How To Set Up GA4 Cohorts to Measure B2B Website Performance

Go to any B2b marketing conference, and you’re likely to hear the same frustrations from those who’ve made the long-awaited jump to GA4:

“Yeah, it’s too complex.”

“I have no clue how to find anything in there.”

“Why did it have to change?!”

We get it – the transition from Universal Analytics has been anything but smooth. (Actually, we’ve heard some have given up on it entirely and gone back to their manual spreadsheets!)

Here’s the thing: while most marketers have resigned themselves to using GA4 for basic traffic monitoring, they’re missing out on the powerful features packed in there that lead to some pretty impressive insights – if you’re willing to learn how to use them.

Take cohort analysis, for example. It’s arguably GA4’s most valuable tool for understanding user behavior, yet it remains largely untouched. Why? Because at first glance, it looks like you need a data science degree just to get started.

Think of the last time you opened GA4. Did you close the screen out five minutes later? 

Then this guide is for you. 

We promise that if you follow these steps, you’ll have at least one “wow” moment when you see what your website data has been trying to tell you all along.

TL;DR: What is cohort analysis in GA4? 

• GA4’s cohort analysis tool lets you group users based on nearly any specific data point you want to track – events, sources, URL visits – and create unique cohorts based on your ICPs.
• For B2B websites, this data can help you separate visitors, measure how your content influences the buyer journey/experience, and understand which of your marketing channels are bringing in conversion traffic. 
• Setting up GA4 cohorts is straightforward once you know how to do it – and it only takes 15 minutes to get started. You can use advanced features (like Google Tag Manager) to get even deeper insights.

Why Use GA4 Cohorts?

We’ve all seen those scientific studies that track people from childhood into adulthood – with the researchers picking specific criteria and observing how individuals change over time. Think of setting up and tracking cohort analysis in GA4 as a similar study in behavior (but without the lab coats and years of therapy required later.)

For B2B websites, knowing how users move from first visit to conversion is crucial. You want to make sure that you are investing your marketing dollars in the right places, and knowing the expressed interests and behaviors of users is part of that process. 

Think of the last time you tried to analyze your site’s performance – how many “engaged users” were actually potential customers rather than someone browsing your career page or competitors looking to glean information on your company? It’s nearly impossible to tell the difference effectively without building and tracking cohorts.

Here are just a few of the key data points you can analyze once you set up and run cohorts:

True User Intent

Someone on your blog is likely in research mode, while a visitor who hits your pricing or services page is probably ready to click “demo” – or, in or in most of our client scenarios – ready to speak directly with sales.

The key is knowing who is consuming what content, what their intent is, and where they are going next in the buying process. With cohorts, you can track those users and see if your site’s setup is effectively funneling those users to the right destination.

Marketing Channel Quality

You know that different user acquisition channels bring in different targeted segments at different points in the buyer journey. When you create GA4 cohorts based on traffic source, you can validate which channels bring in users who:

• Stay engaged over multiple user sessions
• Progress to viewing product pages or pricing pages
• Convert to leads – and where they started that journey
• Return to your site to consume more of your content

Your Overall Content Performance

What types of content resonates with your sales-qualified leads? Are they looking for educational content or case studies, or are they moving straight on to specific product pages? Cohorts let you track these different users to see which content is tied to visitors most likely to convert – so you can focus your efforts on improving that content.

Site Personalization

Once you analyze the data in your GA4 cohorts, you can update and upgrade your site to engage the right audience. This can help you to:

• Tailor your landing pages for specific traffic sources
• Customize content recommendations based on previous user behavior
• Adjust your messaging for the proper stages of the buyer journey

By now, you’re starting to see just how effective collecting cohort analysis data is in GA4. So, how do you start setting it up and seeing those results for yourself? 

There are two ways you can start to go about setting up GA4 cohort analysis – the easy, no-code method and the more advanced, sexier (at least for data nerds) version.

Let’s look at both.

How to Set Up Cohorts in GA4 (No Code Required)

If you’re looking to jump right in and start setting up cohorts in GA4, this is the fastest way to start playing with the data and learning what works well for your B2B website. You can build these cohorts out directly from within the GA4 interface – no coding required.

Take note: in GA4, cohorts are defined as “audiences”, and you can start building them right from within the Admin interface.

Step 1: Navigate to Audience Setup

First, open your GA4 property and go to the Admin section (you’ll find it in the lower left corner.)

Under your property settings, click “Audiences.” This is where you’ll start creating your GA4 cohorts.

Step 2: Create Your First Cohort

Once in the Audiences section, click “New Audience.”

While GA4 will offer suggested templates for you to use, we recommend creating a custom audience for B2B websites. This gives you the flexibility to define precisely what you want to track based on what matters for your business.

Step 3: Set Your Conditions

Now, you’ll define “who” belongs in your cohorts. Think of it as a list of who gets in (or who the bouncer keeps out) of your private VIP club.

You can set a variety of positive and negative conditions, such as:

• Include users who viewed your solutions/services pages
• Exclude users who only visit your careers page
• Require [x] number of minimum page views

You can make these conditions as simple or complex as you need. Want to track users who viewed your pricing pages but haven’t yet converted? You can do that. Need to find those visitors who seem to love your blog? You can set that up as well.

