How to use exploration reports in Google Analytics 4

GA4 explorations give you powerful insights into your website and marketing efforts’ performance, helping you find opportunities for growth—but first, you need to know how to use them.

This guide explains what GA4 exploration reports are, when to use them to dig into your analytics data, and how to overcome GA’s limitations for a 360-degree view of user behavior on your website. We cover:

• The 7 main types of explorations in Google Analytics 4:

  1. Free-form exploration

  2. Funnel exploration

  3. Path exploration

  4. Segment overlap

  5. User explorer

  6. Cohort exploration

  7. User lifetime

• Creating a new exploration report in GA4: the templates above come with some data already added for you, but in some cases, it may be better to build one from scratch

• Customizing GA4 explorations: different GA4 explorations share common customization options, but there are a few popular customizations you may need to use

• What exploration reports won’t show you: a lack of visualization and qualitative data in exploration reports is easily fixed with additional product experience insights from tools like heatmaps and session recordings

What are GA4 explorations?

In GA4, ‘Explorations’ is a set of advanced discovery and comparison tools that surface insights into a website or ecommerce store’s performance. Unlike other GA reports, explorations pull raw event and user-level data, making them more precise than other reporting options. Explorations go far beyond the reports previously available in the old version of GA, Universal Analytics (UA), and make it possible to

• Build tables, charts, maps, or funnel paths to report on the data

• Run cohort analyses for groups of users who share common attributes 

• Create and compare custom user segments 

• Understand lifetime user behavior 

• Drill down into individual, behavior-based user activities (e.g. users who engaged with your property on both app and website)

• Save, share, and export data for use with other tools

There’s a bit of a learning curve, but once you’ve set up your favorite exploration views, you can save them and keep checking on your progress month after month.

7 main types of explorations in Google Analytics 4

In GA4, different exploration views are known as ‘techniques’. 

Select ‘Explore’ in the left-hand menu, then click ‘Template gallery’ to view all available exploration technique templates. 

The main types of exploration report in GA4

There are seven main techniques you can apply to your GA data. Here’s an overview of what each one is, and when to use them to get the most from your data. 

1. Free-form exploration

Free-form is the default exploration view and the closest in layout to traditional GA reports. Use it to

• Visualize data as a table, donut chart, line chart, scatterplot, bar chart, or geo map

• Arrange and sort columns and rows

• Compare multiple metrics in one place

• Spot and create customer segmentations

A GA4 free-form exploration table comparing active users by device type and traffic medium

2. Funnel exploration

Funnel explorations show user drop-off between different steps in a conversion funnel. Use this technique to view the completion rate and abandonment rate for any goal. For example

• Visualize where users drop off between first visit and purchase or sign-up

• Compare the difference in drop-off rates between different segments (e.g. users on mobile vs. desktop, or paid vs. organic traffic)

 A GA4 funnel exploration showing drop-off between first visit and purchase

💡 Pro tip: funnels show you where users drop off, but not why. Power up your funnel explorations by creating them in Contentsquare Funnel Analysis. 

Click the play icon to view relevant replays of user behavior along your funnels

Not only can you visualize and compare drop-off rates like in GA, but you can also click straight through to watch relevant session recordings that give you qualitative insight into what causes users to bounce or convert to the next step.

3. Path exploration

Path exploration shows the behavior flow of all users on your site. Use it to

• Visualize where users go after starting a session

• Create funnels by viewing common forward or backward paths

• Find loops where users get stuck between pages

An example path exploration in GA4

4. Segment overlap

The segment overlap exploration compares up to three user segments (e.g. cart abandoners, users in the US, or organic visitors) to see how they overlap and relate to each other. This helps you

• Visualize the performance of different segment combinations

• Identify and create new segments to add to other GA reports

• Research or validate user persona characteristics

A GA4 segment overlap exploration showing the intersection of US visitors, mobile traffic, and users aged 25–54

5. User explorer

The user exploration displays individual user activity. Use it to

• Expand the user journey of an individual customer, e.g. one with a high average order value

• Troubleshoot a specific user flow

• Investigate the browsing activity of users in any segment

• Measure a user’s activity across different browsers and devices

Click on any user ID in the user explorer report to view their event history

💡 Pro tip: viewing user browsing activity as a timeline in GA4 might be helpful. But if you truly want to put yourself in your customers’ shoes, lines of event data are nowhere near as impactful as seeing how real people use your site. 

Session replays of a user browsing different homepages, captured using Contentsquare

Use a session recording tool like Contentsquare Session Replay to see the real actions users take on your website—what they click, where they scroll, and how they navigate between pages. You’ll find it that much easier to empathize with users as people, not lists of event triggers.

