How to Use Path Exploration report in Google Analytics 4

Updated: October 18th, 2022

Exploration reports in Google Analytics 4 is a suite of features that allow you to dive deeper into your data. In the past, I have explained how to work with Free Form report and Funnel Exploration. This time, let’s look at another type of report, Path Exploration.

In the older versions of Google Analytics, behavior flow reports were quite limited (that’s why I rarely used them). But with GA4, the improvement is obvious. Even though Path Exploration is not perfect, and there is more room for enhancements, you can already achieve more with it than with flow reports in GA3.

In this blog post, I will show you how to use them and share several ideas of what you can analyze next.

 

Table of Contents

+ Show table of contents +

• What is Path Analysis?
• #1. Overview of the interface
  • #1.1. Variables
    • #1.1.1. Segments
    • #1.1.2. Dimensions and metrics
  • #1.2. Tab settings
    • #1.2.1. Segment
    • #1.2.2. Node type
    • #1.2.3. View unique nodes only
    • #1.2.4. Breakdown
    • #1.2.5. Values
    • #1.2.6. Filters
    • #1.2.7. Node filters
  • #1.3. The Output (report)
    • #1.3.1. Navigating the Path Analysis report
• #2. Examples of Path Analysis
  • #2.1. What happens in the checkout after the begin_checkout event
  • #2.2. An example of reverse pathing
• #3. Ideas of what to analyze next
• Final words

 

Other Exploration reports in Google Analytics 4

I have also published several other related blog posts that you might find useful:

• Free form report in Google Analytics 4
• Funnel exploration report in Google Analytics 4

 

Video tutorial

If you prefer video content, take a look at the tutorial from my Youtube channel.

 

What is Path Exploration in Google Analytics 4?

Simply put, you can see how your users/visitors use the website/app. You can see what kind of events/pages occurred first, and if you click on a certain branch, you can see what pages/events occurred after that.

This can help you understand the paths that your users/visitors take after completing certain actions.

If it’s still not quite clear, don’t worry. In the second half of this blog post, we will look at practical examples.

 

#1. Overview of the interface

In this section, I will show the features that you can use. Later, you will learn how to apply them in practice.

To get started, log in to your Google Analytics 4 property and click Explore (on the left sidebar). Then select Path Exploration.

The interface of the Explorations is split into three main parts/columns:

1. Variables
2. Tab settings
3. The output (the report/visualization that is generated based on your configuration)

Let’s take a closer look at each part.

 

#1.1. Variables

This has nothing to do with Google Tag Manager’s variables. The Variables section in the GA4 Exploration reports is the place where you select data that you plan to use in a report:

• Date range
• Segments
• Dimensions
• Metrics

Also, you can change the name of the exploration in the top-left corner of the interface.

To select a different date range, click the date in the top-left corner (below the exploration name) and select whatever you need (like “last 7 days”, “Last 30 days”, etc.).

 

#1.1.1. Segments

If you want to see how different groups of your users/visitors behave, you should include those segments in the Segments section first (I will later show how to add them to the actual path exploration).

You can choose from several segments that are already included, or you can add your own. You can do that by clicking the plus icon:

Then you can either create a custom segment or select a suggested one.

Speaking of custom segments, there are three types:

• User segment where you can include data of all users that match certain user criteria. Example: show all events of users who are from the US. This is equivalent to user segments in Universal Analytics.
• Session segment where you can include data of sessions that match certain criteria. Example: show all events of sessions where visitors downloaded an ebook. This is equivalent to session segments in Universal Analytics.
• Event segment where you include ONLY events based on certain criteria. This was not available in Universal Analytics. Example: Show data only of those events of which name is page_view or session_start.

 

#1.1.2. Dimensions and metrics

Dimensions in Google Analytics are parameters/attributes of an event, product, transaction, user, etc. They are attributes that describe something. For example:

• Event name
• Transaction ID
• User’s pricing plan
• Product category, etc.

Metrics help us measure. For example, how many events were made yesterday, how many transactions were completed last week, etc.

Speaking of the actual metric names (and examples) that you can find in GA4, here are some examples:

• Event count
• Number of active users
• Number of transactions
• Engagement rate

However, at the moment of writing this blog post, Path Exploration supports only three metrics:

• Active users
• Event count
• Total users

Now that we have some basics, here’s the catch in the GA4 Explorations. If you want to use a metric or a dimension in any exploration technique within that report, you have to include the dimension/metric in the Variables column first. You can do that by clicking the Plus icon and then selecting what you need.

After you select the needed metric/dimension, click Apply button in the top-right corner.

