How to read Google Analytics 4 statistics

There are two methods to collect cookie banner analytics: using either CookieScript cookie banner analytics tool or Google Analytics 4. You could use CookieScript cookie banner analytics, Google Analytics 4, or both.

Google Analytics 4 is one of the most powerful tools to analyze website users' behavior on the website. This guide shows how to read the cookie statistics of Google Analytics 4, the latest Google Analytics tool.

You can easily connect Google Analytics 4 with a CookieScript pop-up on your website or app.

See the guides:

How to enable Google Analytics 4?

How to select Google Analytics 4 as your main analytics tool?

How to connect Google Analytics 4 and CookieScript?

CookieScript records and sends the following events to Google Analytics 4 each time when a user makes a choice:

• Accept

• Reject

• Close

• Categories of cookies accepted.

CookieScript records and sends to Google Analytics 4 the following events only once, when a user first sees a cookie banner:

• FirstAccept

• FirstReject

• FirstAcceptAll

• FirstShown.

The Accept rate and the Reject rate are calculated from the above-mentioned one-time events.

The FirstAccept and FirstAcceptAll events are summed up together.

If a user ignores the cookie banner and takes no action, it's considered that the user rejected the banner since their did not give explicit consent to use cookies.

For example, if your cookie banner was delivered to 100 users, and 30 users were associated with the FirstAccept events, 20 users- with the FirstAcceptAll events, 25 users- with the FirstReject events, and 25 users continued browsing ignoring the banner, the Accept rate would be 50%, and the Reject rate would be 50%.

All cookie banner analytics data, collected by CookieScript, is sent to Google Analytics 4 and could be found in the Google Analytics 4 Content section. See the instructions below on how to see your real time and historical Google Analytics cookie statistics data.

How to see real time Google Analytics 4 cookie statistics?

To see your users’ real time cookie statistics, press the Reports icon, then click the Realtime button on the left panel of the Google Analytics dashboard:

There are several graphs with statistics. Choose the Event count by Event name graph and press the select_content tab. We send all cookie banners’ statistics data to the content section.

To see the user’s interaction with the cookie banner and what events the user selected at the cookie banner, press the content_type tab:

At the content_type tab, you can find four event parameters: “CookieScript accept”, “CookieScript acceptall”, “CookieScript close”, and “CookieScript reject”. Each of these parameters represents users’ interactions with the cookie banner in a real time and a corresponding user’s behavior.

To see what categories of cookies the user selected, go back to the Content section, and press the content_id tab.

Under the content_id tab, you can find the categories of cookies the user accepted like “Performance” or “Performance and targeting”.

How to see historical Google Analytics cookie statistics?

To see your users’ historical cookie statistics, click the Engagement, and then the Events buttons on the left panel of the Google Analytics dashboard:

In the table below, press the select_content tab:

If you select the content_type tab on the right side of the control panel, you can find four event parameters: “CookieScript accept”, “CookieScript acceptall”, “CookieScript close”, and “CookieScript reject”. Each of these parameters represents users’ historical interactions with the cookie banner and the corresponding user’s behavior.

If you select the content_id tab on the right side of the control panel, you can find the categories of cookies the user accepted over a selected time range in the past. The graph in the middle and the table on the right side represent which categories of cookies were accepted by users.

Note: If users ignore the banner and continue browsing the website without any selection, it will be counted as the ignore rate, since the banner will be shown but ignored.

Other functionalities of Google Analytics 4

In addition to the statistics presented above, you can use more Google Analytics 4 data for your analysis:

• Show how many visitors are reading/accepting/ignoring your cookie policy.

• Show how many purchases (or other goals) are done with/without accepting/reading cookie policy.

• Show if foreign country visitors accept/ignore/read the cookie policy.

• Show how many mobile visitors accept/ignore/read the cookie policy.

• Export all kinds of reports or send them by email.

• And much much more.

Google Analytics 4 also takes care of tracking Unique and non-Unique events. If you are not familiar with Google Analytics 4 Events, you can read more about it on the Google Help page.

Besides Google Analytics 4, you can also use CookieScript Cookie Banner Analytics.