GA4 Path Exploration: 3 Practical Ways to Use Path Analysis (It's Better than UA!)

Path Exploration is one of the big upgrades in GA4 relative to Universal Analytics. Formerly called "Path Analysis," you can use Path Exploration reports to see what events took place and what pages were viewed before OR after a key activity took place on the site.
In this video we review 3 distinct use cases for Path Exploration including a content site, a lead generation site, and an Ecommerce site.
Let's check out those paths!
Have questions or comments? Leave them in the comments. I've been learning / struggling with GA4 over the couple of years, and I'm always up for learning more...and for new video ideas.
There's typically a video each week about GA4 or Google Tag Manager or Data Studio or sometimes Google Ads or SEO. If you want to follow along with what I'm learning (trying to learn) you can subscribe at the link below:
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[@rdeluca_Exemplis]

Best GA tutorial I've ever seen. I love how you give the context and actually put together a presentation outside of GA to help explain things in more detail. Most GA4 videos I've seen make my eyes glaze over.

[@rooted-digital]

Wow, thank you for your message. This is really encouraging and I'm grateful to you for taking the time to share. GA4 had been really frustrating to learn for me, and some of the practical examples really help it to start sinking in. Glad that has been useful for you as well. Have a great one and Godspeed to you on your GA4 journey!

[@selenefroehlich9138]

this is great, really well explained, thanks!

[@rooted-digital]

Thank you, Selene. I am glad to hear it was helpful for you and I appreciate the feedback!

[@rexson75]

Superb content, thanks for sharing.

[@rooted-digital]

So kind of you to share this, Syed. Thank you. I hope it proves useful for you. Zack

[@dita3937]

Awesome!!

[@rooted-digital]

So glad you found it helpful. Thanks for taking the time to watch and to respond here. Wishing you all the best with whatever is next on your GA4 journey!

[@andreadau]

Great video! I am just wondering why I have a different event count number for the event "generate lead", depending on the technique I use: E.g. Path exploration with ending point "generate lead" states 286 as Event count, whereas a free form table using Event name filtered on "generate lead" with Metric "Event count" is displaying 1,166 for the same time period (no segments or filters applied). Do you have an idea what is causing the difference here?

[@rooted-digital]

That's a great question. Google has said that there are differences in data between standard reports and Explorations (here's some more info on that if you're interested: support.google.com/analytics/answer/9371379?hl=en#zippy=%2Cin-this-article). But it's odd that there would be differences in data between various reports in Explorations as you're seeing. I tested the same on my end and saw 97 generate_lead events in Path Exploration and 93 generate_lead events in free form table. Not as big of a difference but still not identical. I really don't know the answer, but one thing I'd want to check into more would be if Path Exploration is showing unique events while the free form table is showing the raw event count. That still seems like a massive difference to explain away though. I'll keep you posted if I come across anything that could explain it.

[@stevensmith01]

Hey, great video. Is there a way to export the path exploration data in GA4?

[@rooted-digital]

Hi there, Steven. You can export the report as a PDF with the export icon in the top right of the screen. But I don't believe you can export a live file of the underlying data. At least, I haven't been able to find out how to do that if it's possible. If you want to share the report with another user in your GA4 property, that is possible to do. Let me know if that would help and I can try to walk you through the steps (not too complicated). Thanks for watching and for the feedback. Best wishes.

[@livestudentcode2248]

Dear Admin, Thanks for the video. I would like to show up the path exploration report on my GA4 home page dashboard reports. May I know, How to proceed with that? Thanks in advance

[@rooted-digital]

If there is a way to do this, I don't know it. I think the Exploration reports like Path Exploration need to remain in the Explorations area. You can share with them with other users in your GA4 property, but the report won't be able to move to your home page dashboard area. Although that would be a nice upgrade if Google adds this in the future! Thanks for the thoughtful question.

[@livestudentcode2248]

@@rooted-digital Thanks for the valuable response.

[@rooted-digital]

@@livestudentcode2248 of course! Have a great rest of your day. 🙂

[@drayesha3667]

can we add traffic sources on first step.? From where traffic is coming and all journey. i am unable to do that. In dimensions i am unable to add sources on second step.

[@rooted-digital]

Hi Dr. Ayesha, I think I'd use segments to look at individual traffic sources. Here's a blog with some info about how to use segments when you're selecting your variables for your Exploration: www.rootandbranchgroup.com/ga4-explorations/ Hope this proves helpful for you. Good luck and Godspeed to you! Zack

[@karengee4288]

Question - if no other steps come up when you click on a node, they entered that page and then left the site. They didn't go anywhere else.

[@rooted-digital]

Hi Karen. You built this from a starting point, right? You're right that if you click a node and nothing else happens that was the end of their journey on your site.

[@selenefroehlich9138]

I have a question, how can I track the google search term that landed on my site? I am interested in finding the path exploration of a certain keyword, I still don't know how to find this.

[@rooted-digital]

Hi Selene. I think I have good news and bad news for you. Good news: You can sync GA4 with your Google Search Console property so you can see search query insights (average ranking position, total clicks, impressions, etc) in GA4. Here's a ~3 minute video on how to do that if you haven't done it yet: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fJjcfmxqd7l5mc0 Bad news: I don't believe it's possible to isolate a specific search query and use it in the Path Exploration report. I would LOVE it if this were possible. It would be such a cool way to understand our web visitors. But I don't think it can be done based on how GA4 works right now. : / Thanks for the great question. If you happen to find a way to do this, please come back and let me know. I'd love to learn and you'd be more than welcome to be a guest contributor on the website if you wanted to share your knowledge with others! Good luck and Godspeed! Zack