GA4 vs Adobe Analytics: what each tracks out of the box and what you must build

GA4 and Adobe Analytics start from opposite ends. Put the Google tag on a page and GA4 records page views, sessions and engagement straight away; switch on Enhanced Measurement and it adds outbound clicks, file downloads, site search, scroll depth, form interactions and YouTube video events. Install Adobe Experience Platform Tags with the Adobe Analytics extension, or with the Web SDK, and nothing reaches a report suite until a rule sends a beacon or calls sendEvent. Once that first page view arrives, Adobe fills in a long list of dimensions and metrics by itself, and a few settings add link tracking.

This guide sorts what each tool collects into three layers:

1. Base script – what arrives with the standard install and nothing else.
2. Setting or extension – what a switch in the admin, a checkbox in an extension or a datastream option turns on.
3. Custom implementation – what needs events, rules, a data layer or JavaScript, in Google Tag Manager or in Adobe Tags.

For each item it says where the data appears in reports and how soon. A side-by-side table and a worked shop example close the guide.

What "only the base script" means in each tool

For Adobe, "base script" in this guide therefore means the extension plus the one page-view rule (or sendEvent) that every implementation starts with. Without it, AppMeasurement loads and sends nothing. The Web SDK is the one exception in Adobe's stack: with click collection on, which is its default, link clicks are collected without any rule.

GA4

Layer 1: what the Google tag sends by itself

Google lists page_view among the Enhanced Measurement events, but its collection cannot be turned off; only the history-change part has its own switch. Every event also carries five parameters: language, page_location, page_referrer, page_title and screen_resolution.

From these events GA4 fills, with no further setup:

• Geography – country, region and city, from the IP address.
• Platform and device – device category, browser and operating system.
• Page – page location, page title and landing page.
• Time – date, hour, month and year.
• Traffic source – source and medium from the referrer, or from utm_ parameters on the landing URL when they are present.
• Users and sessions – users, new users, sessions, engaged sessions, engagement rate, bounce rate, views and engagement time.

An engaged session lasts longer than 10 seconds, has a key event, or has two or more page views. Bounce rate in GA4 is simply the share of sessions that were not engaged, which is a different measure from Adobe's single-hit bounce described below.

Layer 2: settings that switch more on

Enhanced Measurement lives under Admin > Data streams > your web stream. Turning on its main switch turns on all of its options; each one can then be switched off on its own.

Other settings that add data without code:

• Google signals populates the demographics dimensions (age, gender, interests). Google applies data thresholds to reports that use them, so small segments can be withheld.
• Google Ads link fills the Google Ads campaign, ad group and customer dimensions.
• Search Console link adds two reports, Google organic search queries and Google organic search traffic. Their report collection is unpublished by default: publish it from the Library.
• Session timeout and engaged-session timer default to 30 minutes and 10 seconds; both are adjustable in the Google tag settings.
• Data retention is 2 or 14 months for standard properties. It affects explorations and funnel reports only, not the standard reports.

Layer 3: what you have to build

• Ecommerce. GA4 defines the events but you send them: view_item_list, select_item, view_item, add_to_cart, add_to_wishlist, view_cart, remove_from_cart, begin_checkout, add_shipping_info, add_payment_info, purchase, refund, view_promotion and select_promotion. A purchase needs a transaction_id; each item needs an item_id or an item_name; send currency whenever you send value.
• Leads and accounts. Recommended events such as sign_up, login and generate_lead are sent by your code or by Tag Manager triggers.
• Signed-in users. user_id is set in the tag configuration, or with gtag('set', {user_id: …}) after a login; send null when the user signs out.
• Anything else – button clicks that are not outbound links, internal promotions, error messages, product attributes – is a custom event with custom parameters. A parameter shows in reports only once registered as a custom dimension or metric (standard properties: 50 event-scoped and 25 user-scoped dimensions, 10 item-scoped dimensions, 50 custom metrics), and data appears 24–48 hours after you create it.

