# GA4 is Lying to You: Why Your Default Setup is Junk
Let’s be honest: Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the most hated tool in the modern marketer’s arsenal.
I’ve sat in boardrooms from Eagle Street to the Gold Coast, and the sentiment is always the same: "I liked Universal Analytics better. I can’t find anything in GA4. The data looks wrong."
And you know what? You’re right. Out of the box, GA4 is a mess. If you’ve just flicked the switch and left it on the default settings, you aren't looking at a reflection of your business—you’re looking at a funhouse mirror. You’re making decisions based on "ghost data" that doesn't account for the actual path a Queenslander takes when deciding whether to hire your plumbing firm or buy your SaaS product.
In this guide, I’m going to stop the bleeding. We aren't going to talk about "how to install a tag." If you can't do that, hire a junior. We are going to talk about the strategic war between two ways of using GA4: the "Default Delusion" and the "Custom Conversion" approach.
If you want to stop burning cash on ads that don't work, you need to understand why your current data is likely junk.
The Great GA4 Divide: Default vs. Strategic
Most agencies in Australia will charge you $2,000 for a "GA4 Migration" that consists of clicking 'Next' on a setup assistant. It’s a scam.
Here is the reality of how people are actually using the platform today:
1. The "Set and Forget" Victim
This is where 80% of Brisbane SMEs live. They have the tracking code on the site. They see "Users" and "Sessions." They think they are tracking conversions because "Enhanced Measurement" is turned on.The Flaw: Enhanced Measurement is lazy. It tracks "form_start" but not whether the form actually submitted. It tracks a "video_start" but doesn't tell you if the person watched enough to actually care about your brand. It’s a vanity metric factory. If you’re using this to measure ROI, you’re probably overestimating your marketing success by 40%.
2. The Dashboard Obsessive
This group spends thousands on Looker Studio reports that look like the cockpit of a 747. They have 50 different charts, but when you ask them, "Which of these metrics helped us decide to cut the Facebook budget last week?" they stare at you blankly.I’ve seen this backfire more times than I can count. A client in Fortitude Valley once showed me a 20-page monthly report. It was beautiful. It was also useless because it didn't filter out internal traffic from their own office. They were literally optimising their ads based on their own staff visiting the site. You need to stop building dashboards that serve no purpose other than looking busy.
3. The Strategic Architect (The Goal)
This is the 1% of businesses that actually win. They don't care about "Page Views." They care about "Intent Signals." They’ve heavily customised GA4 to ignore the noise and highlight the three or four actions that actually lead to revenue. This is where we’re going today.Why Your Current Data is Lying to You
Before we fix it, you need to understand why it's broken. GA4 is built on an "Event-based" model. In the old days (UA), everything was a "Hit." Now, everything is an "Event."
But here’s the kicker: GA4 is cynical. It uses machine learning to fill in the gaps where privacy laws (like the GDPR or the increasing restrictions in Australia’s Privacy Act updates) prevent direct tracking. If you haven't configured your "Data Streams" and "Identity Spaces" correctly, Google is basically guessing.
The Problem with "Thresholding"
Have you ever seen a little orange triangle in your GA4 reports? That’s Google telling you it has hidden data from you to "protect user privacy."This drives me nuts. You’re looking at your data, but you’re only seeing a fraction of it because your Google Signals settings are poorly configured for your traffic volume. For a small business in a niche like "Commercial Refrigeration Brisbane," your traffic might be low enough that thresholding wipes out your most important conversion data. You’re flying blind because you’re trying to be too "compliant" with settings that don't even apply to your scale.
The 5-Step GA4 Audit That Actually Matters
Forget the "Setup Assistant." Do these five things if you want data you can actually trust.
1. Kill the "Unassigned" Traffic
Go to your Traffic Acquisition report. Do you see a big chunk of traffic labelled "Unassigned"? That is a failure of your marketing. It means GA4 has no idea where that person came from. Often, this is because your UTM parameters are messy or you’re using non-standard channel groupings.Pro tip: If you’re running local ads on a community site in West End and you aren't using strict UTM tagging, GA4 will just dump that traffic into "Direct" or "Unassigned." You’re paying for clicks and then telling yourself they didn't happen.
2. Fix the Data Retention (The Default is a Joke)
By default, GA4 sets event data retention to 2 months.Read that again.
If you want to compare this year’s EOFY performance to last year’s, you can’t—at least not in the Exploration reports—unless you manually change this setting to 14 months. Why Google defaults to 2 months is beyond me; it’s a trap for the unwary. Go to Admin > Data Collection and Modification > Data Retention and fix it now. We learned this the hard way back in 2019 when the beta first rolled out, and we lost a quarter of a client's historical data. Don't be like 2019 us.
