "Custom definitions".
Once connected, the integration will be listed in the “Configured” section of your “Integrations” page.
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 setting 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’re connecting GA4 for the first time, the page GA4 configuration checkbox will be selected by default. For GA4 integrations connected before January 10, 2024, this feature is disabled. To opt in, select the “Use page GA4 configuration” checkbox and click “Save” on the integrations page.
Once a web page is configured and GA4 “Use page GA4 configuration” is enabled, make sure to embed a media on your webpage.
Note
We suggest confirming that data is flowing to GA4 successfully. 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 your browser's developer console. You'll see GA4 events logged as they happen. Seeing the Google Tag ASCII art lets you know the debugger extension is working. Alternatively, you can enable debug mode 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. These custom dimensions make the fields "Video Hashed Id", "Channel Hashed Id", and "Video Name" available for reporting in GA4.
You must manually create custom dimensions for properties not configured in Wistia. If this is the case, the three custom dimensions require 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 |
Send Wistia event data
Once the integration is connected, Wistia will start sending event data to the GA4 account 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 only applies to Channels.
How Wistia sends data
Event data in GA4 includes a few different properties: "Event name" and event parameters.
If a media is embedded as a standalone video, its events will have a category of “Video." If 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 and differentiate where events are coming from.
Google Analytics dashboard
Navigate to "Reports" > "Engagement" > "Events". This page displays all of your collected events, including:
Event name
Event count
Total users
Event count per user
Depending on how many events you have in your installation, you may see many 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
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.
Can I add a Google Ads account ID to 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 to use GA4 audiences to retarget in Google Ads. Refer to Google’s documentation for further instructions.
What do I do if I have too many custom dimensions?
You must have two event-scoped custom dimensions available to connect the integration (the maximum number you can have is 50). Remove two custom dimensions to connect the integration.
Why is there 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 to be tracked in GA4. If this step is ignored, GA4 will not track the data that Wistia does without cookies. If you want Wistia and GA4 analytics to match, use Privacy Mode via the Player API.