Introduction

Your Smily website is now equipped with Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Google Tag Manager (GTM). These two tools give you access to a wealth of information about your visitors, your marketing campaigns, and your conversions.

This guide explains what you can track, how to analyze it, and how to use this data to increase your direct bookings.

What you can track with GA4

Real-time statistics

Path: Reports > Realtime

You can see live:

• Active users: how many people are on your site right now
• Pages viewed: which pages are getting attention right now
• Countries: where your visitors are coming from
• Traffic sources: how they found your site (Google, social media, direct link, etc.)

💡 Why it’s useful: Check the immediate impact of a social media post or an ad campaign.

Acquisition: where your visitors come from

Path: Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition

You can analyze:

• Acquisition channels: organic search (SEO), paid ads, social, email, direct traffic
• Source / medium: precise details (e.g., google/organic, facebook/social, newsletter/email)
• Number of users by channel
• Conversion rate by channel
• Revenue generated by channel

💡 Why it’s useful: Identify which channels bring you the most bookings and optimize your budget accordingly.

Engagement: how visitors interact

Path: Reports > Engagement

You can track:

• Pageviews: which pages are most popular
• Triggered events: clicks, searches, rental views, contact requests
• Bounce rate: percentage of visitors who leave without interacting
• Session duration: average time spent on your site
• User journey: the path visitors take through your site

💡 Why it’s useful: Understand which rentals attract the most interest and where users drop off in the booking process.

Conversions: your goals achieved

Path: Reports > Engagement > Conversions

You can measure:

• Confirmed bookings: volume and value
• Inquiry requests: submitted contact forms
• Phone clicks: if configured in GTM
• Downloads: brochures, guides
• Conversion rate: percentage of visitors who book
• Value by channel: revenue generated by each source

💡 Why it’s useful: Calculate your marketing ROI and identify what truly drives bookings.

Monetization: revenue details

Path: Reports > Monetization > Ecommerce purchases

You can analyze:

• Total revenue by period
• Number of transactions (bookings)
• Average booking value
• Revenue by source: how much each marketing channel generates
• Most booked rentals (best-sellers)

💡 Why it’s useful: Identify your star properties and understand booking seasonality.

Concrete benefits of tracking

🎯 Optimize your marketing ROI

Without tracking: You spend €1,000 on Facebook ads and Google Ads without knowing what works.

With tracking: You discover that Google Ads generates 80% of your bookings with 60% of your budget, while Facebook barely converts. You reallocate budget accordingly.

Result: +40% bookings with the same budget.

📊 Identify friction points

Without tracking: You get few bookings but don’t know why.

With tracking: GA4 shows that 70% of visitors leave your site on the availability page. You discover your rates aren’t displayed clearly.

Result: After optimization, your conversion rate goes from 2% to 3.5%.

💰 Measure the value of each channel

Without tracking: You post regularly on Instagram and Facebook without knowing the impact.

With tracking: You see Instagram generates 15 bookings per month (€7,500) while Facebook generates only 2 (€1,000).

Result: You focus efforts on Instagram and test Instagram Ads.

🔄 Understand the customer journey

Without tracking: You assume customers book on their first visit.

With tracking: GA4 reveals that most customers visit your site 3 times on average before booking, often across several days.

Result: You set up remarketing to recapture visitors who didn’t book.

🌟 Reduce your reliance on OTAs

Without tracking: You don’t know if your direct booking investments are working.

With tracking: You track direct bookings month after month and identify what works.

Result: In 12 months, you go from 30% to 55% direct bookings.

UTM parameters: tracking your campaigns

What are UTM parameters?

UTM parameters are tags you add to your URLs to precisely identify the source of your traffic. They work automatically with GA4 and GTM.

