This is the situation you find yourself in…

1. You have a website or page through a platform that doesn’t let you add or touch any code. It lets you add your Google Analytics tracking ID.
2. You want to track clicks on a specific link – that you control – that tells you a user has shown interest or started an important process. Your GA code does not run on the page you’re linking to.
3. You’ve noticed that GA4 will automatically track external (or “outbound”) clicks…. but this important link is still on the same domain. It never gets automatically tracked.

Your hands are tied… right?

Nope! (And when you see what the answer is, you’re going to kick yourself…)

Is this a tip for Etsy? No, this technique is rarely going to be useful for an Etsy shop. You don’t control any super-important links. But who knows – maybe someone will have a use for it?

You pay good money for your ads on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest! So don’t let all that valuable traffic get lumped into your Google Analytics reports with your other visitors from social media, in the general “Social” Channel.

It’s important to clearly separate social media traffic you’ve paid for (advertising) and organic traffic (from your own and others’ posts). Learn how to use the Channel called “Paid Social” that will automagically capture all our social ad visitors, where they can be analyzed separately.

Quick Answer: Google Analytics 4 now comes with a Paid Social Channel built in. You can start using it right away by simply tagging your ad destination links with the Medium value of paid-social and a Source of the social platform’s domain (eg. instagram.com).