GA4 can answer the questions that matter for SEO: which pages bring search visitors, which of them sign up, and how many visitors come from AI assistants. Out of the box, it answers none of them well. A short setup fixes that.
Short on time? Comppound does this work for SaaS companies. AI-native, and a person reviews every page.
Have us do itMark the conversions
Create events for trial sign-up, demo request and any other step that signals buying intent, and mark them as key events. Test each one yourself and check it fires once.
Separate AI referrals
Create a custom channel group that puts referrals from AI products, such as chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and gemini.google.com, into their own channel. Otherwise they are mixed in with all other referrals.
Comppound can do this for you
Want the reporting done for you?
Comppound sets up Search Console, GA4 and AI visibility tracking, ties organic traffic to sign-ups and sends a one-page report each month with what shipped and what comes next.
- Tracking set up and tested
- Organic and AI traffic tied to sign-ups
- A monthly report that leads to decisions
Use the landing page report
The landing page report, filtered to organic search, shows which pages start search visits and how many of those sessions convert. Group pages by type, using a content group or URL patterns, to compare comparisons, guides and integrations.
Handle consent properly
Where consent is required, set up consent mode and a compliant banner. Expect analytics to undercount as a result, and use Search Console for search volumes rather than GA4.
Worked example · an illustration, not a client result
Tallyroom's GA4 setup
The setup took an afternoon and answered questions the team had been guessing at for a year.
| Setting | What Tallyroom did |
|---|---|
| Key events | trial_signup, demo_request |
| Channel group | New “AI assistants” channel by referrer |
| Content groups | Compare, Integrations, Guides, Use cases |
| Consent | Consent mode with the site's existing banner |
Do it yourself
Do the GA4 minimum
- 1Create and test key events for sign-up and demo request.
- 2Add a custom channel group with an AI assistants channel.
- 3Set up content groups by page type.
- 4Save a landing page report filtered to organic search.
- 5Check consent mode is configured where required.
Free tool for this: Conversion rate calculator, SaaS funnel calculator
Common mistakes
Counting pageviews as success
Track sign-ups and demos. Pageviews say little about revenue.
Untested events
Events that double-fire or never fire make every report wrong.
Comparing GA4 and Search Console totals
They measure different things. Use each for what it does best.
Rather not do it yourself?
Want the reporting done for you?
Comppound sets up Search Console, GA4 and AI visibility tracking, ties organic traffic to sign-ups and sends a one-page report each month with what shipped and what comes next.
- Tracking set up and tested
- Organic and AI traffic tied to sign-ups
- A monthly report that leads to decisions
Questions
Consent choices, ad blockers and tracking limits all reduce what GA4 records. Treat it as a sample.
No. Search queries come from Search Console, which can be linked to GA4.
Key terms
- Google Analytics 4Google’s current web and app analytics product, which records visits and actions as events and reports where visitors come from and what they do.
- Key eventA key event is a GA4 event you flag as important to your business, such as a demo request. Google renamed GA4 conversions to key events in 2024.
- Channel groupingChannel grouping sorts traffic sources into buckets like Organic Search, Paid Search, Email and Referral using rules based on source, medium and campaign.
- AI Referral TrafficAI referral traffic is visits that arrive from AI assistants and answer engines, such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Claude, when users click a cited link.
- Consent ModeConsent Mode is Google's API for passing a visitor's cookie consent choices to Google tags, which then adjust what they store and send.
- Landing page reportThe landing page report shows the first page of each session and what those sessions did next. It is the starting point for judging SEO content performance.
- Custom dimensionA custom dimension is an attribute you define, such as plan type or content author, so analytics reports can break data down by it.