Adobe Analytics

Layer 1: what the page-view call gives you

With AppMeasurement, the first s.t() call fills, with no variables set:

• Page – the page name, which falls back to the page URL when pageName is not set (truncated to 100 bytes either way), and Page URL.
• Referrer and Referring domain.
• Geography – derived server-side from the visitor's IP address.
• Technology – browser and operating system, derived server-side from the user agent; monitor resolution and browser width and height.
• Visits, unique visitors, page views, entries, exits, time spent and bounces. A bounce in Adobe is a visit with exactly one hit, so a page view followed by an automatic exit-link call is not a bounce.

Visitors are identified by the first identifier available: a custom visitorID, the legacy s_vi cookie, the Experience Cloud ID (ECID, set by the Experience Cloud ID Service or by the Web SDK), a fallback ID AppMeasurement generates, and finally IP address plus user agent. Adobe recommends ECID wherever possible.

With the Web SDK, every sendEvent carries context fields collected automatically:

Adobe counts a Web SDK event as a page view when it carries a page name or URL and no web.webInteraction.type; with webInteraction.type it is a link call; with neither, the Edge Network drops it. Set web.webPageDetails.name yourself, because that field is the Page dimension.

Click collection is on by default in the Web SDK. It records clicks on <a> and <area> elements as internal, exit or download links and fills the Custom link, Exit link and Download link dimensions.

Layer 2: extension, admin and datastream settings

• Link tracking in the Analytics extension. Track download links (with the list of file extensions it watches), Track outbound links (exit links, judged against your internal-domain filters) and Keep URL parameters. Adobe's documentation does not state their defaults, so open the extension and check them.
• Activity Map reports link clicks by page region, with an overlay on the page. Enable it in the report suite settings – once enabled it cannot be turned off – then use the Activity Map setting of the Analytics extension (version 1.9.0 or later) or the click data collection of the Web SDK extension (2.23 or later). It adds the Activity Map Link, Region, Page and Link By Region dimensions.
• Marketing channels are not filled until you create channels and their processing rules. If none exist yet, an automatic setup offers pre-configured channels with rules to start from. Rules apply to data processed after they are saved.
• Real-time reports must be configured in the report suite: up to three reports, each with one metric and up to three dimensions.
• Datastream (Web SDK only). Add the Adobe Analytics service with your report suite ID. Adobe's dimension documentation says to enable Geo Lookup and Device Lookup in the datastream for the geography and browser dimensions to be filled from Web SDK data; with no Geo Lookup option selected, geolocation lookups are off, and the default device setting keeps the user-agent and client-hint headers instead of running the lookup.
• Click collection options (Web SDK). Internal, exit and download links can each be switched off; eventGroupingEnabled (off by default) holds internal-link data until the next page view to send fewer events; filterClickDetails can change or drop link data before it is sent.
• More context (Web SDK). High-entropy user-agent hints and the one-time Analytics referrer are collected only if you add them to the context setting.

Layer 3: what you have to build

• Custom variables. eVars (conversion variables) and props (traffic variables) must be enabled in the report suite – eVars with an allocation and an expiration – and success events configured, before a rule sets them. In the Web SDK, eVars map from _experience.analytics.customDimensions.eVars.eVar1 to eVar250, or from your own XDM fields through a mapping.
• Commerce. Set events (prodView, scAdd, scCheckout, purchase) with the products string – category;product;quantity;price, where price is the total for the quantity – and a purchaseID of up to 20 letters and digits. In the Web SDK the same data goes in commerce (productViews, productListAdds, checkouts, purchases), commerce.order.purchaseID, commerce.order.currencyCode and productListItems (SKU, name, quantity, priceTotal).
• Page names, site sections and campaign codes. pageName (or web.webPageDetails.name), channel (web.webPageDetails.siteSection) and the tracking code (campaign, or marketing.trackingCode) come from your data layer or a query-string data element. Adobe does not read utm_ parameters into Tracking Code by itself.
• Internal search, form steps and errors – an eVar for the value and a success event to count it, set by a rule.
• Scroll depth. The getPercentPageViewed plugin (Common Analytics Plugins extension) records how far a visitor scrolled the previous page; you copy its values into an eVar or prop on the next page. Adobe states the plugin is not yet supported with the Web SDK.
• Video. Adobe measures video with Adobe Streaming Media, a separate product with its own implementation; there is no automatic YouTube tracking.
• Signed-in users. A custom visitorID with AppMeasurement, or your own identifier in identityMap with the Web SDK.

