Set up Google Analytics on Your Website

Not sure how many people visit your site? Do you want to know if the amount of people visiting your bulletins page is worth the time it took to make those updates? Is anyone listening to your sermons online? 

Google Analytics (GA4) is a powerful tool that helps you answer those questions and many more. GA4 lets you measure the number of unique visitors to your site, track the most popular pages, see how long your visitors stay on each page and so much more. The information you gain from GA4 will help you decide what changes need to be made to your site in order to help your site become a more effective tool for your ministry.

Setting up Google Analytics in ChurchSpring is incredibly simple. 

Follow these easy steps to get Google Analytics tracking set up on your ChurchSpring site:

1. Sign in to your Google Analytics account. If you don't have an account, follow these steps to set one up.
2. Click Admin.
3. At the top of the Property column, select your property.
4. In the Property column, click Data streams > Web.
5. Click the data stream for your website.
6. Under Google tag, click View tag instructions.
7. On the Installation instructions page, select Install manually:
   • On the screen, you’ll see the JavaScript snippet for your account's Google tag. Your Google tag is the entire section of code that appears, beginning with:
     
     <!-- Google tag (gtag.js) -->
     
     and ending with
     
     </script>
8. Next, log in to your ChurchSpring website and click on Settings in your Admin Menu (the black bar on the left)
9. Go to the Website tab
10. Click on Analytics
11. Paste your Google Analytics tracking code in the box on that screen
12. Click the "Save Information" button, and you're Done!

You should begin seeing data inside your Google Analytics account within 24 hours. Don't forget that we're here to help! If you have any questions or run into any issues, just contact support and we will jump in and help you out.

NOTE: Universal Analytics (UA) will be going away SOON!

Some of you may have already seen this announcement in your Google Analytics account.  If you need to determine if you have a UA or a GA4 account, you will want to follow the Google Help document here. Anyone running UA will need to switch to GA4 in order to continue tracking data properly.

If you currently use UA, you can use the same steps above but insert this code at step 5:

<!-- Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Analytics -->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA- XXXXXXXXX-1"></script>
<script>
window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
gtag('js', new Date());
gtag('config', 'UA- XXXXXXXXX-1');
</script>

FAQS & TROUBLESHOOTING

• Why am I seeing a vertical bar on the right side of my home page that contains digits at the top? This is a sign that you did not enter the correct Google Analytics code into your Settings. Remove the incorrect code and the unwanted bar will disappear from your home page. Review the steps above or contact our team for assistance.

Helpful Videos

• How to set up Google Analytics for your church website - start at time marker 00:16:00 (check out the full show notes at churchspring.com/csl019)

• Top ways to effectively use Google Analytics (check out full show notes at churchspring.com/csl020)