How to Use GA4 to Track Content Performance

GA4 Content Metrics You Actually Need to Track

When it comes to measuring content performance of a website, you don’t need a dozen metrics. You just need the right ones.

These are the core GA4 metrics I rely on to assess how well a piece of content is performing.

1. Views (Formerly Pageviews)

GA4 still tracks views, and they work similarly to how pageviews did in Universal Analytics.

Every time a page loads — including reloads — it’s counted as a view. High view counts usually signal strong search rankings, good internal linking, or content that's being shared.

But views alone don’t tell you if people are actually reading your content. That’s where the next few metrics come in.

2. Engaged Sessions and Engagement Rate

This is one of the biggest shifts in GA4. An “engaged session” happens when a visitor:

• Stays on the site for more than 10 seconds
• Views at least two pages
• Or triggers a conversion event

The engagement rate is simply the percentage of all sessions that were engaged.

So if you had 1,000 total sessions and 600 were engaged, your engagement rate is 60 percent.

GA4 also reintroduces bounce rate, but it’s now calculated as the inverse of engagement rate. A bounce in GA4 just means the user didn’t meet the criteria above.

I rarely focus on bounce rate anymore — engagement rate gives you a much better signal.

3. Average Engagement Time per Page

This replaces the old “average time on page” metric.

The difference is crucial. GA4 only counts active time when the user is actually looking at the page. If they switch tabs or go idle, the clock stops.

That makes average engagement time a much more honest look at how long people are truly reading your content.

If someone reads a 2,000-word blog post and you see 3 to 4 minutes of engagement time, that’s a strong indicator they stayed and consumed the piece.

4. Scroll Events (Default 90 Percent Scroll)

GA4 automatically tracks a “scroll” event when someone reaches 90 percent of the page height. This is your proxy for content completion.

If a page has 2,000 views and 800 scroll events, that means 40 percent of readers reached near the bottom.

That’s a good sign they were engaged. If that number is low, you may need to revisit the intro, layout, or readability.

You can configure deeper scroll tracking (25 percent, 50 percent, etc.), but for most content, the 90 percent metric is enough to spot which pages hold attention.

5. Key Events (Conversions for Content Goals)

GA4 now uses the term “Key Events” instead of “Conversions” for general-purpose goals. This keeps actual ad conversions separate from other events you want to track.

For content, your key events might include:

• Clicking a CTA at the bottom of an article
• Signing up for a newsletter from a blog post
• Visiting the contact page after reading a service page

If you’re not tracking key events, you’re missing the most important tie between your content and business outcomes.

6. Returning Visitors and Retention

Retention isn’t a single number, but it’s still worth watching. GA4 shows how many users come back over time, including day 7 and day 30 cohorts.

Content sites with healthy retention typically see a solid base of returning visitors.

It means people are finding value and coming back for more. You can view retention under the “User” section in GA4’s standard reports.

Initial GA4 Setup for Content Tracking

Before you start analyzing content performance, you need to make sure GA4 is actually collecting the right data.

The good news is, most of the setup is quick and doesn’t require any code — especially if you’re using Enhanced Measurement.

Step 1: Verify GA4 is Installed and Tracking

Go to your GA4 property and navigate to:

Admin > Data Streams > [Your Web Stream]

Make sure your site is receiving data. If not, you may need to double-check the installation of your GA4 tag or configuration in Google Tag Manager.

Step 2: Enable Enhanced Measurement

Still within the Web Stream settings, scroll down to Enhanced Measurement and confirm it’s turned on.

Enhanced Measurement automatically tracks:

• Page views
• Scrolls
• Outbound clicks
• Site search (if query parameters exist)
• Video engagement (for embedded YouTube videos)
• File downloads

This saves you from needing to configure individual events manually for most standard interactions.

Step 3: Confirm Scroll Tracking is Enabled

Scroll tracking is one of the most important default features for content teams. It fires a scroll event when a user reaches 90 percent of the page height.

Still in your Data Stream settings, look under the Enhanced Measurement toggles and confirm Scrolls is turned on. If it’s off, switch it on and save.

You’ll now start collecting scroll data automatically — no custom setup required.

Step 4: Use DebugView to Verify Events

To make sure everything’s working, open your site in a new browser tab and navigate to:

GA4 > Admin > DebugView

You should see real-time events including page_view and scroll. This is your proof that GA4 is capturing those interactions as expected.

If you don’t see scroll events, Enhanced Measurement might be blocked by your cookie banner, or your theme might be interfering with how scroll depth is detected.

