Track Internal vs External Website Traffic in GA4: Solutions

Jessica Smith

Feb 29, 2024, 12:14 PM

Does anyone have a solution for finding out how much traffic on website is internal vs external. The goal is not to filter out the internal traffic but to keep that data in GA4 and get the numbers.

Forwarded thread from another channel:

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 12:15 PM

Internal as in traffic but fellow employees from the office?

Jessica Smith

Feb 29, 2024, 12:17 PM

Fellow Employees from several offices and some remote - I have a large list of IP addresses I could use. I just do not know how to go about this to setup in GA4 and then report on it in looker studio

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 12:19 PM

There are many guides on how to exclude internal traffic in GA4.

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 12:19 PM

The last step would be different in your case.

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 12:20 PM

But the identification of internal traffic is the same.

Jessica Smith

Feb 29, 2024, 12:20 PM

I do not want to exclude the the internal traffic - I want to be able to report on the internal traffic and the external traffic to see the differnece

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 12:21 PM

Right.

Jessica Smith

Feb 29, 2024, 12:22 PM

I guess I am not understanding “But the identification of internal traffic is the same.” how is it the same? Do I need to set up a custom dimension? I guess I am confused

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 12:22 PM

No, it's kinda built in!

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 12:23 PM

The process to exclude internal traffic starts with identifying and marking it. The last step, actually excluding it, doesn't apply to you.

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 12:23 PM

But once it's marked, you have more options.

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 12:23 PM

<https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10104470|https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10104470><https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10104470?hl=en|?hl=en>

[GA4] Filter out internal traffic - Analytics Help

Discover how to filter out activity from internal users so the data doesn't appear in reportsYou can filter out website activity from an IP address or a range of IP addresses so the data generated by

[GA4] Filter out internal traffic - Analytics Help

Discover how to filter out activity from internal users so the data doesn't appear in reportsYou can filter out website activity from an IP address or a range of IP addresses so the data generated by

Jessica Smith

Feb 29, 2024, 12:24 PM

Gotcha, I will give this a read - thank you

Shawn Huber

Feb 29, 2024, 12:48 PM

I think most enterprises use IP filtering to help determine internal vs external. Important for sure.

Jono Alderson

Feb 29, 2024, 12:48 PM

Detect and/or classify internal traffic.

Report on internal traffic.

????

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 1:21 PM

Okay, so I set this up on a test site.

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 1:21 PM

Step 1, mark internal traffic the way the linked documentation does.

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 1:23 PM

Step 2, go to Data Filters and remove the internal traffic exclusion (this might not be necessary and might be a leftover from earlier fiddling)

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 1:24 PM

Step 3, go to Data Streams -> Modify Event

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 1:24 PM

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 1:30 PM

New step 4,

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 1:30 PM

Step 5, make it better, because this only lets me filter by event parameters and not use it to make comparisons.

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 1:31 PM

I'm 100% sure there are better ways to do this, but this is working.

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 1:31 PM

Disclaimer: I am not a GA dev.

Nico Brooks

Feb 29, 2024, 4:56 PM

The value of the traffic_type parameter is reportable in Explorations as "Test data filter name".

And @jessicaannsmithco for your purposes it might be useful to create multiple Internal traffic rules (found under Admin > Data collection & modifications > Data stream > Configure tag settings > Define internal traffic) with descriptive values for traffic_type for each location. I think you also have to create corresponding 'testing' Data filters for each traffic_type value to populate the 'Test data filter name' dimension.

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 4:57 PM

I knew there had to be a better way than my approach.

Nico Brooks

Feb 29, 2024, 5:00 PM

You can also create saved, filtered sets of reports so you can have versions of your standard reports for internal and external traffic.

Nico Brooks

Feb 29, 2024, 5:01 PM

Not as good as UA views, but you know, GA4.

Boris Kuslitskiy

Feb 29, 2024, 5:01 PM

I really miss views.

Jessica Smith

Feb 29, 2024, 5:16 PM

Boris & Nico - Thank you both!!

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