6. Cohort exploration

Cohort explorations show the performance of a group of users with common behavior or characteristics. Use cases include

• Viewing retention or churn over time

• Tracking the performance of behavior and engagement metrics based on user acquisition date

• Comparing the performance of users exposed to a specific content piece vs. those who didn’t see it 

A cohort exploration in GA4 showing event activity over time for users acquired in different weeks

7. User lifetime

The user lifetime exploration represents how users behave during their lifetime as customers. Use it to

• View customer lifetime value (LTV) for users acquired via different sources, mediums, and campaigns

• Project predicted churn and purchase probability for different acquisition channels

• Compare first, most recent, and lifetime user actions 

A user lifetime exploration in GA4 showing LTV for different mediums

How to create a new exploration report in GA4

When you use the above templates to create explorations in GA4, they’ll come with some data added for you. In some cases, you may want to build one from scratch to create something simple or recreate a report you used to rely on in UA. Here’s how to do it. 

Click ‘Explore’ in the left-hand menu, then ‘Blank’ to create a new exploration.

Creating a new exploration in Google Analytics

You’ll see a blank canvas, like this:

A blank free-form exploration in Google Analytics

The default exploration type is ‘free form’—you can switch between different exploration types using the technique dropdown in the ‘Settings’ panel.

Click the ‘technique’ dropdown to select one of the six exploration types

Start in the ‘Variables’ panel on the left. Select a timeframe and click the plus icons to add

• Segments (optional): subsets of your total website traffic by user, event, or session. Examples of segments include cart abandoners, purchasers, users in the US, and organic visitors.

• Dimensions: attributes that describe a segment, e.g. medium, source, country, and landing page

• Metrics: quantitative measurements, e.g. sessions, bounce rate, Google Ads clicks, and conversions

Use the search bar or scroll down the list to find what you need, then select the item and click ‘Import’ to add it to your exploration. 

Adding a new dimension to a GA4 exploration

Nothing will display until you add dimensions and metrics from the ‘Variables’ panel to the ‘Settings’ panel—do this by double-clicking or dragging them across.

 A free-from custom exploration in GA4 showing organic sessions

And that’s it! Once you’ve built an exploration report you like, give it a name (edit the text under ‘Exploration name’ in the ‘Variables’ panel), and it will be accessible via the main Explore menu.  

Access saved explorations in the main Explorations view

How to customize GA4 explorations

Different GA4 explorations share common customization options. Here are some popular customizations you may need to use.

Right-click to create new segments

Right-click on any cell or chart area and select ‘Create segment from selection’ to add a custom segment from the selected cohort.  

Right-click on any cell in a free-form exploration table and select ‘Create segment from selection’

Modify the appearance of exploration tables

You can change the way tables are stylized in the ‘Settings’ panel using the ‘Cell type’ dropdown. There are three cell type visualizations to choose from: bar chart, plain text, and heat map. 

Cell type visualizations in exploration tables: bar chart (left), plain text (middle), and heat map (right)

Arrange and order columns and rows

To rearrange columns and rows, drag the relevant values in the ‘Settings’ panel. To order columns, click the header to toggle between low to high and high to low.

Drag metrics and dimensions in the tab settings panel to change the order in reports

Create filters

Add up to ten metrics or dimensions as filters. First, add them to the ‘Variables’ panel by clicking the plus icon in the ‘Metrics’ or ‘Dimension’ sections. Then, drag them over to the ‘Filters’ section at the bottom of the ‘Settings’ panel.  

Use metrics and dimensions as filters in GA4 exploration reports

Compare segments

To compare segments, make sure they’re added to the ‘Variables’ panel by clicking the plus icon in the ‘Segments’ section. Then, drag them over to the ‘Segment comparisons’ section in the ‘Settings’ panel.  

Drag segments over to the ‘Segment comparison’ section to compare them

What exploration reports won’t show you (and how to fill in the gaps)

GA4 explorations give you flexible and advanced ways to make sense of how people use your website, but there are still some limitations to consider before putting all your analytics eggs into GA4’s basket.

Lack of visualizations

While GA4 is definitely more visual than UA (the segment overlap exploration has three colors!), it’s not very exciting to look at or easy for non-analysts to make sense of. 

To add some color to your reports, try connecting your GA4 data with a performance reporting tool like Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio). 

Better still, add a visual analytics tool like Contentsquare Heatmaps to your stack and see real user behavior—clicks, scrolls, and mouse movement—overlaid on your site’s pages. 

How visitors interact with a homepage, captured using Contentsquare Heatmaps

No qualitative data

GA4 explorations only give you quantitative (i.e. numerical) data about how people interact with your website. You still need to pair it with qualitative data to fully understand not just what users do, but their motivations, frustrations, and reasons for choosing your business.

Add a survey tool like Contentsquare Surveys to create a website survey to collect user feedback. Try triggering a survey on a user behavior—e.g. when people navigate away from checkout—to investigate the ‘why’ behind their actions.

Get more from GA4 explorations 

GA4 explorations help you report on your website’s and marketing campaigns’ success and find new areas for growth. But all the numbers in the world won’t tell you why users do and don’t convert. That’s why we think you’ll get more from your data by combining Google Analytics and Contentsquare.

Use GA4 to track events, then integrate them with Contentsquare to dig into the real user behavior behind the numbers.

FAQs about GA4 explorations