How to set up Google Analytics 4 for a real estate website

To set up Google Analytics for a real estate website, create a Google Analytics 4 (GA4) property under your own business Google account, add a web data stream for your domain, install the tag on your site and mark your enquiry actions as key events. Universal Analytics, the older version, has been retired, so GA4 is what you need.

Done properly, GA4 answers questions that matter to an agency. How many people visit each month? Which pages do vendors read before they request an appraisal? Did your enquiries come from Facebook, Google or an email? This guide walks through the setup and the settings worth changing.

Decide who owns the account first

This is the most common mistake we see described, so check it before anything else. Create the Analytics account with your own business login or a shared company address that you control. Do not let a staff member, web developer or agency create it under their personal account.

If the person who owns the account leaves, or you end a relationship with a provider, you can lose access to years of data. If someone else is helping, create the account yourself and add them as a user afterwards with the access they need.

Create your GA4 account and property

1. Sign in to your Google account and go to analytics.google.com. Select the option to start measuring.
2. Enter an account name, usually your agency name. You can choose your data sharing settings here.
3. Create a property. Name it something clear, such as "Agency name website". Set the reporting time zone to your local time and the currency to Australian dollars.
4. Answer the business details questions. They are for Google's benefit and do not change how your data is collected.
5. Create a web data stream. Enter your website address and give the stream a name.

When the stream is created, you will see a measurement ID that starts with "G-". You need it in the next step. Google updates the layout of these screens from time to time, so the wording may differ slightly from what you see.

Install the tag on your website

The measurement ID has to reach your website. How you do that depends on how your site is built.

• Website platforms with a built-in field. Many have a setting where you paste the measurement ID. This is the simplest route.
• Google Tag Manager. If your site uses it, add a Google tag with your measurement ID. This is common on custom sites and makes later changes easier.
• Pasting the tag directly. Google gives you a snippet for the head of every page. Your developer can add it.

Once installed, open the Realtime report in GA4 and visit your own site in another tab. If you see yourself appear, the tag is working. Do not install it twice, or you may count visits double.

Track what matters: key events

GA4 records page views and several automatic interactions out of the box. Enhanced measurement, which is switched on by default, adds things like scrolls, outbound clicks and file downloads. None of that tells you whether someone became a lead.

For that you need key events. These are events you flag as important to your business. Google previously called these conversions inside GA4, so older guides may use that word.

For a real estate agency, the events worth marking are:

• Appraisal request form submissions.
• General contact form submissions.
• Property management or rental appraisal enquiries.
• Clicks on your phone number, when it is set up as a tap-to-call link.
• Inspection booking or listing enquiry submissions.

Often the simplest approach is to make each form land on its own thank-you page and track that page view as an event. Your developer or a Tag Manager setup can create the event, and then you mark it as a key event in the Admin area. Test each form yourself and confirm the event appears in the Realtime report.

Settings to change in your first week

Extend data retention

GA4 limits how long it keeps detailed event data for certain reports. The options are two months or 14 months. Set it to 14 months in the data retention settings under Admin so you can look back over a longer period.

Link Search Console

If you have set up Search Console, link it to your property so you can see the Google search queries that bring people in. Our guide to Google Search Console explains how to set it up.

Filter out your own visits

If your team visits the site often, their traffic can distort your numbers. GA4 has internal traffic settings that let you exclude your office's IP address. Ask your developer if you are unsure.

Add the right people

Under account access management, add your web provider or marketing team with the level of access they need. Keep the owner role for yourself.

Reports an agent will actually use

You do not need to learn every report. Start with these.

• Traffic acquisition: where visitors come from, such as Google search, social, email or direct.
• Pages and screens: which pages people view the most.
• Key events: how many enquiries and appraisal requests were recorded and from which sources.
• Tech details: mobile versus desktop use, so you know where to focus design work.

To see which campaign sent each lead, tag your links with UTM parameters. We explain how in our post on UTM tracking. For ideas on turning the data into action, read Google Analytics for real estate.

Know the limits

Analytics counts website behaviour. It will not match your CRM exactly, and a lead who phones after reading your site may not be traced back. Treat the figures as a guide to patterns, not a perfect ledger.

The data is only useful if you act on it. Check it monthly, note the pages that produce enquiries and improve the ones that do not. Our post on generating more leads from your real estate website shows where to start.

If you would like help getting tracking set up properly, you can book a call with Lead Fleet.