Thank you Sutapa! I forgot about this video covering the DebugView, but it might be time for an update. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/e858m8aCx5-RcYU.html

Try installing the "Google Analytics Debugger" browser extension and make sure it's enabled by clicking its icon. Also make sure to disable any pop-up blockers like "Privacy Badger", "AdBlock", "ublock Origin", and also the "Analytics Opt-out" extension if you're using it.

After connecting the GA4 data source, you should have 'New Users' available automatically in Google Data Studio. However, 'Returning Users' isn't available as a default metric yet, this is only currently available directly inside GA4. So you could create a calculated field where you subtract 'News Users' from 'Total Users' in the meantime.

I'm trying to accomplish the exact same thing, which is why I am really annoyed at GA4 and its "simplified" connection to GDS. It seems the old UA created a lot of these dimension fields for you outside of GDS (e.g., User Type), which made doing basic user reporting like you want very easy. It guess the future of GA4 and GDS means a lot more manual work of calculated fields and blending data with itself, which I find really cumbersome -- although, very helpful to learn how to do, eventually. @Loves Data I'd love to see an article or two talking about why this has become more challenging; and more importantly, if there is a rationale behind the evolution of dimensions and reports in GA based on a shift in how we should be reporting interactions on our site. For example, is the concept of comparing new vs. return users no longer relevant, and instead, our focus should be on using all the engagement and events dimensions automatically collected?

@@LovesData When I create a new exploration in GA4 with Total Users, New Users and Returning Users metrics, GA4 reports Returning Users as 876, but Total Users minus New Users equals 171, which is the same result I get using that field calculation in Data Studio. Could it be that once a user has an ID, they are not counted again in Total Users because they are the same user, but they are counted as a Returning User each time they return? By the way, thanks Benjamin for the time and effort you put into your videos. You've taught me alot, and for free. Much appreciated!

That’s not right. It’s the first_open or first_visit event that results in a new user being reported. This will be automatically triggered for a new client ID.

Thanks so much for the response. I understand first_open & first_visit being the event trigger for "new users", however these cookies aren't cross device/browser, neither is client ID. So the amount of "new users" by default is inflated by people moving device or browser. I have a ticket open with Google on this who confirmed the above. We noticed our reported new users was wildly inaccurate compared to our CMS data.

That’s how client ID works by default. And you can then implement user ID, but as I said, referring to your comment that “it is User ID that determines a New User” - this isn’t correct.

Thanks Benjamin. This has been really helpful. I tried to link the documentation that mentioned User ID being used, but my comment won't post with the link. You can find the article by searching for: Comparing metrics: Google Analytics 4 vs. Universal Analytics - here it states: The "new user" metric is measured by the number of new unique user IDs that logged the first_open or first_visit event."

These two articles are better: support.google.com/analytics/answer/12253918 and support.google.com/analytics/answer/10976610 and I think Google should correct the article you referred to.

👏 thanks!

GA4 does indeed show Returning Users if you create an exploration report and add the Returning Users metric, but Data Studio does not yet have the metric as an option.

My guess is there are lots of events marked as conversions. I’d check that first and turn off any that don’t drive direct benefit to the business or organization.

@@LovesData ty for your attention, but the real problem was the migration configuration. I did what google ask for, but UA uses "Client ID" param, and GA4 uses "User ID" (something like that, dont remember exactly), but anyway... I gotta this tip in your migration video, I created the GA4 tag in tagmanager to registrate views, instead of using the UA tag old one, they dont comunicate properly. Thats it! Again, thank you =D

By accurate, what I mean is that you know that the cookie (or identifier) is available for someone included in your returning user count.

Data will never be 100% accurate, so I always aim to focus on what I can do with the data that’s available, even with the limitations.