As I’ve said before, you cannot add more metrics to your Path Exploration, they will all be greyed out.

To sum up, the Variables column is responsible for the data input. If you want to use some segments/metrics/dimensions, they must be included in that column. If you miss something later down the line, you can add new items on the fly. Also, you can change the date range (which, obviously, also affects the scope of data input).

 

#1.2. Tab settings

In this column, you can configure what the report will look like. First, there is a Technique drop-down menu (where you can select from things like Free Form, Funnel Exploration, etc.). In this blog post, I focus only on the Path Exploration part.

 

#1.2.1. Segment

Here you can add one segment to analyze only a certain subset of your data. The comparison here (like Exploration reports) is not available.

 

#1.2.2. Node type

Unfortunately, you cannot change anything here. This part shows the types of nodes that you can use in the report.

What is a node? Every branch in the path exploration visualization is a node. At the moment, the data can be split by Event name, Page title and screen name, or Page title and screen class. I wish there was one more dimension here, Page Path. Hopefully, this will be added at some point in the future.

 

#1.2.3. View unique nodes only

Below the Node type, there is a View unique nodes only switch. It’s easiest to explain this feature with an example. Imagine that a visitor lands on your website, and you track the following events in this exact order:

1. session_start
2. page_view
3. page_view
4. view_promotion

If that toggle is disabled, it means that identical subsequent event names (or pages/app screen dimensions) will also be shown. Then the flow will look like this: session_start -> page_view -> page_view -> view_promotion.

If you enable the View unique nodes only, then several subsequent events will be ignored, and only the first one will be shown. Having the aforementioned 4 events in mind, the flow will look like this: session_start -> page_view -> view_promotion.

 

#1.2.4. Breakdown

In this section, you can add a dimension that you want to use as an attribute to slice your data. For example, you can add the Device category dimension, and then you will see how your mobile users are behaving vs desktop.

At the bottom of the visualization, you will start seeing a legend. Click on the one that you are interested in, and it will be highlighted.

 

#1.2.5. Values

Here you can add a metric that will be displayed (as numbers) in the path exploration visualization. As of the moment of writing this blog post, 3 metrics are supported:

• Active users
• Event count
• Total users

 

#1.2.6. Filters

You can add filters that will be used to narrow down a subset of the data that you are analyzing. However, I’ve noticed some quirky behavior here.

Here is a situation that I wanted to achieve.

I wanted to see only certain events in the path exploration, page_view, session_start, and purchase. Unfortunately, I was not able to make it work. Even if I added one filter Event exactly matches page_view, the output of the report was empty.

If you, like me, want to narrow down just to a certain list of events, create an Event segment instead (where you narrow down to just certain events). See the screenshot below.

However, a filter where I narrowed it down to only mobile users worked well.

 

#1.2.7. Node filters

If you want to exclude a certain node in your visualization, right-click on that node’s name and then Exclude node. Then you can select either to exclude it from all paths or just this one.

That filter will then be added to the Node filters section.

 

#1.3. The Output (report)

Once you configure all the necessary things in the Variables and Tab Settings columns, the path exploration visualization will be visible. Here you can do several things.

Add new tabs if needed. Every tab can use a different exploration technique (free form, funnel exploration, etc.). Also, duplicate and delete them by clicking the Triangle icon next to a tab name:

Start over, undo, redo, share the report, and download the report:

Clicking Start over will unlock a long-requested feature, reverse pathing. In GA3, it was only possible to create flow reports from the beginning (e.g. when someone lands on the homepage).

In GA4 path exploration, you can start from the end (e.g. when someone subscribes to your newsletter). Then you can see what events/pageviews occurred before a visitor subscribed. This can give you some hints and a better understanding of what happens.

 

#1.3.1. Navigating the Path Exploration report

When the path exploration visualization is ready, click on a branch you are interested in. Then you will see what visitors did next. Under the page title or event name, you will see a metric. This metric on what you have selected in the Values section of the Tab settings.

If you want to change the starting point (for example, you need a different event or page), you will have to click Start over. This will clear the visualization (but your Variables and Tab Settings will remain unchanged).

Speaking of all the other columns in the visualization, you can change their types. For example, instead of Event Name, you can select Page Title and Screen Name.

If you don’t want to see certain nodes in a particular column, you can click the pencil icon above it and then uncheck events/pages/screen names that you don’t want to see.

Then those values will be hidden in the bottom branch (a.k.a. More).

In Path Exploration, you can have up to 10 columns.

If you want to start from the end (a.k.a. reverse pathing), you will need to click Start over. Then click on the Ending point and select whether the initial column will be based on the event, page title, or some other dimension displayed there.