This basic setup ensures GA4 starts tracking meaningful engagement without needing any extra tools.

Once Enhanced Measurement is in place and working, you can move into the actual reports to start analyzing your content.

Navigate the Right GA4 Reports

Once your tracking is in place, the next step is knowing where to look in GA4.

The platform offers plenty of reports, but for content performance, only a few really matter. These are the reports I use most when evaluating how content is doing.

Pages and Screens Report

This is your go-to for page-level content performance. To find it:

Reports > Engagement > Pages and screens

By default, you’ll see page titles and screen classes with key metrics:

• Views
• Users and New Users
• Average Engagement Time
• Event Count
• Key Events (conversions)

If you prefer URLs instead of page titles, change the primary dimension to Page path and screen class in the dropdown menu above the table.

What to look for:

• Which pages have the highest views
• Which pages have strong average engagement time
• Which pages generate key events (like newsletter sign-ups)

This is the fastest way to see what’s working and what needs a closer look.

Landing Pages Report

To evaluate how people enter your site via content, use the Landing Pages report:

Reports > Engagement > Landing page

This shows the first page users see in a session. It’s especially useful for identifying which blog posts or articles bring in organic or social traffic.

Key metrics include:

• Sessions
• New Users
• Average Engagement Time per Session
• Conversions

You might discover that an old blog post is still driving tons of first-time visits. Or you might find a landing page with low engagement that needs a refresh.

Events Report

Want to confirm that your scroll tracking or other events are working?

Go to:

Reports > Engagement > Events

Here, you’ll see a list of all events GA4 is tracking. Look for scroll in the list. You can click into it and add “Page path” as a dimension to see which articles are actually getting scrolls.

This is also where you can review other automatic or custom events tied to your content.

Engagement Overview

For a quick snapshot of your site’s content engagement, check the Engagement Overview.

Reports > Engagement > Overview

This gives you:

• Average engagement time across the site
• Engagement rate
• Top events
• Top pages by engagement

It’s not meant for deep analysis, but it’s helpful for spotting trends at a glance.

Filtering for Blog or Content Sections

If your site has a mix of content and non-content pages (like product or landing pages), you need to filter.

Let’s say your blog lives under /blog/. In the Pages and Screens report, click Add filter, then set:

Page path contains /blog/

Now you’re only looking at blog content. This keeps the data clean and focused on what matters for your analysis.

You can save this filtered view as a custom report if you want quick access later.

These four reports — Pages and Screens, Landing Pages, Events, and Engagement Overview — will cover 90 percent of what you need for day-to-day content analysis.

Use filters and dimensions to zero in on specific areas and always combine traffic metrics with engagement signals to get the full picture.

Categorize Content with Content Grouping

Looking at individual pages one by one is fine when you're auditing a few URLs.

But if you’re working with dozens or hundreds of articles, you need a smarter way to analyze performance across entire categories.

That’s where content grouping comes in.

GA4 only supports one content grouping per property at a time, so it’s important to choose a grouping strategy that reflects how you want to slice your content.

Why Content Grouping Matters

Content groups let you track performance at a category level. Instead of seeing isolated numbers for 50 URLs, you can see totals and averages for buckets like:

• Blog categories (e.g. SEO, Social Media, Content Strategy)
• Article types (e.g. How-To, Opinion, Reviews)
• Author or team (if you attribute content to individual creators)

This makes it easier to answer strategic questions like “Which content themes drive the most conversions?” or “Which article format keeps readers on the page longer?”

How to Set Up Content Grouping in GA4

There’s no UI in GA4 to define groupings based on URL rules like there was in Universal Analytics. You have to pass a custom parameter with each pageview.

Here’s the fastest way to do that using Google Tag Manager (GTM):

Step 1: Create a Regex Table Variable‍

In GTM, create a new User-Defined Variable and choose Regex Table as the type. Use the page path as the input variable.

Map patterns to group names. Example:

• /blog/seo/ → SEO
• /blog/social/ → Social Media
• /blog/content-strategy/ → Content Strategy

Step 2: Add the Variable to Your GA4 Configuration Tag‍

In the GA4 config tag, add a custom field:

• Field Name: content_group
• Value: The name of the variable you just created

Publish your container once everything is set.

Step 3: Verify Data in GA4‍

After publishing, give it some time for data to show up. Content group data is not retroactive.

