In Universal Analytics (UA), the Audience Overview report gives you a quick snapshot of who is visiting your site, where they are coming from, what type of device they are on, and how long they are staying. In GA4, this specific report type is no longer available. However, we can find similar data in the Engagement overview report.
It’s important to remember that data is collected differently in GA4. So, while we can review similar data in GA4, it’s not a 1-to-1 comparison.
Reviewing Audience Data in the Engagement Overview Report
The Engagement overview report in GA4 is very similar to the Audience Overview report in UA. Here you can find views, event counts, average engagement time, number of engaged sessions per user, and average engagement time per session.
To navigate to the Engagement overview Report, go to Reports in the left navigation panel. Then click Engagements and Engagement overview.
Adding Summary Cards to the Engagement Overview
In the GA4 Engagement overview report, you can add additional cards to get similar data found in the Audience Overview report in UA. In the image below, you can see that the Audience Overview report in UA includes language, country, city, browser, operating system, service provider, and screen resolution data.
To add these same data points to your Engagement overview report in GA4, click on the pencil icon in the upper right corner of the Engagement overview report.
Then click on +Add Cards.
Here you can select Summary Cards of user data by different demographic details. To view data similar to the UA report, select:
- Users by Language
- Users by Country
- Users by City
- Users by Browser
- Users by Operating System
- Users by Screen Resolution
- Users by Device Category
Then click the blue Add Cards button. Using the six dots, you can click on each Summary Card and rearrange them in your preferred order.
Once you’re done rearranging the summary cards, click the blue Save… button to save the report. It will give you the option to Save changes to current report or Save as a new report.
Once you save the report, click Back in the upper left corner.
Congratulations, you did it! You can now view similar data to UA’s Audience Overview report.
Ready to Make More Custom Reports?
Check out our other step-by-step guides in our blog: How to Find Basic Data from UA in GA4.
Our team at Evolve Marketing also offers in-depth, 1-on-1 GA4 training sessions so you can navigate GA4 like a pro. Contact us today for more information.
