Google Analytics Report: A Monthly GA4 Report Template (and Why It Won’t Match Google Ads)
Three GA4 reports, six metrics and one footnote cover most monthly reporting. The footnote is the part that saves the meeting.
A monthly Google Analytics report shows sessions, engaged sessions, engagement rate, key events and revenue by channel, landing page and device, compared with last month and last year. In GA4, three reports supply almost all of it: Traffic acquisition, Landing page and, for stores, Ecommerce purchases. Export each with Share this report → Download File → Download CSV, then add one footnote, because the conversions will not match Google Ads.
The GA4 reports to use
All three are pre-made reports under Reports in the left menu. If one is missing, Google notes it may have been removed from your navigation, and an Editor can add it back.
| Report | Where | What it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Traffic acquisition | Acquisition → Traffic acquisition | Where new and returning visitors came from, by Session default channel group |
| Landing page | Engagement → Landing page | Which first pages visitors arrive on, and what those sessions did |
| Ecommerce purchases | Monetization → Ecommerce purchases (path can vary with your report collections) | Item revenue and items purchased, if ecommerce events are sent |
| User acquisition | Acquisition → User acquisition | Where new users first came from; useful, but not the main table |
Traffic acquisition is the backbone. Google's description is that it shows where new and returning users come from, using session-scoped dimensions such as Session source / medium and Session default channel group. For device, add Device category as a secondary dimension rather than opening another report. When you need two things crossed that no standard report crosses, channel by landing page for instance, build a free-form exploration, which has its own share and export options.
The metrics, and what they actually mean
- Sessions. A visit. By default a session ends after 30 minutes of inactivity.
- Engaged sessions. Sessions that lasted longer than 10 seconds, had a key event, or had two or more page or screen views (Google's definition).
- Engagement rate. Engaged sessions divided by sessions. Bounce rate is its opposite, so report one, not both.
- Key events. The events you have marked as important, such as a purchase, a lead form or a demo request. This is what GA4 used to call conversions; the rename reserved the word “conversion” for actions shared with Google Ads.
- Session key event rate. The share of sessions with at least one key event.
- Total revenue. Purchases, in-app purchases, subscriptions and ad revenue, minus refunds. If the purchase event is missing a value or currency, revenue will be empty.
A GA4 report template
- Summary — three to five sentences: what moved, against both comparisons, and why.
- Channel table — sessions, engaged sessions, engagement rate, key events and revenue by channel group.
- Top landing pages — ten rows with sessions, key events and the change on last month.
- Device split — usually one line of commentary unless something shifted.
- Revenue detail — for stores, from Ecommerce purchases.
- Tracking notes — any tag change, new key event or consent change this month. Without it, next quarter's comparison is unreadable.
- Next month — what you will change, and what you expect to see.
Here is the channel table with illustrative numbers for a made-up site:
| Channel | Sessions | Engaged | Eng. rate | Key events | Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Organic Search | 21,300 | 13,850 | 65.0% | 212 | $38,400 |
| Paid Search | 9,800 | 5,390 | 55.0% | 176 | $31,200 |
| Direct | 7,400 | 4,440 | 60.0% | 98 | $17,900 |
| 2,100 | 1,470 | 70.0% | 61 | $11,300 | |
| Organic Social | 1,600 | 720 | 45.0% | 9 | $1,400 |
| AI Assistant | 410 | 291 | 71.0% | 7 | $1,300 |
| Total | 42,610 | 26,161 | 61.4% | 563 | $101,500 |
The total engagement rate is 26,161 over 42,610, or 61.4%. Averaging the six rates in the column gives 61.0%: close here, but the gap grows as channel sizes diverge.
How to export a GA4 report
From Google's instructions: open the report from Reports, click Share this report in the top right, choose Download File, then Download PDF, Download CSV or Export to Google Sheets. CSV and Sheets exports hold up to 100,000 rows. You need at least the Viewer role, and the option disappears while you are customizing a report, so save and go back first.
When to pull matters as much as how. Google says processing can take 24–48 hours, some data can arrive up to 7 days late, and attribution credit for key events can change for up to 12 days after the key event. For figures that will be quoted in a board pack, pull them a few days into the new month and write the pull date on the report.
