GA4 Custom Reports: What Replaced Them and How to Use Both.

GA4 does not have "Custom Reports" in the way Universal Analytics did. If you have upgraded from UA and are searching the GA4 interface for a "Custom Reports" section, you will not find one — Google removed the concept entirely when they rebuilt the platform. What used to live under the Custom Reports tab in UA has been replaced by two completely different tools that serve different purposes: customized standard reports (modified through the Reports Library) and Explorations (a dedicated analyst workspace). They look different, work differently, and are designed for different audiences.

Most of the confusion around this comes from the fact that Google renamed, reorganized, and moved these features multiple times between GA4's early releases and the current interface. This guide explains what the two systems actually are, when to use each one, and how to get the most out of both.

The Two Types of GA4 Custom Reporting

Before going deeper into either tool, it is worth understanding the fundamental split. In Universal Analytics, Custom Reports were a way to reconfigure the standard interface — pick different dimensions and metrics, arrange them in tabs, and save the result. That model is gone. GA4 separates persistent, shareable reporting from ad-hoc analysis into two distinct systems.

Custom Report Templates (Modifying Standard Reports)

The first system is the ability to modify the standard reports that appear in the Reports section of GA4. Every standard report in GA4 — the Traffic Acquisition report, the Landing Page report, the Pages and Screens report — has an editable configuration. You can open that configuration through the pencil (Edit report) icon in the top right of any standard report, add or remove dimensions and metrics, and save the result. The modified report then becomes the default view for that report within your property.

These modifications are saved per-property. Any editor or administrator of the property will see your changes when they open that report. This is the mechanism that most closely replaces what UA called Custom Reports — it is persistent, it lives in the main Reports interface, and it produces the kind of consistent dashboard-style views that non-analysts expect to find when they open GA4.

The main limitation of this system is that it is still constrained by the structure of the underlying standard report. You cannot add arbitrary segmentation, compare user cohorts, or change the fundamental unit of analysis. The reports remain organized around sessions and users, and the customization options are limited to swapping out which dimensions and metrics are displayed. For anything more analytical, you need Explorations.

Explorations (Ad-Hoc Analysis)

Explorations are the real analyst tool in GA4. They live in their own section of the left navigation, separate from Reports, and they give you a query-building workspace where you can choose dimensions, metrics, segments, and filters from scratch. There are five exploration types — free-form, funnel, path, segment overlap, user — each suited to a different kind of analytical question.

Explorations are not subject to the same structural constraints as standard reports. You can segment users by any behavioral criterion, combine dimensions that standard reports would never pair, and run the kind of multi-step funnel analysis that is effectively impossible in the Reports section. They are also the only tool in GA4 that lets you run analysis at the individual user level.

The trade-offs are worth knowing upfront. Explorations are subject to the property's data retention setting — if your retention is set to two months (the default), your explorations will only return two months of data. Standard reports draw from aggregated tables and are unaffected by retention. Explorations are also less shareable: you can share an exploration with other users of the property, but the recipient gets their own copy rather than a live-updating shared view. For reporting that stakeholders will return to regularly, modified standard reports are a better fit.

Customizing Standard Reports in GA4

The workflow for customizing a standard report is straightforward but not obvious if you have not done it before. Every standard report in GA4 shows an Edit report button (the pencil icon) in the top-right corner, next to the calendar and search filters. Clicking it opens a configuration panel on the right side of the screen.

How to Add Dimensions to a Standard Report

In the report editor panel, find the Dimensions section and click the blue "Add dimension" link. A search field opens where you can browse or search the available dimensions. Select the dimension you want to add and it will be added to the report. You can drag and drop dimensions to reorder them. The first dimension in the list is the primary breakdown displayed in the leftmost column of the report table.

There is a critical prerequisite for using custom dimensions in reports: they must be registered in the GA4 Admin interface first. If you are collecting a custom event parameter — for example, a content_group parameter that categorizes your articles by topic — that parameter does not automatically appear as a selectable dimension. You need to go to Admin → Data display → Custom definitions, create a custom dimension for that parameter, and wait up to 24 hours for it to populate before it becomes available in the report editor. This requirement catches a lot of teams off guard because the parameter shows up in DebugView and in Explorations (where raw events are accessible) but not in standard reports until it is explicitly registered.