The 5 UTM parameters

How to build your URLs

Free Google tool

Use the Campaign URL Builder:

ga-dev-tools.google/campaign-url-builder

1. Enter the destination URL
2. Fill in the UTM parameters
3. Copy the generated URL
4. Use it in your campaigns

Example URLs with UTM

Google Ads campaign

yoursite.com?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=summer2026&utm_term=provence_rental

Facebook post

yoursite.com?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=last_minute_promo

Newsletter

yoursite.com?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=may_offer

Instagram story

yoursite.com?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=weekend_stories

UTM best practices

✅ Be consistent: always use the same conventions (e.g., always “facebook” and never “Facebook” or “fb”)
✅ Use clear names: “summer2026” rather than “campaign1”
✅ Document campaigns: keep a file listing all your URLs for reference
❌ Never use UTM on internal links: only for external traffic
❌ Don’t use spaces: use hyphens or underscores (summer_2026)

Use case: optimizing your marketing campaigns

Real scenario

You manage 8 holiday cottages in Brittany. You invest in multiple marketing channels and want to identify which ones are profitable.

Budget and actions

1. Google Ads: €600/month
2. Facebook Ads: €300/month
3. Newsletter: €40/month (Mailchimp)
4. Organic Instagram: time invested (free)
5. Tourism board partnership: €200/month

Tracking setup

You use UTM parameters on all your links:

• Google Ads: utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=brittany2026
• Facebook Ads: utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=brittany_cottages
• Newsletter: utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=may2026
• Instagram: utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=organic_posts
• Tourism board: utm_source=tourism_board&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=partnership

Results after 3 months

Deep dive insights in GA4

By digging into your reports, you discover:

Behavior by channel

• Google Ads visitors view 3.8 pages on average and spend 6 minutes on the site
• Facebook visitors view 1.9 pages and spend 2 minutes (less engaged)
• The newsletter has the highest conversion rate (13%) = highly qualified audience
• The tourism board sends very qualified visitors (conversion rate 17%)

Property insights

• The “Sea View Cottage” generates 40% of Google Ads bookings
• Families with children (via Facebook) look for cottages with gardens
• Couples (via Instagram) prefer romantic cottages

Seasonality

• August bookings are mainly made in February–March
• Last-minute bookings (June–August) mostly come from Google

Decisions made

Immediate actions

✅ Google Ads: excellent ROI → increase budget to €900/month and create campaigns specifically for the “Sea View Cottage”
✅ Newsletter: exceptional ROI → invest in list growth (website popup, lead magnet “Brittany Guide”)
✅ Tourism board: strong ROI → strengthen partnership and request additional featured placements
✅ Instagram: strong and free → continue organic content and test €200 of Instagram Ads

⚠️ Facebook Ads: weaker ROI → reduce to €150/month and test new audiences (parents with children, 100 km radius)

Website optimizations

• Highlight the “Sea View Cottage” on the homepage
• Create a dedicated page “Family cottages with garden”
• Add more couple photos on “romantic cottages” pages
• Create a “Last-minute availability” section to capture Google traffic

Remarketing

• Build a GA4 audience of users who viewed the “Sea View Cottage” but didn’t book
• Retarget them via Google Ads with a special offer
• Create an automated email sequence for users who checked availability but didn’t book

Results 3 months later

After optimizations:

• Total bookings: +45%
• Acquisition cost: -20%
• Website conversion rate: from 2.1% to 3.4%
• Share of direct bookings: from 35% to 52%

Analyzing your data in GA4

Essential reports to check

1. Acquisition > Traffic acquisition

Frequency: at least weekly

What to look at:

• Top 5 traffic sources
• Week-over-week trends
• Conversion rate by source
• Revenue by source

Action: Identify the most profitable source and invest more there.

2. Engagement > Pages and screens

Frequency: twice a month

What to look at:

• Most visited pages
• Exit rate by page
• Average time per page

Action: If a rental page gets lots of visits but a high exit rate, improve it (photos, description, availability).

3. Monetization > Ecommerce purchases

Frequency: weekly

What to look at:

• Number of bookings
• Average booking value
• Best-selling rentals
• Trends vs previous period

Action: Feature your best-sellers on the homepage.