Go to:

Reports > Engagement > Pages and screens

Then click the dropdown where it says “Page title and screen class” and choose Content group. You’ll now see a breakdown of engagement metrics by content category.

What You Can Do With Grouped Data

Once you have content groups flowing into GA4, you can:

• Compare engagement time by category
• Identify which group drives the most key events
• Spot weak content clusters that may need pruning or optimization

For example, you might find that your SEO articles have the highest traffic but the lowest conversion rate. That insight could lead you to test stronger CTAs in those posts.

Or maybe your tutorials have lower pageviews but off-the-charts engagement. That’s content worth expanding and promoting more heavily.

If you want to track additional attributes like author or article type, you’ll need to pass separate custom dimensions.

But for broad, category-level insights, content grouping gives you a powerful lens into how your themes perform.

Build Custom Explorations to Uncover What’s Working

The standard GA4 reports are solid, but if you really want to dig into how your content is performing, you need to use Explorations. This is where GA4 gets powerful.

With Explorations, you can build custom reports to find patterns, test ideas, and isolate what’s helping or hurting your content strategy.

You don’t need to be a data analyst — just know what questions you want to answer.

Free-Form Exploration: Find High Exit or Low Engagement Pages

Start with a Free-form exploration. Go to:

Explore > Blank > Free-form

Add the following dimensions and metrics:

• Dimensions: Page path and screen class, Content group (if set up)
• Metrics: Views, Average engagement time, Key events, Exits

Drag your dimensions into rows and metrics into values. Then sort the table by Exits or by Average engagement time.

What you’re looking for:

• Pages with lots of views but low engagement
• Pages with high exit counts (especially if exits are more than 50 percent of views)

If you spot a blog post with 4,000 views but only 30 seconds of average engagement, you may have a content issue. Maybe the intro needs tightening, or maybe it’s ranking for the wrong intent.

Exit Rate Formula (Manual but Useful)

To calculate exit rate, divide Exits by Views. This gives you a quick way to identify which content is where people stop their session.

If a single article has a 65 percent exit rate, it might be a natural endpoint. But if that page is early in your funnel or meant to lead to something else, it’s probably a missed opportunity.

Try adding stronger internal links or clearer next steps.

Path Exploration: Understand Content Journeys

Next, try a Path exploration to see how people navigate your site after viewing certain content.

In GA4:

Explore > Path exploration

You can set the starting point as a specific blog page and see what users viewed next. Or reverse it — start with a goal page and trace what content brought users there.

This tells you things like:

• Which articles lead to high-value pages
• Which posts are dead ends
• Whether readers continue to browse related content

This is especially helpful when evaluating how blog content feeds into conversion paths.

Segment Visitors by Behavior

Explorations let you apply segments to compare user groups.

Some practical segments to create:

• Scrolled vs Did not scroll
• New users vs Returning users
• Organic traffic vs Social traffic

You can then compare engagement time, conversion rate, or exits across those segments.

For example, you might find that users who scrolled to the bottom of a post were twice as likely to convert. That’s clear evidence that keeping readers engaged pays off.

Use Content Grouping as a Breakdown

If you’ve set up content groups, you can add Content group as a row dimension. This allows you to compare:

• Which categories generate the most key events
• Which groups drive longer reading time
• Where your weakest content themes are hiding

This is how you move beyond guessing and actually start prioritizing based on real performance data.

Explorations take a little more time to build, but they give you the insight you can’t get from canned reports.

Think of them as your content performance lab — a place to test assumptions and find real opportunities for improvement.

Monitor and Share Results Internally

Once you’re tracking the right content metrics in GA4, the next step is to make sure that information gets in front of the right people.

Whether you’re sharing results with a team, a client, or just reviewing your own progress, GA4 gives you a few ways to surface key insights quickly.

Add Content Summary Cards to GA4 Snapshots

You can customize the Reports snapshot or Home snapshot in GA4 with summary cards that highlight your top content metrics. This makes it easy to get a quick view of how things are performing without having to dig into full reports.

Here’s what I recommend adding:

• Top pages by average engagement time
• Most viewed content this week
• Key events by page (if you’re tracking newsletter sign-ups or other conversions)

To customize these snapshots, click the pencil icon in the top right of the report page. Then drag and drop the cards you want, or create new ones using the available dimensions and metrics.

Build a Custom Report Collection

You can also create a set of focused reports just for content. This keeps all your key views in one place and avoids having to apply filters every time.

