Module 2: The Reports That Matter
GA4 has dozens of reports. You need three. This module teaches the exact clicks for your 15-Minute Review: where your traffic comes from, what people actually do, and whether any of it turns into leads.
The Traffic Acquisition report
Your weekly review starts here: Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition. This table shows sessions broken down by channel — organic search, direct, referral, organic social, paid search, email, and the rest. Each row also shows engaged sessions, engagement rate, and your key events, which is why Module 1's setup matters: without key events, this report is just a traffic beauty contest.
Read it in three passes. First, compare to last week (top-right date picker > Compare) and find the biggest mover — which channel gained or lost the most sessions? Second, look at key events per channel, not sessions per channel: a channel with 200 sessions and 10 leads beats a channel with 2,000 sessions and 2 leads, every single time. Third, click into any channel row to see the session source and medium underneath — organic search splitting into google and bing, for example.
The channel names to know: Organic Search (people who found you on Google), Direct (typed your URL, bookmark, or untracked link — always bigger than you expect), Referral (clicked from another site), Organic Social (untracked social clicks), and Unassigned (GA4 couldn't tell — usually untracked email or messaging links, which is why Module 4's UTMs matter). Sort by key events, not sessions — the channel ranking that matters is the one ordered by leads.
Build brief
Open Traffic acquisition right now. Which channel brought the most sessions last week — and which brought the most key events? Are they the same channel?
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Engagement: what people actually do
Next stop: Reports > Engagement > Pages and screens. This is where you learn what your content actually does. The columns that matter: Views (how many times the page loaded), Active users (how many people), and Average engagement time per active user (how long they actually spent with the page open and active — not the old inflated time-on-page). Sort by views, then read the engagement time column like a report card.
A page with 5,000 views and 12 seconds of average engagement time is a drive-by: the title or ranking promised something the page didn't deliver. A page with 300 views and 4 minutes of engagement is a keeper — people who find it, read it. Your job in the weekly review is to know your top 5 pages by views and their engagement times, because the drive-bys are your rewrite list and the keepers are your promotion list.
One level up, the Engagement overview shows your site-wide engagement rate: engaged sessions divided by total sessions. An engaged session is one that lasts over 10 seconds, fires a key event, or views 2+ pages. Healthy small-business sites typically sit between 50 and 70 percent. Below 40 percent, something structural is wrong — slow pages, wrong traffic, or a homepage that confuses.
Build brief
Open Pages and screens. What are your top 5 pages by views — and what is the average engagement time on each? Flag any drive-bys (high views, under 30 seconds).
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The conversion check
The last five minutes of the review answer the only question that really matters: did any of this turn into business? The fastest check is the key events count versus last week — same Traffic acquisition report, key events column, compare dates. Up, down, or flat. If it's up, which channel drove the increase? If it's down, same question. The channel column tells you where to look next, not just what happened.
For the rate, not just the count: divide key events by sessions for your main channels. A channel converting at 4 percent with 500 sessions produced 20 leads; a channel converting at 0.5 percent with 5,000 sessions produced 25 leads but wasted 4,975 visits. The rate tells you where your next marketing dollar goes — feed the high converters, fix or starve the low ones. This is the math the lead value calculator below makes tangible: plug in your visitors, your conversion rate, and your average customer value, and you see exactly what a one-point conversion lift is worth in dollars.
Write the conversion line in your review every week, in this format: leads this week vs last week, best channel by conversion rate, and one action. Example: 18 leads vs 14 last week, organic search converting at 3.1 percent, action: add internal links from the two new posts to the pricing page. A weekly review with no conversion line is a traffic report — and traffic reports don't pay anyone.
Funnel math
How 5,000 sessions become 5 customers
Teaching example using the lesson's session and conversion-rate numbers — your numbers will differ. The lesson is the shape.
Build brief
What is your key event count this week vs last week? Which channel has the best conversion rate — and what is one action you'll take on that information?
Saved
Priya's weekly review: organic search sessions are up 60%, but key events are flat. Her boss wants to double down on what's working. What should Priya actually do?
Lead value calculator
What is a lead actually worth to you? Play with the numbers.
Estimated leads per month: 0
Estimated revenue per month: 0
Your turn: Run your first 15-Minute Review right now: (1) biggest channel mover vs last week, (2) top 5 pages with engagement times, (3) key events vs last week, (4) your one-sentence decision.
Saved.
Your next 24 hours
Run the full 15-Minute Review once, end to end: Traffic acquisition vs last week, Pages and screens top 5, key events count. Write your one-sentence decision in the worksheet above.
Steal this template
THE 15-MINUTE REVIEW SCRIPT
Minute 0–5 — Traffic: Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition. Compare to last week. Biggest mover? Key events per channel — which channel actually produced leads?
Minute 5–10 — Content: Reports > Engagement > Pages and screens. Top 5 by views. Engagement time on each — drive-bys vs keepers.
Minute 10–15 — Conversions: Key events count vs last week. Up, down, or flat — and which channel drove the change?
Write it down: One sentence — what changed, and what you will do about it this week.
Cheat sheet
- The weekly review is three reports: Traffic acquisition, Pages and screens, key events.
- Sort channels by key events, not sessions — leads per channel is the ranking that matters.
- Pages and screens: views tell you what gets found, engagement time tells you what gets read.
- Drive-by = high views, under 30 seconds. Keeper = low views, minutes of engagement.
- Site-wide engagement rate: 50–70% is healthy for small business. Trend yours, don't benchmark strangers.
- End every review with one written decision. No decision, no review.