A GA4 property that collects everything and answers nothing is the most common analytics setup we see. John Williams builds GA4 around the decisions your team makes, with consent handled correctly and raw data in BigQuery so you aren't limited by the interface.
purchase,
generate_lead, sign_up).
We run the free Marketing Analytics Auditor, which checks tag management, ad pixels, the data layer, consent mode v2, and GA4 enhanced measurement, and can audit the GA4 property through the Admin API and the GTM container through the GTM API. Then a manual walkthrough of the property settings.
GA4 lets a standard property mark up to 30 events as key events (50 for Analytics 360), and some are marked
automatically. purchase is always a key event, and linking Google Ads with ads personalization
enabled marks several more, such as add_to_cart and begin_checkout (Mark events as key events). We decide which ones the business actually reports on, rather than leaving whatever the defaults
produce.
Standard properties can keep user-level data for 2 or 14 months, and key event data follows the same setting. Longer options (26, 38, 50 months) are 360-only (Data retention). Retention limits affect explorations and funnel reports, not standard aggregated reports. That's one more reason to export raw data to BigQuery.
Google's consent mode defines ad_storage, ad_user_data,
ad_personalization, and analytics_storage, among others. In basic mode
tags don't load until the visitor interacts with the banner. In advanced mode tags load with denied
defaults and send cookieless pings, which Google says enables an advertiser-specific conversion model
instead of a general one (Consent mode overview). Which mode you choose is a legal decision. We implement whichever one you pick, correctly.
Conversions created from GA4 key events are Secondary by default and can only be set to Primary inside Google Ads (primary and secondary actions). John's position, from his conversion tracking article: for performance campaigns, use the Google tag as the primary bidding source and treat GA4 imports as a cross-check, because imports bring modeling and attribution differences.
GA4 exports raw events to BigQuery daily, with an optional streaming export. Standard properties have a daily export limit of 1 million events. Streaming has no volume cap but costs $0.05 per GB, and once data is exported it can't be re-exported (BigQuery Export). The export isn't retroactive, so every month you wait is a month of raw data you'll never have.
Every event is tested in preview and DebugView, consent states are checked in Tag Assistant (the
gcs and gcd parameters show what Google actually received), and the container is
published with a written change note.
generate_lead, book_demo,
start_trial. Never Form Submit - Contact Page (new).
generate_lead event with a
form_name parameter beats twelve form-specific events. Register only the parameters you'll report
on as custom dimensions.
The export is raw events, so it needs modeling before it's useful. A typical starter set:
collected_traffic_source to Google Ads
campaign data for rows where GA4 shows "(not set)". Google documents this backfill approach and notes that
wBRAID and gBRAID aren't in the export (BigQuery Export).
A GA4 build is quoted as a one-time flat fee once we've seen the property, the container, and what your developers can implement. A single site with an existing GTM container costs less than several domains, an app stream, and a BigQuery model, so we scope it rather than publish one number. The written quote lists every deliverable above. Per the pricing page, nothing at Ahmeego is billed as a percentage of ad spend and there are no long contracts. To see where your property stands first, run the free Marketing Analytics Auditor.
A GA4 implementation spans tagging, analytics, warehousing, and reporting. These are the official products we work in.
Google Analytics
Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Assistant
BigQuery
Looker Studio
Google Ads
Google Search Console
Supermetrics
Logos via the Simple Icons project. Trademarks belong to their owners; no endorsement implied.
Free tools and John's published reasoning on GA4 and conversion measurement.
Tell John what platform your site runs on, whether GTM is installed, and what you want GA4 to answer. You'll get a written scope.
The primary sources, standards, research, and tools we rely on for this work. Every link was checked on 2026-10-11. We aren't affiliated with these publishers unless noted.
The Marketing Analytics Auditor checks tags, pixels, the data layer, and consent mode across 13 categories. No sign-up.
Launch the auditor Talk to John