How To: Configure Custom Dimensions reporting in GA4

How to Enable Custom Dimensions for Terminus Firmographic Data in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) Integration using Google Tag Manager

In order to utilize this feature, you must have Web Experiences as part of your Terminus plan. 

If you have any questions regarding your current subscription plan, please reach out to your Client Strategy Manager.

Overview

Users of Terminus Web Experiences have the ability to send custom dimension reporting into Google Analytics. This allows Terminus firmographic data to report into GA4 for use alongside your other data points. 

In order to send custom dimension data into GA4, you must first ensure your Web Experiences GA4 integration has been properly configured. 

For instructions on setting that up, please review How to: Configure the GA4 Integration using GTM

If everything has been configured correctly for the GA4 integration, you can set up the custom dimensions reporting as outlined below. 

Identify the Fields for Custom Dimensions Reporting

To begin, it’s important to know what fields are available to send data to GA4. The following is a list of all Terminus firmographic fields that you can use for custom dimension reporting

• Display Ad Tactic
• Company Name
• Domain
• Is Mobile
• Country Code
• Industry
• NAICS Code
• SIC Code
• Employee Range
• Revenue Range

Each one of these fields will provide a relevant value (if known) and that combination of Field Name and Value will be sent to Google Analytics for each website visitor. 

If you want, you can send all 10 fields to GA4 as individual dimensions. You can also pick and choose if there are only a couple of fields of interest. Most commonly, customers will choose to send data for:

• Display Ad Tactic
• Company name
• Domain
• Industry

Once you have determined which fields you’d like to display in GA4, you can begin the process of configuring your instance.

Configure GTM to Receive Dimension Data

Note: This guide will walk through the process of configuring one field for custom dimension reporting. We will use “Company Name” as our field. You will need to follow this process for each dimension that you’d like to send.

Create New Variables

To begin, login to Google Tag Manager and navigate to the Variables section. 

Select “New” from the top right of the “User-Defined Variables” section.

• Name your variable “Terminus Visitor Data - Company Name”
• For the “Variable Type” select “Data Layer Variable”
• For the “Data Layer Variable Name” enter the value “name”
  • Note: This value will vary based on which field you are creating the variable for. Use the following case sensitive values when completing this section:
    • Display Ad Tactic: displayAdTactic
    • Company Name: name
    • Domain: domain
    • Is Mobile: isMobile
    • Country Code: countryCode
    • Industry: industry
    • NAICS Code: naicsCode
    • SIC Code: sicCode
    • Employee Range: employeeRange
    • Revenue Range: revenueRange
• Make sure that the “Data Layer Version”  is “Version 2”
• Save your new variable
• Your completed variable should look like this:

Complete this process for each data field you’d like to send.

Create a New Trigger

Next, you will need to create a trigger for the visitor data

Begin by navigating to the Triggers section of GTM. 

Select “New” from the top right to create a new Trigger.

• Name your trigger, “Terminus Event - Visitor Data”
• In the Trigger Configuration canvas, choose “Custom Event” as your trigger type
• For the event name, enter “webex_visitor_data”
  • Note: If, when you set up your original Web Experiences GA4 connection within the Terminus Web Experiences dashboard, you used something other than the standard event and property prefix (shown below), you will use that here with your custom prefix followed by “visitor_data”

• Set your trigger to fire on “All Custom Events”. When finished, your trigger should look like this:

• Save your trigger.

Create a New Tag

After your variables and triggers are in place, you’ll need to create a new tag for the visitor data. 

Navigate to the Tags section of GTM and select “New” to create a new tag

• Name your tag “Terminus Visitor Data - Send to GA4”
• In the Tag Configuration, select “Google Analytics: GA4 Event” as the Tag Type
• From the Configuration Tag dropdown, select “GA4 Configuration” as shown below

• For “Event Name” click on the lego icon to the right of the field and select “Event”
• Next, you will need to configure user properties for each of the fields for which you’d like to send data. Click on “User Properties” to expand that section of the Tag configuration and then add one row for each field for which you will be sending data. 
• Once your rows are added, fill them out as follows:
  • The Property Name field will be filled out with “webex_” followed by the name for the field. In the case of Company Name, it will be “webex_name” and will look like this

• Note: If you used a custom prefix in the Web Experiences GA4 connection instead of the default “webex_” you will need to use that prefix here
• The Property Names for each of the potential fields are:
  • Display Ad Tactic: webex_ad_tactic
  • Company Name: webex_company
  • Domain: webex_domain
  • Is Mobile: webex_is_mobile
  • Country Code: webex_country_code
  • Industry: webex_industry
  • NAICS Code: webex_naics_code
  • SIC Code: webex_sic_code
  • Employee Range: webex_employee_range
  • Revenue Range: webex_revenue_range
• To complete the “Value” field, click on the lego icon and then find the corresponding Variable for each field that you have already created.

• Once the Tag Configuration is complete, move down to the “Triggering” section
• Click on “Firing Triggers” and then select the previously created “Terminus Event - Visitor Data” trigger from the list. 
• Once complete, your tag should look like this:

• Save your tag

Publish Your Updates

Once your variables, trigger, and tag have been created and saved, publish your updates. 

GA4 Set-Up

After you have saved and published your GTM updates, there is one final configuration step that will need to take place in GA4. 

To begin, login to GA4 and navigate to the Admin and then select Custom Definitions from the center column. 

Select Create custom dimensions. You will need to create a custom dimension for each of the fields that you selected for Google Tag Manager. You can follow the completion instructions below:

1. Dimension Name: This is the name that will appear in the GA4 interface. It is best to keep this simple and use something that you’d like to see in the dashboard. 
2. Scope: All custom dimensions are tied to the users so these will be “User” scope
3. Description: You can give your dimensions any quick description to remind you what the data is showing
4. User property: Here you will need to enter (or select from the dropdown) the User Property name that was entered in GTM. This needs to exactly match the value from GTM. Normally, these values will auto populate in the dropdown; however, it can take up to 24 hours before they become available so if you just created the values in GTM, you can go ahead and manually enter them here
   • Note: the User Property Names for each of the potential fields are:
     • Display Ad Tactic: webex_ad_tactic
     • Company Name: webex_company
     • Domain: webex_domain
     • Is Mobile: webex_is_mobile
     • Country Code: webex_country_code
     • Industry: webex_industry
     • NAICS Code: webex_naics_code
     • SIC Code: webex_sic_code
     • Employee Range: webex_employee_range
     • Revenue Range: webex_revenue_range

Once all of your custom dimensions have been created, you should have a list that looks similar to this: 

At this point, your custom dimension configuration is complete. You will begin to receive the user property data for events on your website in GA4.