Reporting URL of downloads in Data Studio when using Google Analytics 4 automatic enhanced measurement events?

Question

I have setup a new Google Analytics 4 property and have enabled enhanced tracking, which records all downloads automatically. When using Google Data Studio, I can see 'file_download' events (so it's definitely working) and use this data to build my report.

I need to create a report that shows which files were downloaded each month for a specific page only. It's really easy to get the total number of downloads which occurred on that page, however, I can't for the life of me find any way to report what the destination URL or file name was.

According to the Analytics support pages, the event has a number of useful parameters (file_extension, file_name, link_classes, link_domain, link_id, link_text, link_url), however, I can't see any related options for these in the Data Studio reports.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. At this point, I'm almost tempted to disable the automatic tracking and do it all manually via Tag Manager again.

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Hi @bakala did you ever find a solution? I have the same question- extremely frustrating as when one clicks Engagement > Events > File_download there is a panel to see multiple parameters for "Events in the Last 30 Mintues" in which you can select file_name, link_url, etc. but the same information doesn't seem accessible for dates or ranges of dates (?) – Larondalarosa

Answer 1

It is possible create reports with the useful parameters. However, you need to register the parameters in Google Analytics first.

To register the customer dimensions, navigate to "All events", click "Manage Custom Definitions", and add custom dimensions for each parameter. This article goes through the details of registering custom dimensions: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10075209?hl=en. In this example, I've registered three dimensions (one for each parameter):

Once the dimensions are registered, Google Analytics will record the dimensions going forward. You should be able to create reports on these dimensions in Data Studio the next day. Here's the example reports:

Kalynkam

To reduce the time, you might want to reduce the time for data freshness with data sources: Menu→ Resource → Manage added data sources → Select GA → Configure refresh rate on top bar. – Thermotaxis