Making the Most of Google Analytics 4

Website Traffic Report Stylized Representation

Google Analytics 4 can feel a bit alien if you grew up with Universal Analytics, but for affiliate marketers it is actually a big upgrade. GA4 is built around events rather than sessions, integrates neatly with Google Ads, and is now the only supported version of Google Analytics after Universal Analytics access ended in 2024.

In this guide we will walk through how to shape GA4 around your affiliate business, so you can see which content, traffic sources, and calls to action are really driving affiliate clicks and revenue.

Step 1: Clarify what a “conversion” is for your affiliate site

Before you touch any settings, decide what meaningful success looks like on your site. For most affiliate marketers, the key moments are:

Clicks on affiliate links
Email signups or account registrations that lead into your funnel
High intent actions like clicking a “Get deal” button or reaching a “Best price” comparison section

In GA4, everything is an event. A subset of those events are marked as key events. These replace the old “conversions” concept, and can also feed Google Ads conversions. (See more at Google Help)

For an affiliate site, your core key events will usually be:

affiliate_click (or a similar name) for clicks on outbound affiliate links
generate_lead for form submits where you capture email leads
Possibly view_item or select_promotion on pages that have strong commercial intent

Start by writing these names down and deciding which ones matter most. That clarity will make the rest of your GA4 setup much easier.

Step 2: Track affiliate link clicks as events

Next, you need to make sure every important outbound affiliate click is tracked as an event.

There are two common approaches:

Using Google Tag Manager (GTM)
- Set up a click trigger that fires when someone clicks a link to your affiliate network or merchant domain (for example, any URL containing ?affid= or a specific partner domain).
- Send an event to GA4 called affiliate_click and include helpful parameters such as link_url, link_text, and page_location.
Using GA4’s “Create event” in the interface
- In GA4 Admin, go to Data display → Events → Create event.
- Base it on the click or page_view event and add conditions that match your affiliate URLs. (Google Help)

Whichever route you use, test it in the Realtime report as you click your own links to check that the event appears with the right name and parameters.

Step 3: Mark your money events as key events

Once your affiliate click event is flowing into GA4, it is time to tell Analytics “this is important”.

Go to Admin → Data display → Events.
Find your affiliate_click event in the table.
Toggle Mark as key event. (See more about setting up key events at Google Help)

Now GA4 will treat affiliate_click as a key event that can appear in the Key events tab, in acquisition and landing page reports, and in GA4’s attribution views.

Do the same for other high value actions, such as generate_lead for form submissions (a recommended GA4 lead gen event) and any important “get coupon” or “view deal” events you have created. (Find out about “recommended events” in this Google Help article)

Step 4: Use UTM tags to understand which campaigns push those key events

Events tell you what happened. UTMs tell you where that user came from.

When you promote your affiliate content in newsletters, social posts, or paid campaigns, always attach UTM parameters to your links, such as:

utm_source – platform or site (newsletter, Facebook, Reddit, etc.)
utm_medium – marketing channel (email, social, CPC, push)
utm_campaign – offer, merchant, or seasonal theme
utm_content – specific angle, creative, or variant

GA reads these tags and stores them as part of the session, so that in reports like User acquisition and Traffic acquisition you can see which sources and campaigns generated the most key events such as affiliate_click or generate_lead. GA has long supported UTM parameters for this purpose and GA4 continues that pattern.

If you are not consistent with UTMs, your acquisition reports will always feel a bit muddy. It is worth setting a short naming convention and sticking to it.

Step 5: Lean on the right GA4 reports for affiliate decisions

You do not need every report in GA4. For affiliate optimization, focus on these:

1. User acquisition and Traffic acquisition

Head to Reports → Acquisition and look at User acquisition and Traffic acquisition with your key event metric selected in the “Key events” drop down.

Questions to ask:

Which channels are driving the most affiliate_click key events per user?
Are you getting a lot of sessions from a source that rarely produces affiliate clicks?
How do organic search visitors compare with email subscribers or social followers in terms of click rate?

This guides where to invest your time: more content for channels that convert, or better CTAs on channels that do not.

2. Landing pages and pages & screens

Next, look at Engagement → Landing pages and Engagement → Pages and screens. Add your key event as a column and sort by key events per session.

Here you can:

Spot pages that get strong traffic but weak affiliate click rates, which are prime targets for improvement.
Identify “quiet achiever” pages with modest traffic but excellent click rates, which are worth promoting harder.

Because GA4 is event based and not limited to old style session goals, these engagement reports can combine metrics like engagement time, scroll depth, and key events on the same page.

3. Explore funnels and paths

GA4’s Explore section lets you create custom funnel and path reports.

For example, you could build a funnel like:

Session start on a specific landing page
Scroll event or time-on-page threshold
Click on comparison table
affiliate_click

This shows where users drop out, so you know whether to focus on content quality, layout, call to action placement, or technical performance.

Step 6: Use audiences and remarketing to support affiliate sales

Even if the final sale happens on the merchant’s site, you can use GA4 audiences to build remarketing lists for people who showed interest but did not click your links.

Some ideas:

Users who viewed high intent review pages but generated zero affiliate_click events.
Users who clicked affiliate_click for a particular merchant in the last 7 days, which can be useful for retargeting with complementary offers via Google Ads.

GA4 can share key events with Google Ads as conversions, and you can then bid on those conversions. (More on key events may be found here -> Google Help)

This is most powerful if your affiliate programs let you run paid search or display ads for brand or product terms. Even if they do not, audiences can still inform your email segmentation and on site personalization.

Step 7: Make friends with GA4’s attribution reports

GA4 has an Advertising section with pathing and attribution reports that show how different touchpoints contribute to key events.

For affiliates, this is particularly helpful when:

Users first discover you via an informational article, then later return direct and finally click an affiliate link from a comparison page.
Email newsletters and push notifications help close the click, but most traffic appears to start with organic search.

By comparing last click and data driven models, you can avoid undervaluing top of funnel content that rarely gets the final click but consistently appears earlier in converting journeys.

Remember that GA4 only sees what happens on your site. The actual purchase, commission, and AOV will still come from your affiliate network’s reports. Using both sets of data together will give you a much truer picture of performance.

Keep learning: a helpful GA4 video walkthrough

If you prefer to see someone click around the interface, a visual walkthrough can really help solidify this. A good recent option is the “Google Analytics 4 (GA4) Tutorial – Complete Setup Guide for 2025” on YouTube, which walks through setting up GA4, understanding the main reports, and configuring key events for websites.

You can watch it here:

Tip: Watch with your own GA4 property open in another tab. Pause regularly, apply each configuration step to your affiliate site, and then revisit the reports we discussed above with your specific key events selected.

If you treat GA4 as your affiliate laboratory rather than just a stats counter, it becomes a powerful tool. Define the events that matter, mark them as key events, tag your campaigns consistently, and spend regular time in acquisition and engagement reports. Over a few weeks you will start to see clear patterns about which content, channels, and tweaks are actually moving the needle on affiliate clicks and commissions.

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