GA4 Free-Form Explorations and Segments for Marketers
Build GA4 free-form explorations that answer real marketing questions, with segments, filters and copyable setups for channel and content analysis.
Free-form explorations are GA4's pivot tables: pick dimensions as rows and columns, metrics as values, and add segments to compare groups of users or sessions. They answer the questions standard reports can't, such as "which landing pages convert AI visitors?"
- Techniques include free form, cohort, funnel, segment overlap, user explorer, path and user lifetime.
- Segments can be user, session or event scoped. Choose session scope for channel questions.
- Explorations follow data retention and can be sampled; check the quality indicator.
- Share explorations as read-only; save useful ones with a clear naming prefix.
- Rebuild recurring explorations as Library reports or Looker Studio pages.
Checked 4 November 2026 (CET) against Google Analytics Help and Google developer documentation. GA4 menus and limits change, so confirm in your own property. "Our view" marks MentionX opinion. Ledgerline is a fictional company used for illustration.
01Three explorations worth building
1. AI visitors by landing page
- Technique: Free form
- Segment (session): Session default channel group exactly matches AI Assistant
- Rows: Landing page + query string
- Values: Sessions, Engaged sessions, Key events
- Filter: Sessions > 10 to cut noise
2. Channel × key event matrix
- Rows: Session default channel group (or your custom group)
- Columns: Event name, filtered to your key events
- Values: Event count
3. Content that leads to demos
- Segment (user): users who triggered generate_lead with form_id = demo_request
- Rows: Page title
- Values: Views, Active users
- Compare with a segment of all users to see which pages over-index.
02Segment scope, briefly
| Scope | Includes | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| User | All events from users who met the condition at any point in the date range | Audience questions |
| Session | All events in sessions that met the condition | Channel and landing page questions |
| Event | Only events that met the condition | Event-level counts |
Our view: name explorations as team – question – date, for example seo – ai landing pages – 2026-11. Unnamed "Untitled exploration" lists are where good analysis goes to die.
If you would rather analyse the exported table with an assistant, see Claude for CSV analysis of GA4 and Ads data and lesson 19.
Next: Funnel and path explorations. