We previously reported that you couldn’t edit the default channel groupings in GA4. So if you have custom source names from UTMs, such as “Meta”, this would be grouped as “Unassigned” rather than “Paid Social”.
Well, now you can change that. Kind of. Whilst it’s still impossible to edit the default channel groupings in GA4 you can create a new set of channel groups and customise them as you wish.
To do this, simply go to GA4 and click the settings cog in the bottom left corner.
Click “Data Settings” then “Channel Groups”, once opened click “Create new channel group”. Name your channel group as you wish, and then you can customise and edit the channels freely.
For this example, we will click into “Paid Social” and then select the “Or” argument to add additional conditions.
For this, we will specify to include all traffic where the “Source” contains “Meta”. Once done, save the channel. You can also add completely new custom channels here too.
Finally, save the group. Now you have your own custom set of channel groups alongside the GA4 default.
However, to make this worthwhile you’ll need to change your reports in GA4 to use your newly created channel group. To do this, find the report you want to change, for this example, we’re using the Traffic Acquisition report. Click the edit pencil at the top right, then click the column which uses the default channel group and change it to your newly created channel group. Finally click “Save”, and “Save changes to current report”
If editing a report with multiple graphs, tables or filters you’ll have to switch out the default channel group on each. For more information on how to create and edit your own custom reports in GA4 see our other post linked here.