When the data shows up in reports

Side by side

Base = with the standard install only (for Adobe: plus the page-view call). Setting = a switch, checkbox or datastream option. Custom = events, rules or code you write.

Worked example: a small online shop

The site has product pages and a checkout, a blog, a help centre whose search results live at /help/search?q=…, a PDF price list, YouTube how-to videos embedded on product pages and a contact form.

Day one, standard install only.

• GA4: page views on every page, sessions, users, engagement, country and device, source and medium for every visit. With Enhanced Measurement on, it also records the price-list downloads, help-centre searches (the q parameter is in the default list), clicks to the shop's social profiles, 90 % scrolls on blog posts and contact-form starts and submits. The YouTube videos are tracked only if their embed code includes enablejsapi=1.
• Adobe with AppMeasurement: after the page-view rule, page views, visits, unique visitors, entries, exits, time spent, bounces, country and browser. Pages appear under their URLs until a page name is set.
• Adobe with the Web SDK: the same visit and page metrics once sendEvent runs on each page, plus every link click, download and exit through click collection. Country and browser stay empty until Geo Lookup and Device Lookup are enabled in the datastream.

One hour of settings.

• GA4: register form_id and form_name as custom dimensions so the contact form shows by name (the search term needs no registering: Search term is a built-in dimension), link Search Console and publish its reports, add the help centre's own search parameter if it is not q, and decide on Google signals.
• Adobe: tick download and exit link tracking (AppMeasurement), enable Activity Map, run the marketing channels automatic setup and review its rules, configure a real-time report, and enable Geo and Device Lookup (Web SDK).

What still needs building in both tools. The checkout funnel and the purchase, the help-centre search in Adobe, the contact form in Adobe, scroll depth beyond 90 % in GA4 (and at all in Adobe), video in Adobe, and a user ID for signed-in customers. The purchase of two bottles at 24.00 each looks like this.

GA4, sent on the confirmation page (or by a Tag Manager tag reading the same values from the data layer):

gtag("event", "purchase", {
  transaction_id: "ORD88213",
  value: 48.00,
  currency: "EUR",
  items: [
    { item_id: "SKU-1042", item_name: "Steel water bottle", price: 24.00, quantity: 2 }
  ]
});

Adobe with AppMeasurement, set in the confirmation-page rule before its Send Beacon (s.t()):

s.pageName = "checkout:confirmation";
s.events = "purchase";
s.products = ";SKU-1042;2;48.00";
s.purchaseID = "ORD88213";
s.currencyCode = "EUR";

Adobe with the Web SDK, the XDM object of the Send event action (shown here as the equivalent library call):

alloy("sendEvent", {
  xdm: {
    web: { webPageDetails: { name: "checkout:confirmation" } },
    commerce: {
      purchases: { value: 1 },
      order: { purchaseID: "ORD88213", currencyCode: "EUR" }
    },
    productListItems: [
      { SKU: "SKU-1042", name: "Steel water bottle", quantity: 2, priceTotal: 48.00 }
    ]
  }
});

Note the difference in price: GA4's price is per item, while Adobe's products price and the Web SDK's priceTotal are the total for the quantity. Getting that wrong doubles or halves revenue in one tool and not the other, and it is an easy reason for the two to report different totals for the same orders.

Checked against Google's and Adobe's documentation on 2 November 2026.

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