How to Create Custom Reports, Dashboards & Segments in GA4

Where custom reporting lives in GA4

Universal Analytics had a Customization menu with custom reports, dashboards and segments in one place. GA4 split that menu up. If you came from UA and went looking for "Custom Reports," you probably landed in Explore, built something useful, and then discovered nobody else on your team could see it.

That confusion is the most common problem we see when we audit client properties. Before you build anything, decide who needs the report and how often they will open it. The answer tells you which surface to use.

One prerequisite: everything below assumes a working property with clean events and key events marked. If you have not set that up yet, start with our guide on how to set up Google Analytics 4. A custom report built on broken tracking just shows you the wrong numbers faster.

How to create a custom report in Google Analytics

When people search for how to create a custom report in Google Analytics, the answer they want is usually a detail report: a table plus charts that lives in the Reports section, looks like the built-in reports, and anyone on the property can open. You build these in the Library.

You need the Editor or Administrator role. If you do not see Library at the bottom of the Reports menu, your role is too low. Ask whoever owns the property to upgrade you, or follow the access steps in our GA4 setup guide.

Build the detail report

1. In Google Analytics, click Reports in the left menu.
2. Click Library at the bottom left.
3. In the Reports card, click Create new report, then Create detail report.
4. Choose Blank, or start from a template. A template-based report stays linked to Google's version, so if Google adds a dimension to the template, your report gets it too. Use Blank when you want full control.
5. In the Customize report panel on the right, set the Dimensions (the rows), the Metrics (the columns, up to 12), an optional Report filter, and which Charts to show.
6. Click Save, name the report, and click Save again.

A practical first build: a "Lead pages" report with Landing page + query string as the dimension, and Sessions, Engaged sessions, Key events and Session key event rate as metrics, filtered to your organic channel. That one report answers the question most content programs never measure properly: which articles produce leads, as opposed to which ones produce traffic.

Add the report to the navigation

After you save, the report sits in the Library. It does not show up in anyone's left menu yet. This trips up more teams than any other step. To publish it:

1. Go back to Library.
2. On an existing collection card (for example, Business objectives or Life cycle), click Edit collection. Or click Create new collection to build your own.
3. Drag your report from the right panel into a topic on the left.
4. Click Save, then Back. If it is a new collection, open the three-dot menu on its card and click Publish.

The report now appears in the Reports menu for every user on the property. Each property allows up to 150 custom reports, which is plenty, but name them clearly. "Test report 4" helps nobody six months from now.

Create an overview report

Overview reports are the GA4 version of a summary page: a grid of cards pulled from detail reports. Build your detail reports first, since overview reports are assembled from their summary cards.

1. In Library, click Create new report, then Create overview report.
2. Click Add cards and pick up to 16 summary cards.
3. Drag the cards into the order you want, then click Save and name it.
4. Add it to a collection the same way you added the detail report.

Custom summary cards you created in a detail report only appear in the card picker once that detail report sits inside at least one collection. If your card is missing, that is the reason.

How to build a custom report in Explore

Library reports are for recurring, team-wide numbers. Explore is for digging. It handles dimension combinations the standard reports cannot, and it is the only place in GA4 where segments exist. The trade-off is visibility: explorations are private to the person who builds them until that person shares them, and shared explorations are read-only for everyone else.

Steps for a free-form exploration

1. Click Explore in the left menu.
2. Click Blank to start an empty exploration, or pick a template such as Funnel exploration or Path exploration.
3. In the Variables column, set the date range. Then click the plus sign next to Dimensions and Metrics and import the ones you need.
4. In the Settings column, keep the technique on Free form. Drag dimensions into Rows and metrics into Values.
5. Add filters at the bottom of the Settings column if you want to narrow the data.
6. Rename the exploration at the top left. GA4 saves it automatically.

To share it, click the share icon at the top right. Anyone with the Analyst role or higher can share explorations. Everyone else on the property sees it read-only and can duplicate it if they want to edit their own copy.

Which exploration technique to pick

Funnel explorations deserve special attention if you run lead generation. A form that loses 70% of people between "start" and "submit" is a conversion rate problem, and it will not show up in any standard report.

How to create a segment in Google Analytics

In GA4, segments only work inside Explore. You cannot apply one to a standard report, and a segment you build in one exploration does not carry over to another. Each exploration holds up to 10 segments, and you can apply up to 4 at a time. On the plus side, segments are retroactive: they apply to all historical data in your date range from the moment you create them.

Pick the right segment scope

GA4 gives you three segment types, and choosing the wrong one is the most common reason a segment "shows weird numbers."

A user segment keeps everything a qualifying user did across every session. Use it for questions about people, such as "what content did buyers read before they bought." A session segment keeps only the sessions that meet the condition. Use it for questions about visits, such as "which landing pages start sessions that convert." An event segment keeps only the matching events. Use it when you want to analyze one action in isolation, like every generate_lead event with its page and source.

Steps to create a segment

1. Open an exploration (or create a blank one) in Explore.
2. In the Variables column, click the plus sign next to Segments.
3. Under Create a custom segment, choose User segment, Session segment or Event segment. You can also start from a suggested segment and edit it.
4. Name the segment at the top. Use a name that states the logic, such as "Sessions with lead form submit."
5. Click Add new condition and pick a dimension, metric or event. Set the match type and value.
6. Add more conditions with And or Or. Use Add group to exclude if you want to remove a group, such as internal traffic or existing customers.
7. For user segments, click Add sequence if order matters, for example users who viewed the pricing page and then submitted a form.
8. Click Save and apply. The segment lands in the Segments list. Drag it into Segment comparisons in the Settings column to apply it.