4. Realtime

Frequency: when launching a campaign

What to look at:

• Immediate traffic spikes
• Pages viewed
• Live conversions

Action: Check that the campaign is driving traffic and that users land on the right page.

Creating custom audiences

In GA4, you can create audiences to segment visitors and retarget them.

Useful audience examples

🎯 Booking abandoners

• Visitors who checked availability but didn’t book
• Use: remarketing on Google Ads or Facebook

🌟 Loyal customers

• Visitors who booked 2+ times
• Use: VIP offers, loyalty program

📍 Visitors from a region

• Traffic from a specific country/region (e.g., Belgium)
• Use: targeted ad campaigns

⏱️ Engaged visitors

• Sessions longer than 5 minutes with 3+ pages viewed
• Use: highly qualified remarketing audience

🏠 Interested in a specific rental

• Visitors who viewed your premium villa
• Use: remarketing with a special offer

Going further with Google Tag Manager

Custom events to configure

GTM lets you track specific actions on your site.

Clicks on a phone number

Why: Measure how many visitors call you directly

How:

1. In GTM, create a trigger “Click on tel: link”
2. Create a GA4 event phone_click
3. Publish

Result: You’ll see in GA4 how many calls your site generates.

PDF brochure downloads

Why: Measure interest in your documents

How:

1. Create a trigger “Click on .pdf link”
2. Create a GA4 event brochure_download
3. Publish

Result: You’ll know which brochures generate the most interest.

Scroll depth to 75%

Why: Know whether visitors read full property descriptions

How:

1. Create a trigger “Scroll 75%”
2. Create a GA4 event scroll_75
3. Publish

Result: You’ll identify which pages are truly engaging.

Marketing pixels to install

GTM makes it easy to install third-party pixels.

Facebook/Meta Pixel

Why: Build Facebook audiences and measure ad conversions

Setup:

1. Retrieve your Facebook Pixel ID
2. In GTM, create a “Facebook Pixel” tag
3. Configure events (PageView, ViewContent, Purchase)
4. Publish

Google Ads Conversion

Why: Precisely track bookings coming from Google Ads

Setup:

1. Retrieve your Google Ads conversion ID
2. In GTM, create a “Google Ads Conversion” tag
3. Set the trigger (confirmation page)
4. Publish

Best practices and tips

✅ What to do

Check your data regularly

• Minimum: once a week
• Ideal: 2–3 times a week
• Best moment: Monday morning to analyze the previous week

Always use UTM

For:

• All paid ads
• Social posts
• Newsletters
• Partnerships

Build a custom dashboard

In GA4, create a dashboard with key KPIs:

• Visitors (vs last week)
• Conversion rate
• Bookings
• Revenue
• Top 3 traffic sources

Set up alerts

In GA4 > Admin > Custom alerts:

• 30% drop in traffic
• 50% drop in conversions
• Unusual traffic spike

Document your campaigns

Keep a file (Google Sheets or Excel) with:

• Launch date
• Campaign name
• UTM URLs
• Budget
• Goal
• Results

❌ What to avoid

Never looking at your data

❌ Installing GA4 and GTM and never checking them = wasted money and time

Constantly changing your UTM conventions

❌ Using “facebook”, then “Facebook”, then “fb” = inconsistent and unusable data

Not testing GTM tags

❌ Publishing tags without Preview mode testing = risk of broken tracking

Using the same GA4 ID on multiple unrelated sites

❌ It mixes all data and makes analysis impossible

Forgetting to publish GTM changes

❌ Tags stay in draft and won’t run on the live site

GDPR compliance and privacy

Rules to follow

Consent widget is mandatory

✅ A cookie consent widget must be installed on your Smily site (usually installed by default)
✅ Visitors must be able to accept or refuse analytics cookies
✅ Tracking must only fire after consent

Privacy policy

✅ Mention Google Analytics in your privacy policy
✅ Explain what data is collected (pageviews, traffic source, etc.)
✅ Explain that visitors can refuse via cookie settings

GA4 configuration

In GA4, go to Admin > Data settings:

• Data retention: choose 14 months (sufficient and GDPR-friendly)
• IP anonymization: enabled automatically by GA4
• Google signals: disable if you want to be extra cautious

User rights

You must be able to respond to requests:

• Right of access: “What data do you have about me?”
• Right to rectification: “Correct my data.”
• Right to erasure: “Delete my data.”