How to Add Metrics to a Standard Report

The Metrics section in the report editor works the same way as Dimensions — click "Add metric," search for what you want, and select it. GA4 has a reasonably large set of pre-built metrics covering sessions, users, engagement, conversions, revenue, and more. Conversion metrics appear for each key event you have registered in the property, so if you have a purchase key event and a generate_lead key event, both will appear as separate metrics you can add to any report.

One common workflow is adding a conversion metric to the Landing Page report so you can see which landing pages are driving the most conversions in a single view, without needing to cross-reference separate reports. This is one of the more useful customizations for marketing teams.

The Reports Library

The Reports Library is a separate management layer that controls which report categories appear in your left navigation. Access it by going to Reports and clicking "Library" in the bottom of the left navigation panel (it is only visible to users with editor or administrator access).

In the Library, you can see all report collections — both Google's pre-built collections and any custom ones you or your team have created. You can show or hide entire collections from the left navigation using the three-dot menu next to each collection. You can also create new report collections that group custom reports together, which is useful when you want to organize reports by team or business unit. A custom report collection you create will appear as its own section in the left navigation for all users of the property.

Note that the Library does not let you create entirely new report types from scratch — it manages collections and the visibility of existing reports. For genuinely custom queries, you still need Explorations or a tool like Looker Studio.

Creating a Custom Funnel Report

Funnel analysis is one of the most requested use cases for custom reporting, and in GA4 it lives entirely in Explorations rather than the standard reports. To create a funnel exploration, go to Explore in the left navigation, click the template gallery, and select Funnel exploration — or start from a blank exploration and switch the technique to Funnel in the left panel.

Closed vs. Open Funnels

GA4's funnel exploration has a toggle that controls whether the funnel is open or closed. A closed funnel requires users to complete steps in exact order and does not count a user at step 3 if they never triggered step 2. An open funnel counts users at any step they reach regardless of whether they completed earlier steps. Most conversion funnels — checkout flows, signup flows, onboarding sequences — should be closed funnels. Content engagement funnels where users might enter mid-sequence are usually better as open funnels.

Each step in a funnel is defined by an event condition or a combination of conditions. You can filter steps to specific page URLs, require specific event parameters to have particular values, or combine multiple conditions with AND/OR logic. The steps update the funnel visualization immediately as you configure them, which makes it straightforward to iterate on step definitions until the funnel reflects the actual user flow.

How to Save and Re-Open a Funnel Exploration

Explorations save automatically as you work. They appear in the Explore section under "Your explorations" and persist across sessions. To share a funnel with another user of the property, use the share icon in the top-right of the exploration. The recipient will receive their own copy of the exploration, which they can edit independently. Changes you make after sharing do not propagate to their copy.

If you need a funnel that refreshes automatically and can be viewed by non-analyst stakeholders without navigating the Explore section, the better approach is to connect GA4 to Looker Studio and build the funnel there. Looker Studio reports are shareable via URL, refresh on a schedule, and do not require the viewer to have GA4 editor access.

Common Custom Report Use Cases

Landing Page Performance with Conversion Rate

The standard Landing Page report in GA4 shows sessions and engagement rate but does not show conversion counts by default. To add conversion data, open the Landing Page report, click the pencil icon to enter edit mode, go to the Metrics section, and add the conversion metric that is relevant to your business (for example, "Purchases" or the name of your registered key event). Save the report and it will persist for all property users.

If you want to see conversion rate as a calculated column rather than just raw counts, you will need Explorations or Looker Studio. Standard report metrics are pre-built; you cannot define a custom calculated metric directly in the report editor.

Content Performance by Topic

If you collect a content group parameter with your GA4 events — a custom parameter that tags each page view with a category like "product reviews," "tutorials," or "news" — you can add this as a custom dimension to the Pages and Screens report and get a breakdown of traffic and engagement by content category. The prerequisite is registering the parameter as a custom dimension in GA4 Admin first, as described above.

Once registered and populated (allow 24 to 48 hours after implementation before the data appears), go to Reports → Engagement → Pages and Screens, enter edit mode, and add your content group custom dimension alongside or in place of the default Page path dimension. This produces a report that shows engagement metrics grouped by content topic, which is significantly more useful for editorial teams than page-by-page breakdowns.

