GA4 onboarding not working for custom events

[Trent Ballard]

Hello

I was trying to onboard custom events in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to my chrome extension and I am having an issue getting the API secret. Note GA4 is working to give me basic analytics like sign-ups, regionality, uninstalls, etc.

I have looked at a variety of resources but I this has been the most helpful: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/how-to/integrate/google-analytics-4

I get stuck on this page: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/protocol/ga4/sending-events?client_type=gtag

This is exactly where I get stuck: "To create a new secret, navigate to Admin > Data Streams > choose your stream > Measurement Protocol > Create."


This above is what I see, I found no way to retrieve an API secret here

I looked into this further and after a few hours of fiddling around I think I have found the culprit: I only have "viewer" access to my GA4 account.

I have no idea why I only have viewer access, I am the only creator and user of the GA4 account. It is impossible for me to get an admin role my myself. I have asked google support and they have not been very helpful: they have not been able to change my role from viewer to admin, and have mentioned that I should have viewer access? (how could you have an account with no admin access and how am I supposed to get my api secret then? I seriously doubt this).

I am curious if others only have viewer access to there GA4 account? and if so have you been able to setup there own custom analytics?

How can this overall issue be fixed? how am I supposed to get my api secret?

Thanks!

[Bart Barden]

Google does not give the admin account access necessary to do what you want into any of your Extension GA4 accounts you link into.   It would be great for them to allow this as then we could also get Data Stream to GBQ access, which I have been dying for.

@Oliver Dunk --- Any update on if this will be available at some point soon?   I would have to say this is a top request from developers.

[Trent Ballard]

Thanks @Bart !

I can second that this is a top request ! The built in analytics are nice, but they are very high level, I want to see how a user is interacting with my extension on a much deeper level. Also integrations like GBQ could be huge down the line to actually make more sense of the data and drive decisions

@Oliver Dunk

In the meantime, what do people do to get around this? is there another analytics software that people use to gather user data?

Thanks!

Trent

[Bart Barden]

Trent -

We set up a second GA4 account across our extensions with development tagging into GBQ

We don’t get a great funnel but for user events it gives us a good insight and then piped into Looker for visualization. 

B

Sent from Mobile Device, making things Super!

Bart Barden

CEO

+353 896181859

On 16 Sep 2024, at 18:55, Trent Ballard <tr...@profyx.io> wrote:

Thanks @Bart !