Important note: GA4 automatically anonymizes data. You cannot individually identify a specific visitor in GA4. This helps with GDPR compliance.

Resources to go further

Free training

Google Analytics Academy

Link: analytics.google.com/analytics/academy

Recommended courses:

• Google Analytics for Beginners
• Advanced Google Analytics
• Google Analytics 4 Certification

Length: 2–4h per course
Level: beginner to advanced

Google Analytics YouTube channel

Link: youtube.com/@googleanalytics

Content: short tutorials (5–15 min) on specific features

Official documentation

• Google Analytics 4: support.google.com/analytics
• Google Tag Manager: support.google.com/tagmanager
• Campaign URL Builder: ga-dev-tools.google/campaign-url-builder

Complementary tools

Google Data Studio (Looker Studio)

Use: create beautiful visual reports with your GA4 data
Price: free
Link: lookerstudio.google.com

UTM.io

Use: UTM URL generator + campaign saving
Price: free (paid pro version)
Link: utm.io

Advanced FAQs

How long should I keep GA4 data?

Recommendation: 14 months for GDPR compliance. It’s enough to analyze seasonality (you can compare year over year).

Can I export GA4 data?

Yes. In any report:

1. Click Share (top right)
2. Choose Download file
3. Format: CSV, PDF, or Google Sheets

How do I compare two periods in GA4?

At the top right of each report:

1. Click the date selector
2. Check Compare
3. Select the comparison period
4. Reports will show both periods and % changes

Does GA4 track mobile visitors?

Yes. GA4 tracks all devices (desktop, mobile, tablet). You can filter by device type in Reports > Tech > Overview.

Can I track multiple Smily sites in one GA4 account?

Option 1 (recommended): one GA4 account with one property per site

• Pros: clear, separate data
• Setup: create one property per site

Option 2: one GA4 account with multiple data streams

• Pros: everything in one account
• Cons: you must filter to separate sites

How do I know exactly where my bookings come from?

Go to Monetization > Ecommerce purchases, then:

1. Add a secondary dimension
2. Choose First user source/medium
3. You’ll see the origin of each booking

Are GA4 data 100% accurate?

No—and that’s normal. Expect a 5–10% discrepancy vs internal data due to:

• Ad blockers (AdBlock, etc.)
• Visitors refusing cookies
• Bots and spam

That’s acceptable. What matters is the trend, not absolute precision.

Going even further

Link GA4 to Google Ads

If you use Google Ads:

1. GA4 > Admin > Google Ads links
2. Link your accounts

Benefits:

• See GA4 conversions inside Google Ads
• Create GA4 audiences for remarketing
• Optimize campaigns with GA4 insights

Set conversion events

In GA4, you can mark events as conversions:

1. Admin > Events
2. Click Mark as conversion
3. Enable for: purchase, generate_lead, phone_click, etc.

These will appear in the Conversions report.

Create Explorations reports

Explorations allow custom analysis:

Path: Explore > + (create)

Examples:

• Custom conversion funnel
• Cohort analysis (behavior over time)
• Path exploration (user journeys on your site)

Need help?

For any questions about GA4, GTM, or analyzing your data:

📧 Contact your Account Manager for tailored guidance
🎫 Open a Smily support ticket for technical questions
📚 Read the Smily manual: manual.bookingsync.com
💬 Join the Smily community to exchange with other users

You now have everything you need to fully leverage Smily website tracking and boost your direct bookings! 🚀