Traffic by Channel and Device Breakdown

The Traffic Acquisition report shows sessions by channel by default. To add a device category breakdown, open the report in edit mode and add "Device category" as a secondary dimension. This lets you see, within the same report, how mobile vs. desktop vs. tablet users are distributed across your acquisition channels. This is a common request from media teams who want to understand whether their mobile-heavy paid social traffic is behaving differently from their desktop organic search traffic.

For more complex segmentation — for example, comparing the behavior of mobile users from paid channels against mobile users from organic — you need Explorations. Standard reports support a secondary dimension, but they do not support multi-segment comparison in the same view. A free-form exploration with segments for "mobile + paid" and "mobile + organic" as separate columns will give you that comparison directly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does GA4 have custom reports?

Not in the UA sense. GA4 replaced the old Custom Reports with two systems: the ability to modify standard reports through the report editor (pencil icon), and Explorations for ad-hoc analysis. There is no section called "Custom Reports" in GA4. If you need a persistent, stakeholder-friendly view with custom dimensions and metrics, customize a standard report. If you need analytical queries, segments, or funnel analysis, use Explorations.

Where did UA Custom Reports go in GA4?

UA Custom Reports did not migrate to GA4. Google did not provide an import path, and the feature set was rebuilt from the ground up. The closest equivalent to a UA Custom Report that used multiple dimensions and metrics in a flat table view is a free-form Exploration in GA4. The closest equivalent to a UA Custom Report used as a persistent executive dashboard is a modified standard report saved via the report editor, or a Looker Studio report connected to the GA4 property.

How do I create a custom report in GA4?

There are two paths. To create a modified version of an existing standard report, go to any report under the Reports section, click the pencil (Edit report) icon in the top right, add or remove dimensions and metrics in the editor panel, and click Save. To create an ad-hoc analytical report with full flexibility, go to Explore in the left navigation, select a template or start blank, and configure your dimensions, metrics, segments, and filters.

What is the difference between GA4 Explorations and custom reports?

Modified standard reports (sometimes called custom reports in the GA4 documentation) are persistent views built on top of GA4's pre-structured report framework. They are permanent, visible to all property users, and suited for recurring stakeholder reporting. Explorations are an analyst workspace where you build queries from scratch. They are more powerful — they support segments, funnels, user-level analysis — but they are not designed as shareable live dashboards. If you need the output to auto-refresh for non-analyst stakeholders, use Looker Studio.

Can I add custom dimensions to GA4 reports?

Yes, but only after registering them. Go to Admin → Data display → Custom definitions, create a custom dimension for the event parameter you want to report on, and wait 24 to 48 hours for historical data to backfill (new data populates immediately after registration). Once registered, the custom dimension will appear in the report editor when you click "Add dimension," and also in the Explorations dimension selector. Unregistered event parameters are visible in DebugView and raw Explorations queries but not in the standard report editor.

How do I save a custom report in GA4?

Modified standard reports save automatically when you click the Save button in the report editor. Explorations save automatically as you work — there is no manual save step. Both are tied to the property and persist across sessions. If you want to export a report snapshot rather than keep a live version, standard reports have a download option (the download icon) that exports to CSV or PDF. Explorations also have an export option that downloads the current result set as a CSV.

Can I export GA4 reports to Looker Studio?

Yes. GA4 has a native Looker Studio connector available from any standard report via the "Share" menu (the share icon → "Share in Looker Studio"). This creates a Looker Studio report pre-connected to your GA4 property. Alternatively, you can open Looker Studio directly and add GA4 as a data source using the Google Analytics connector. Looker Studio reports built on GA4 data refresh on a schedule, support calculated fields that GA4's native interface does not, and can be shared with anyone who has the link without requiring them to have GA4 property access.

Why can't I find a metric in GA4 reports?

There are several reasons a metric might not appear in the report editor. Custom event parameters only become available as dimensions or metrics after they are registered as custom definitions — if you have not registered them, they will not show up. Some metrics are only available in Explorations and not in standard reports. If you are looking for a calculated metric (such as conversion rate as a percentage), that is not a native feature of the standard report editor — you need Explorations or Looker Studio's calculated field functionality. Finally, some metrics are scoped at the session or user level and may not be compatible with the dimensional scope of the report you are editing; GA4 will grey them out or exclude them from the selector in those cases.