Here’s how:

1. Go to Library at the bottom of the left sidebar
2. Click Create new collection
3. Add filtered or customized versions of:
   • Pages and Screens
   • Landing Pages
   • Events (scroll tracking)
4. Publish the collection so it shows up in your Reports sidebar

You might call this collection “Content Performance” or “Blog Metrics” so it’s clear what it covers.

Schedule Email Exports

If you want to share content performance regularly, GA4 allows you to export any report to PDF or send it via email.

To do this:

1. Open the report you want
2. Click the Share icon in the top right
3. Choose Download PDF or Schedule email

You can automate weekly or monthly email reports for yourself or your team. This works well if your stakeholders don’t log into GA4 often but still want regular updates.

What to Include in a Shared Report

For content performance, I like to keep reports simple and focused. Here’s a useful setup:

• Total blog views this month
• Top 5 articles by engagement time
• Top converting pages (based on key events)
• Scroll event counts by page

If you use filters to isolate your blog section (like “Page path contains /blog/”), include that in the report settings so everyone sees the right data.

Whether you’re pulling data for internal meetings or client reporting, the goal is to make your insights actionable.

Show what’s working, flag what’s not, and highlight one or two takeaways that can lead to improvements. Keep the format simple and consistent so your team knows what to expect and where to look.

How We Track Content Performance at Trendline SEO

To make GA4 useful, you have to go beyond setup and reports. What really matters is how you use the data to make better content decisions.

These are real-world examples of how I’ve used GA4 to identify issues, improve performance, and guide content strategy.

1. Finding Low-Traffic, High-Engagement Content

I once had a blog post that barely made it into the top 30 most-viewed pages. But when I sorted the Pages and Screens report by average engagement time, that same post jumped into the top 3.

It was a long-form guide that kept readers on the page for over 4 minutes on average. That told me it had potential — it just wasn’t getting found.

I updated the internal links pointing to it, optimized the title tag, and added a few relevant keywords. Over the next two months, traffic doubled.

GA4 helped me spot hidden value that older analytics would have overlooked.

2. Identifying Pages with Strong Traffic but Poor Engagement

Another time, I found a few articles that were pulling in decent traffic from search, but had below-average engagement time and sky-high exits.

I used a free-form exploration to calculate exit rate (Exits divided by Views). One article had an exit rate above 70 percent and under 30 seconds of engagement time. The intro was vague, and the call to action was buried at the bottom.

I rewrote the opening paragraph to clearly explain what the post covered and moved a call-to-action link closer to the top. That small change reduced exits and boosted scrolls in just a couple of weeks.

3. Comparing Content Categories with Grouping

Once I had content groups set up in GA4, I could compare entire sections of my blog at once. For one client, we grouped content into “SEO,” “Content Strategy,” and “Social Media.”

The SEO group had the highest traffic by far, but a low conversion rate. The Content Strategy group had half the traffic, but converted at nearly double the rate.

That told us to focus on improving CTAs in the SEO posts, and possibly create more high-intent content like the ones in Content Strategy.

This kind of insight only comes when you step back and look at groups — not just individual pages.

4. Using Scroll Data to Fix Poor Layouts

I had a tutorial article that showed weak scroll depth and a surprisingly short engagement time. Compared to similar posts, it stood out as underperforming.

When I reviewed the layout, the problem was obvious. The page started with a giant banner image that pushed the intro down the fold. Readers had to scroll just to see the first sentence.

I moved the banner lower on the page and rewrote the intro to hook readers faster. After making the change, scrolls and engagement both improved. GA4 helped pinpoint where user experience was falling short.

5. Measuring Author Performance

For an editorial site with multiple contributors, we set up a custom dimension to track authors. In GA4 Explorations, we were able to compare articles by writer.

One author had significantly higher engagement time across multiple posts. Another had strong traffic, but users dropped off quickly. We used this data in internal reviews to share writing tips, highlight successful pieces, and guide future assignments.

Author-level tracking gave the team a clearer picture of what styles and topics resonated most.

Final Thoughts

GA4 isn’t just a replacement for Universal Analytics. It’s a fundamentally different way to measure content performance — one that focuses on actual engagement, not just pageviews.

When you track metrics like average engagement time, scroll depth, and key events, you get a much clearer picture of how your content is performing.

And when you layer on tools like content grouping and custom explorations, you start uncovering patterns that can guide real improvements.

The setup is straightforward. The analysis is flexible. The insights are actionable.

If you’re serious about creating content that performs, learning how to use GA4 properly is no longer optional. It’s essential.