GDS

I’m going to give you a spoiler right up front: there’s basically no difference between pages and screens in GA4, yet at the same time, they’re complete opposites. I’ll explain here before going into more detail.

Pages are based on views on websites – regardless of device.

Screens are based on views on mobile apps.

So they’re the same in that they’re based on a specific page/screen that was viewed. But they’re different in that they occur on websites OR apps, but not both.

What are ‘Pages’ in GA4?

“Pages” in GA4 refer to the individual pages on a website. Each time a user visits a page on your website, GA4 records this as a “view.” (In UA, these were called “page views.”)

What are ‘Screens’ in GA4?

“Screens” in GA4 relate to the individual screens viewed within a mobile app. Tracking screens is analogous to tracking web pages but tailored to the mobile app environment.

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By now you may realize, if you only have an app, you need not worry about “Pages,” because in GA4 parlance, you don’t have any.

Likewise, if you only have a website, you need not worry about “Screens.”

Only if you have a website AND an app hosting the same content on those distinct mediums will you have different data for these two dimensions.

Key Components of Page Tracking:

• Page Path: Derived from the URL after the domain name. This is also referred to as the slug. For example, in “https://gerickdigitalstrategy.com/gerick-newsletter/“, “/gerick-newsletter/” is the page path.
• Page Title: This is extracted from the <title> tag in HTML. Alternatively, it can be set using the page_title parameter in GA4’s configuration.
• Hostname: Identifies the domain and subdomain of a visited URL.

Key Components of Screen Tracking:

• Screen Class: Derived from the class name of the UIViewController or Activity in focus in the app.
• Screen Name: Set using Firebase and represents the name assigned to a screen within the app.

Pages and Screens Report in GA4

The Pages and screens report in GA4 combines data from both web pages and mobile app screens. This unified report allows for a comprehensive view of user interaction across platforms.

Reminder: If you only have a website, while the report says pages and screens, you’ll only be viewing data about pages from your website. If you only have an app, you’ll only be viewing data about screens from your app.

💡 Screens are Not Mobile Page Views: Don’t make the mistake of confusing mobile page views that occur on a website for screen views, which can ONLY happen on an app. Yes, both occur on mobile devices, but one is a view (if it’s a mobile website) and one is a screen (if it’s an app).

How to Access the Report:

Unless you have customized your dashboard, this is how you’ll find the Pages and screens report.

• Open the Google Analytics mobile app or web interface.
• Navigate to the “Engagement” section.
• Select the “Pages and screens” tab.

Utilizing the Report Effectively

Here are some ways you might use the report to analyze user behavior.

1. Identify High Traffic Areas: Understand which pages or screens are most visited.
2. User Journey Mapping: Use path exploration to map user journeys before or after specific interactions.
3. Engagement Insights: Analyze metrics like average engagement time, bounce rate and views per user to gauge content effectiveness.
4. Conversion Tracking: Monitor conversions (these were called “goals” in UA) to understand the impact of specific pages or screens on user actions.
5. Filter by Slug: I also like to use the table-filter function (see screenshot below) to filter the report by a specific page path, screen class or title.

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How are you using the Pages and screens report? What questions do you have about it?

Let me know in the comments or contact me.