3. Define "Real" Conversions
In GA4, every "Conversion" is now called a "Key Event." But just because you can toggle a switch to make something a Key Event doesn't mean you should.If you mark "page_view" as a conversion, your ROAS in Google Ads will look like 5000%, and you’ll be patting yourself on the back while your bank account stays empty. A conversion should be a high-intent action: - A completed lead form (thank-you page load, not just a button click). - A phone number click (for mobile users). - A download of a high-value asset (like a price list).
4. Exclude Internal Traffic (The Right Way)
Most people try to do this by IP address. But in 2026, with remote work and dynamic IPs from NBN providers, that’s a losing battle.Instead, use a developer cookie or a specific URL parameter for your staff. If your marketing manager in Indooroopilly is checking the site ten times a day to see if the new blog is live, she’s skewing your conversion rate. It sounds small, but for an SME, 300 internal hits a month can make a 2% conversion rate look like 1%.
5. Custom Dimensions: The Secret Sauce
GA4 doesn't know what a "Product Category" or a "Lead Type" is unless you tell it. By using Custom Dimensions, you can track things that actually matter to a business owner.Example: A Brisbane law firm shouldn't just track "Form Submissions." They should use a custom dimension to track "Area of Law" based on the page the form was on. That way, they can see that while Family Law gets the most leads, Personal Injury leads have a 3x higher value. That is predictive data you can actually use to outbid your competitors.
The "Big Agency" Lie: Attribution Models
Here is what the conferences won’t tell you: No attribution model is perfect.
Google will try to sell you on "Data-Driven Attribution" (DDA). They claim it uses "sophisticated AI" to give credit to the right touchpoints. In reality, DDA is a black box that conveniently tends to give a lot of credit to Google Ads.
I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy, but I am saying you should be skeptical.
Compare your DDA reports against "Last Click." If there’s a massive discrepancy, you need to ask why. Often, DDA overvalues top-of-funnel "awareness" ads that didn't actually drive the sale. For a Brisbane business with a limited budget, you can't afford to spend $500 on "awareness" that doesn't eventually convert. You need to understand the cross-channel truth of how your customers actually move from a Google search to a Facebook remarketing ad to a direct visit.
Moving from Hindsight to Foresight
Most business owners use GA4 like a rearview mirror. They look at what happened last month.
"Oh, we had 5,000 visitors in January. Neat."
That is dead data. It’s gone. You can’t change it.
Mastering GA4 means using it to predict the future. By setting up "Predictive Audiences" (which GA4 allows once you hit a certain data threshold), you can identify users who are "likely to purchase in the next 7 days."
Imagine taking that list and pushing it back into Google Ads as a high-priority remarketing list. That’s how you win in a competitive market like South East Queensland. You aren't just shouting at everyone; you’re whispering to the people who are already reaching for their wallets.
Why Your Funnel is a Fantasy
We love to look at the "Path exploration" in GA4. We want to see a nice, clean line: Home Page > Services > Contact > Thank You.
It never happens.
People are chaotic. They visit your site on their phone while waiting for a train at Roma Street, then they look you up on their laptop at home, then they click an ad three days later. GA4 tries to stitch this together with "User ID" and "Google Signals," but it’s still messy.
Stop trying to force your customers into a linear funnel. Instead, use GA4 to find the "Friction Points." Where are people dropping off? If 80% of your mobile users leave on the "Contact Us" page, your form is probably too long or your CAPTCHA is broken. That’s an actionable insight. "Average Session Duration" is not.
Conclusion: Stop Playing with the Settings and Start Making Money
GA4 isn't a reporting tool; it’s a business intelligence engine. If you treat it like a chore, it will give you chores. If you treat it like a weapon, it will help you take market share from your competitors who are still trying to figure out where the "Bounce Rate" went. (Side note: it’s still there, it’s just hidden because Google wants you to focus on "Engagement Rate" instead—another classic move to make things look better than they are).
Here is your immediate action plan: 1. Check your Data Retention settings (change to 14 months). 2. Look for "Unassigned" traffic and fix your UTMs. 3. Delete any "Key Events" that aren't actually making you money. 4. Set up one Custom Dimension that is specific to your business goals.
Look, I get it. This stuff is frustrating. It’s dense, it’s technical, and it changes every second Tuesday. But in a market like Brisbane, where every dollar of ad spend needs to work twice as hard as it did three years ago, you cannot afford to guess.
If you’re tired of looking at reports that don't make sense, or if you suspect your current agency is just coasting on default settings, let’s have a real conversation. We don't do "standard" setups. We build data engines that actually drive growth.
Ready to see what’s actually happening on your site? Contact Local Marketing Group today and let’s fix your tracking.