Question from user:
Hi Everyone.
A client is looking to integrate analytics into their website to track user interactions. Their goal is to measure user clicks on the page accurately. They have a specific webpage that offers three distinct actions, each resulting in an immediate outcome on the same page without any redirects. They’d like to closely monitor and understand which of these three actions users engage with.
We know Google analytics does this especially for actions that redirects to another page but for actions that takes place within the same webpage we aren’t sure.
Please I’d appreciate guidance on how to achieve the above in GA4 as well as recommendation of other suitable analytics platform to consider. Thanks
Answer from Nabil:
You’re absolutely right that Google Analytics 4 (GA4) doesn’t automatically track these distinct, non-redirecting actions like it tracks page views.
The key to capturing this granularity is through custom event tracking, which is perfectly supported by GA4’s event-centric model.
You should definitely use Google Tag Manager (GTM) to create a custom event tag for each of the three distinct actions.
GTM allows you to fire an event when a user clicks on an element, regardless of whether a new page loads.
You can set up a unique trigger for each of your three actions using attributes of the clicked element like its ID, class, or the text it contains, and then fire a GA4 Event tag with a unique name, such as action_one_click or a more generic cta_click with a parameter like cta_name set to ‘Action One’, ‘Action Two’, etc.
This will ensure your GA4 property receives separate, distinct events for each interaction.
For the event names, try to stick to GA4’s Recommended Events where possible, for example, using select_content with a parameter, or create a Custom Event.
Now, regarding the ecosystem of tools you mentioned, the combination of GA4 + BigQuery + Google Data API + Looker Studio + GTM + a server-side tagging solution like Stape or Google Cloud Platform is an excellent, powerful, and scalable approach to data analysis and activation.
Using Google Tag Manager and GA4 for event collection is the foundation, as it gives you the control to fire those specific, same-page events we just discussed.
The power of integrating BigQuery comes into play when you need to run complex queries, especially on the raw, unsampled event data that GA4 sends to it (a feature available with the free GA4 to BigQuery export).
This is where you can truly understand the sequences of user actions or calculate custom metrics that aren’t available in the standard GA4 interface, giving your client a complete and deep understanding of the user journey, including which of the three actions is most popular in specific contexts.
The Google Analytics Data API allows you or your client’s developers to programmatically fetch this processed data from GA4 for integration into other internal systems or for automated reporting, while the BigQuery integration provides a direct route to the most granular data.
Looker Studio then provides a powerful, free, and flexible visualization layer.
It can connect directly to both GA4 and BigQuery, letting you build custom dashboards that clearly present the performance of the three distinct actions you’re tracking.
This solves the reporting challenge, moving beyond GA4’s standard reports to create bespoke visualizations that answer the client’s specific business questions immediately.
Finally, a server-side tagging solution like Stape or Google Cloud Platform is not strictly required for this click tracking, but it future-proofs your data collection.
Server-side tagging helps improve data quality and resilience by moving the tracking process from the user’s browser to a dedicated server, reducing the impact of browser restrictions and ad blockers, and offering a significant performance boost on the client’s website.
It’s a best-practice recommendation for a robust analytics setup.
So, in summary, you’d use GTM to fire the precise GA4 events, GA4/BigQuery to store the granular data, and Looker Studio to create the clear reports your client is looking for, giving them a future-proof, robust, and highly detailed understanding of their user’s on-page behavior.
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