Important Things To Remember

As you’re setting up your GA4 cohorts, keep these tips in mind:

1. Consider Your Cohort Membership Duration

B2B buying cycles tend to be long, so don’t make the window of cohort duration too short, or you’ll risk losing valuable data.

• For B2B sites, 30 days should be your minimum membership duration
• For enterprise sales, consider 180 days as your minimum

2. Cohort Size Matters

Don’t get too carried away in your cohort definitions. Make your sizes too small, and you’ll likely miss valuable insights from a broader set of users. Aim for cohorts of at least several hundred users and refine them as the data emerges.

Pro Tip: Before committing to a change, create a copy of a cohort and make your adjustments to the new audience. Now you can compare whether the tweaks to your definition moved you in the right or wrong direction! Once you’re certain you improved the data set, delete that old cohort so things don’t get cluttered (see tip #3).

3. Keep Your Cohorts Distinct

You’ll want to avoid creating overlapping cohorts that track similar behavior. Too much overlap between cohorts will end up diluting the data. The best method is to start broadly and then refine the cohorts as you learn more about each.

Not sure which Cohorts to start with?
Get our segmentation best practices guide for tech B2B

How to Set Up Advanced Cohorts with GTM

To get more sophisticated with your cohort tracking, Google Tag Manager lets you create finely tuned cohorts based on specific user behaviors. This approach requires a bit more technical setup but gives you much more precise control over tracking user interactions.

What Are User-Scoped Cohorts?

Cohorts in GA4 are user-scoped, not session or event-scoped. This means they persist across multiple sessions, just like a cookie in your browser. This persistence makes cohorts valuable for B2B analysis where buying cycles can span weeks or months.

Setting Up Advanced Cohorts: A Two-Step Process

Step 1: Define Your Cohort in GA4

First, you’ll need to create your cohort definition in GA4 – known as creating a new “custom dimension.”

Let’s say you want to track users who show high purchase intent by interacting with pricing information.

In this example we’ll use one of our pricing pages:

The web page contains three CTAs, each with a unique offering. However, when someone clicks on the CTA, it takes them to the same form (we have some logic that makes which package they selected obvious to us when we review the form submission in our CRM).

To capture the interest in this page using GA4 cohort reports, we need to create a new custom dimension in GA4:

Name it something clear like “shows_pricing_interest”

Then set an appropriate membership duration (remember our 30-180 day guideline for B2B).

Step 2: Configure GTM

Now comes the more technical part. Continuing with our example used in step 1, we’ll need to set up two key elements:

1. Create a GA4 Event Tag
   • Choose GA4 Event as your tag type
   • Add a user property in the tag settings
   • This property will persist at the user level
2. Set Up Your Trigger
   • Define exactly when this tag should fire
   • Could be button clicks, page views, or other interactions
   • Be precise to avoid false positives

For example, if you’re tracking pricing page interest, you might:

• Trigger on clicks to specific pricing-related buttons
• Trigger when users spend more than 2 minutes on pricing pages
• Trigger when users view multiple pricing-related pages in one session

The Magic of User Properties

Here’s what makes this approach powerful: once set, these user properties stick around. They won’t change unless your tag fires again with a different value. This means you can track user behavior over time and across sessions, giving you a much clearer picture of the buyer journey.

A Practical Example of GA4 Cohort Analysis At Work

We recently set up a cohort on a client’s site to track users who interacted with content surfaced by Trendemon (an AI-based web personalization and content marketing service). The goal was to measure how content discovery influenced their site’s demo requests.

Here are a few of the quantitative results we saw from our GA4 cohort setup:

• Regular site visitors converted to demo requests at a 1.01% rate
• Users in our “content influenced” cohort converted at 2.82%

Those numbers showed a nearly 3X improvement in conversion rate for users who engaged with that strategically surfaced content – helping the client get a better view of whether or not their strategy was working (and whether or not the resource investment was worthwhile.)

This case study shows just how powerful cohorts become once you set them up properly. For example, using Looker Studio (or a similar data reporting tool), you can:

• Filter your analytics data by cohort membership
• Compare your conversion rates between different cohorts
• Track how cohort behavior changes over time
• Measure the impact of specific marketing strategies on different user groups

Time To Start Tracking Those Cohorts

Now that you know a bit more about how to conduct GA4 cohort analysis effectively, it’s time to set your own cohorts up. Here are some things to remember:

1. Start with Clear Segments: Whether you use a basic GA4 setup or advanced GTM tracking, the key is to define distinct user groups. For B2B, this means separating high-intent visitors from casual browsers and tracking their behavior over time.
2. Think in Terms of Journey: Make your cohorts match your buyer’s journey. Track how users progress from initial content engagement to solution exploration and eventual conversion – this tells you where to optimize.
3. Measure What Matters: Don’t get lost in vanity metrics. Focus your cohort analysis on behaviors that actually indicate buying intent and lead to conversions.

Ready to Get More From Your Analytics? Airfleet Can Help

While setting up GA4 cohorts isn’t rocket science, getting meaningful insights requires the right strategy and technical setup. If you’d like help designing cohorts that track what matters for your B2B website, we’re here to help. Our team has helped hundreds of B2B tech companies set up analytics that drive real business decisions. Whether you need help with basic GA4 setup or want to implement advanced tracking through GTM, let’s talk about making your analytics work harder for you.