# GA4

The Power of GA4 Custom Alerts

Published by
Dec 30, 2024

Susan, an e-commerce entrepreneur, runs a thriving online store selling home decor. One day, her purchase funnel started showing a steep drop-off at the payment page. Unfortunately, Susan was unaware of this issue until weeks later, after losing significant revenue and customer trust. Why? She didn't have custom GA4 alerts set up to monitor her website metrics in real-time.

Contrast this with another scenario: Susan has custom alerts in GA4 configured to notify her of unusual drops in conversion rates or increases in payment errors. The moment the issue surfaced, she received an alert, investigated, and resolved it within hours. By using GA4 custom alerts, Susan turned a potential business crisis into a minor hiccup.

This story highlights the importance of GA4 custom alerts in proactively managing your e-commerce website.

What Are GA4 Custom Alerts?

GA4 custom alerts are automated notifications that inform you of significant changes in your website or app’s performance metrics. They allow you to monitor key indicators, such as traffic drops, spikes in bounce rates, or changes in conversion rates, so you can act swiftly to address potential issues or capitalize on opportunities.

Why Are GA4 Custom Alerts Beneficial?

Real-time insights are critical. GA4 custom alerts provide:

  • Proactive Issue Detection: Detect problems in your sales funnel, payment process, or site performance immediately.
  • Enhanced Decision-Making: Receive timely updates to capitalize on unexpected traffic or sales surges.
  • Customer Retention: Prevent negative user experiences by addressing site issues promptly.
  • Cost Efficiency: Save time and resources by automating performance monitoring.

Examples of Custom Alerts for E-commerce

Here are several actionable custom alert ideas tailored for e-commerce:

Traffic and User Behavior

  • Sudden Traffic Drop: Alerts you when website traffic drops significantly compared to the previous week. This could indicate technical issues or the loss of a major traffic source.
  • High Exit Rate for Key Pages: Notifies you when the exit rate for critical pages, such as product pages or the homepage, exceeds a set threshold.
  • Unusual Traffic Spike: Alerts you of a sudden increase in traffic, which could signify a successful campaign or unexpected publicity.

Conversion Funnel

  • Conversion Rate Decline: Warns you of a significant drop in the overall conversion rate. This helps you quickly identify and fix issues in the funnel.
  • Abandoned Cart Increase: Notifies you when cart abandonment rates spike, enabling you to investigate and improve checkout usability.
  • Low Engagement Rate: Alerts you if the engagement rate on key pages, such as product descriptions or blog posts, falls below expectations.

Revenue and Transactions

  • Revenue Drop: Notifies you of a substantial decline in daily revenue, helping you identify issues with pricing, payment processing, or promotions.
  • Transaction Volume Surge: Alerts you to sudden spikes in transactions, possibly indicating the success of a flash sale or marketing campaign.
  • High Refund Requests: Tracks and alerts you to an increase in refund events, signaling potential product or service issues.

Technical and Performance Issues

  • Event Count Drop: Alerts you if specific events, such as “add to cart” or “page view”, drop significantly compared to the previous period.
  • High Error Events: Notifies you when error events (e.g., failed form submissions) increase, indicating potential technical problems.
  • Engagement Time Anomaly: Warns you when user engagement time drops unexpectedly, potentially due to slower loading or unresponsive pages.

Campaign Performance

  • Low User Acquisition from Campaigns: Alerts you if traffic from a specific campaign falls below a defined threshold, indicating underperformance.
  • Spike in New Users: Notifies you of a sudden influx of new users, which could result from a viral campaign or positive media coverage.
  • Decreased Returning User Rate: Warns you if the percentage of returning users declines, potentially signaling customer dissatisfaction or competition.

Other Useful Scenarios

  • Geographic Traffic Shift: Alerts you to significant changes in traffic from specific locations, helpful for targeting regional campaigns.
  • Device Performance Trends: Tracks performance metrics by device type (e.g., mobile vs. desktop) and notifies you of unusual shifts.
  • Event Completion Drop: Notifies you when critical events, such as registrations or downloads, decline unexpectedly.

Quick Guide to Creating Custom Alerts in GA4

Creating custom alerts in GA4 involves leveraging the Insights feature and combining it with Audiences. Here’s how:

  1. Log in to GA4: Open your Google Analytics account and navigate to your property.
  2. Go to Insights: In the GA4 interface, click on “Reports” and then select “Insights” at the top-right corner of the screen.
  3. Create a Custom Insight: Click on “Create” to set up a new custom insight. Provide a name and description for your insight.
  4. Define Conditions:
    • Select the metric or event you want to monitor (e.g., “Conversions” or “Bounce Rate”).
    • Set conditions that trigger the alert (e.g., “Conversion rate drops below 2%”).
    • Specify the comparison period if applicable (e.g., “Compared to the previous week”).
  5. Combine with Audiences: To make the alert more targeted, use pre-defined or custom audiences (e.g., “Cart Abandoners”) as a condition for triggering the alert.
  6. Set Notification Preferences: Choose how you want to receive notifications (e.g., email or platform notifications).
  7. Save the Insight: Click “Save” to activate your custom alert.

Recommended Resources

Here are additional resources to deepen your understanding of GA4 custom alerts:

Advanced Options for Custom Alerts

Beyond the GA4 interface, you can leverage tools like BigQuery and Python for advanced custom alerting. By exporting your GA4 data to BigQuery, you can:

  • Run Advanced Queries: Use SQL to identify specific patterns or anomalies.
  • Automate Alerting with Python: Combine Python and libraries like Pandas to process data, create custom thresholds, and send alerts via email or messaging platforms.
  • Integrate with Dashboards: Use tools like Tableau or Google Data Studio to visualize alert triggers and trends.

This approach is ideal for businesses with complex analytics needs or those requiring customized monitoring beyond GA4’s capabilities.


GA4 custom alerts are a game-changer for e-commerce businesses. By using this feature effectively, you can protect your revenue, enhance user experience, and stay ahead of the competition. Start setting up your custom alerts today and take your analytics strategy to the next level!

Published Dec 30, 2024 by Piotr Ulacha

Information About the Authors

Piotr Ulacha

Piotr Ulacha is a web analyst. He has 15 years of experience in the digital marketing area. He specializes in implementation of analytical and marketing tracking codes, creating dashboards and data privacy topic. He works currently as a Web Analyst at EverStores.com where he implement tracking solutions for eCommerce brands. Previusly he worked at SellerX with eCommerce brands and at Artegence where he analyses the impact of marketing campaigns for Volkswagen Poland.


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