Why GA4 won't match Google Ads
Put the GA4 Paid Search row beside the Google Ads conversions column and they will disagree. Google lists the causes in its Google Ads help and attribution documentation:
- Different dates. Google Ads files a conversion under the date of the ad click; GA4 files it under the date it happened. Google's example: a click on July 19 and a purchase on July 20 is July 19 in Google Ads and July 20 in GA4. At a month boundary, that moves conversions between months.
- Different credit. Google Ads only credits Google Ads clicks. In GA4, Traffic acquisition credits the key event to the session it happened in, while the Advertising reports use your reporting attribution model. Under Paid and organic last click, a path of paid search then organic search gives 100% to Organic Search; under Google paid channels last click the same path goes to Paid Search.
- Different windows. A Google Ads conversion window is 1 to 90 days; GA4's key event lookback window defaults to 90 days for most key events. Google Ads cookies expire 90 days after the click, while the Analytics cookie lasts up to two years.
- Different counting. Google Ads can count One or Every conversion per click. Its Conversions column includes only Primary actions; All conversions adds secondary actions and view-through conversions.
- Filtering and modeling. Google Ads filters conversions from invalid clicks and may include modeled conversions where Google cannot observe all of them. GA4 records only browsers that run its tag.
- Lag. Imported GA4 conversions reach Google Ads up to 24 hours after they occur, and GA4 itself takes 24–48 hours to process.
- Key events are not conversions. A key event appears in Google Ads only once you create a conversion from it. A GA4 key events total can include actions Google Ads never counts.
Two 2026 changes narrow the gap. On January 16, 2026 Google announced conversion attribution settings adjustable per conversion, in beta and not yet on every property, to remove what it called a common cause of discrepancies versus Google Ads. On August 11, 2026 GA4 conversions gained custom lookback windows: any whole number from 1 to 90 days for click-through and 1 to 30 days for engaged-view conversions. Neither makes the two numbers equal.
The practical answer is a footnote. Paste this under any slide or table that shows GA4 conversions:
The same logic, at a larger scale, is why platform conversions do not match your store; why your conversions don't match Shopify covers that, and ROAS by channel covers which revenue to divide by which spend.
New in 2026: an AI Assistant channel
On May 13, 2026, Google added an AI Assistant channel to the Default Channel Group. When the referrer matches a recognized AI assistant, GA4 sets the medium to ai-assistant and the campaign to (ai-assistant). The channel definitions say it excludes Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode; for those, Search Console's generative AI report shows impressions, covered in the SEO report template. Add the row to the channel table, and note that it did not exist before May 2026 before anyone compares it with last year.
The monthly part
None of this is hard once. Monthly, it is four exports, a pasted table, recomputed rates, rebuilt charts and a summary retyped from new figures. The mistake that reaches the meeting is rarely in the data; it is the sentence that still says “up 12%” after the table changed.
Running the report in Quiriz
Quiriz is an AI business analyst that answers questions about your data inside PowerPoint, Word, Excel and the Google apps. Save each month's GA4 exports to a Google Drive or OneDrive folder, or a Google Sheet, that Quiriz refreshes on a schedule. Direct connectors for Google Ads, GA4, Search Console and Meta Ads are coming; HubSpot connects directly today.
In PowerPoint, Build a deck from the monthly business review recipe: Quiriz shows the slide plan first, each slide's title and question, and builds in your template with takeaways beside each chart, written from that chart's figures. The deck opens with an executive summary, written last from what the slides found and checked against them. Or put markers in your own template, such as =QUIRIZ.ASK("sessions and key events by channel group this month vs last month", "table"), and press Build from markers. In Word, the same markers fill a report document when you press Resolve markers. Charts in both arrive as native, editable charts: Edit Data opens the numbers behind them, and you restyle them like any chart you built.
When a slide's question cannot be answered from the data, the slide says so and why rather than inventing a number. Next month, Refresh all asks every question again against the new export, and charts, totals and takeaways move together. Your footnote stays where you put it.
Where it does not apply. Investigating a tracking problem, or an exploration you will run once, is work for GA4 itself. This is for the report you rebuild every month.
A GA4 report that refreshes itself
Drop in the month's GA4 export and press Refresh all: charts, totals and takeaways move together in your own PowerPoint or Word template. Free to start.
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