Inside the segment builder there is a Build an audience checkbox. Tick it and GA4 creates a matching audience you can send to Google Ads for remarketing. Keep one difference in mind: segments look backward over historical data, while audiences collect members going forward from the day you create them, with only a short lookback. If you plan to run retargeting campaigns off a segment, build the audience early.

Comparisons: the segment alternative in standard reports

If you only need to split a standard report, say organic vs paid or mobile vs desktop, you do not need Explore at all. Open any report, click Add comparison under the report title, choose a dimension and values, and click Apply. Each comparison accepts up to 5 conditions, and GA4 color-codes the results side by side.

Comparisons you build this way disappear when you leave. To keep them, an Editor can save them under Admin, then Data display, then Comparisons. A property can hold up to 200 saved comparisons, and everyone on the property can apply them. We set up "Organic search" and "Paid search" saved comparisons on every client property because it saves the SEO and paid teams from rebuilding them every Monday.

How to create a dashboard in Google Analytics

GA4 does not have the drag-and-drop widget dashboards UA had. You have two real options, and the right one depends on whether the person reading it has a GA4 login.

Option 1: an overview report inside GA4

For internal teams who already work in GA4, an overview report published in its own collection is the closest thing to a native dashboard. Build three or four detail reports for the numbers you care about, create an overview report with their summary cards, then create a new collection called "Weekly dashboard" with that overview at the top. Publish it, and it sits in everyone's left menu. It costs nothing and needs no new tool. The limit is design: you get GA4's card grid and nothing else, and you cannot mix in data from your CRM or ad platforms.

Option 2: Looker Studio for shareable dashboards

For owners and clients, use Looker Studio. It is free and ships with a native GA4 connector, so people can view a dashboard without ever touching GA4.

1. Go to lookerstudio.google.com and sign in with the Google account that has access to the property.
2. Click Create, then Report.
3. In the Add data to report panel, choose the Google Analytics connector.
4. Select your account and GA4 property, then click Add.
5. Add charts from the Add a chart menu. Start with scorecards for headline numbers and a time series for the trend, then add tables for channels and pages.
6. Add a Date range control so one control drives every chart on the page.
7. Click Share to invite people or create a link. Use Schedule delivery from the Share menu to email a PDF on a set day each week.

Resist the urge to put 30 charts on page one. The dashboards that get opened every week answer two questions: did leads go up or down, and which channel or page caused the change. Anything else goes on page two. If the dashboard also needs CRM revenue or call tracking data, that is a sign you need a proper CRM and automation setup feeding the same report, rather than more GA4 charts.

For the sharing side, including view-only links for people outside your company, see our guide on connecting Google Analytics to Search Console, Google Ads and more, which covers dashboard sharing step by step. Adding Search Console data to the same Looker Studio report is also worth the ten minutes, since it puts queries and conversions on one page.

How to export Google Analytics data

GA4 offers five ways out of the interface. The right one depends on how many rows you need and how often you need them.

Export a standard or custom report

1. Open the report you want, with the date range and any comparisons already set.
2. Click the Share this report icon at the top right.
3. Click Download File.
4. Choose Download PDF, Download CSV or Export to Google Sheets.

You only need the Viewer role to share or export. CSV and Sheets exports include up to 100,000 rows. One catch: you cannot export from the Library or while a report is in Customize mode. Save the report, open it from the left navigation, and the share icon appears.

Export an exploration

Open the exploration and click the Export data icon at the top right. You can send it straight to Google Sheets, or download it as TSV, CSV or PDF. Check the sampling indicator at the top right of the exploration first. On standard properties, explorations start sampling above roughly 10 million events per query, so a green shield means full data and anything else means your export is an estimate. Shorten the date range to get under the threshold.

BigQuery and the Data API for raw or automated exports

For anything beyond a spreadsheet, link GA4 to BigQuery under Admin, then Product links, then BigQuery links. The export is free on the GA4 side (you pay Google Cloud for storage and queries above the free tier), and it gives you raw, event-level data with every parameter, unsampled. Standard properties can export up to 1 million events per day in the daily export. Turn it on early, because it only exports data from the day you link it forward. That historical archive is the one thing you cannot rebuild later, and we enable it on every ecommerce property we manage for that reason.

The Google Analytics Data API is the other route. It lets a developer pull report data on a schedule into a CRM or a data warehouse. Most small and mid-size businesses never need it directly, because Looker Studio and Sheets add-ons sit on top of it already.

Mistakes that make GA4 custom reports wrong

Most "GA4 is broken" complaints we hear trace back to one of these.

Comparing Explore numbers to standard report numbers. Standard reports and explorations process data differently, and thresholds and sampling create gaps between them. Pick one source for each KPI and stick to it.

Hitting data thresholds. With Google signals on, GA4 withholds rows with small user counts to protect privacy, so low-traffic pages vanish from reports. If you see a threshold warning, switch the Reporting identity to Device-based under Admin, then Data display, and the rows usually return.

Editing a template-linked report. If you customized a Google template and then wonder why a new dimension appeared, the link to the template did that. Unlink it from the report's customize panel, or rebuild it from Blank.

Building in Explore for a team report. If five people need the same table every week, it belongs in the Library, where it sits in the navigation and nobody has to ask for a share link.

Measuring pages instead of outcomes. A custom report full of page views and engagement time is easy to build and tells you very little. Every report we hand a client includes key events, because that is the number that connects search visibility and site performance to revenue. If your key events are not set up yet, fix that before you build a single report, or book a free consultation and we will look at your property with you.