 

#2. Examples of Path Exploration

Enough of the theory. It’s time for some practical stuff. In this demonstration, I will be using the official Google Analytics 4 demo account. It lets you play around with real data from Google’s Merch Store.

If you want to get access to it, too, click this link and then click ACCESS DEMO ACCOUNT.

If you are unsure how to use the demo account, watch this quick tutorial.

 

#2.1. What happens in the checkout after the begin_checkout event

If you have implemented GA4 e-commerce tracking (you can learn how to do it in my Intermediate/Advanced GTM course), you will start collecting the begin_checkout event sent every time a visitor starts a checkout.

Let’s look at what your visitors do when this event is fired.

First, click Start over in the top-right corner of the exploration. Then select the Event name in the starting point.

Then a sidebar will appear on the right side. Select begin_checkout.

Out of curiosity, let’s disable the View unique nodes only option.

This is a friendly reminder that I am doing this example in the GA4 demo account. When you do this, the data will be different (because we are working with different date ranges).

Now, I will click the first begin_checkout. I see that the next event is page_view, but there is one more event hiding under More, and the event count there is even larger. I’ll click it.

Another begin_checkout event? Let’s click it.

One more begin_checkout event. That’s not good. Either the tracking setup on the Google Merch store is incorrect or something is wrong with the actual checkout.

In these cases, I usually start doubting the tracking setup. Things can easily break (or maybe they were never correct in the first place).

So I decided to start the checkout on Google’s merch store and check the browser console with Data Layer Inspector. When the checkout begins, a bunch of the same events is sent to the same GA4 property.

The best way here is to contact the website developer (who is responsible for managing dataLayer.push codes) and ask him/her to fix it. Only one begin_checkout event should be sent to GA when a visitor starts to checkout.

And I could identify this with the help of Path Exploration in Google Analytics 4.

 

#2.2. An example of a reverse path exploration report

In my Youtube tutorial about path exploration, I also share an example of reverse pathing.

I saw that Google’s merchandising store had many error events tracked. So I clicked Start over, selected the event errors as the ending point of the exploration, and then checked what users were doing before it.

Turns out there was a broken link on the homepage that redirected visitors to a “Page not found” error. That error was the most popular event that people were doing after they landed on the homepage. Yikes!

You can watch the Youtube video with that path exploration example here.

As another example, you can see what visitors were doing on your website before purchasing. To do that, create a new Path Exploration report and click Start over at the top-right corner.

Click Ending point and then select Event Name.

You can also choose the Page Title (if you want to see what people were doing before visiting a particular page).

In this example, I will select the event purchase. It might be helpful to use the search feature.

And that’s it! You can now drill down and see what visitors were doing before purchasing.

If you want to see the previous pages (rather than the event name), you can click the dropdown field at the top of the step and switch from the Event name to the Page title and screen class.

 

#3. Ideas of what to analyze next with Path Exploration

If you are looking for more inspiration for what to analyze next with Path Exploration in Google Analytics 4, here are several ideas. I won’t be diving deep into their actual configuration, but I believe that after reading this blog post and watching the tutorial, you should be able to do this yourself.

Idea #1. What are your visitors doing once they land on your homepage?

Idea #2. What are your visitors doing the checkout when they face an error? You can create a session segment where there is one event named begin_checkout and then the other event that is called errors (or whatever the name of the event you use). Remember that neither begin_checkout nor errors are automatically tracked events. You will need to configure them manually.

Idea #3. What are your visitors doing before they subscribe to a newsletter? Let’s say that every time someone subscribes to your newsletter, a generate_lead event is sent to GA4. Then you could select that event as an ending point of the path exploration and go backward. Learn what the most common behavior of your visitors/users in this case is.

Idea #4. What are your users do after they log in? But for that, you would need to implement login tracking. Ask a developer to push the login event to the Data Layer every time a user logs in. Then send that event to GA4. If you want to learn more about custom event tracking with GTM and GA4, my course for beginners is exactly what you need.

If you want to get even more ideas and learn Google Analytics 4 well, look at my Google Analytics 4 course, where you will learn:

• How to properly plan analytics and GA4 setup (and how to find what is important to track)
• How to configure Google Analytics 4 property
• How to collect data and create reports
• How to get insights out of the data you have

 

Path Exploration in Google Analytics 4: Final words

Compared to flow reports in Universal Analytics (GA3), path exploration has some improvement. Just the ability to do reverse pathing is worth a try.

If some of this blog post’s content was difficult to follow, I recommend watching my Youtube tutorial. Topics like these, in my opinion, are learned best when you combine text + video.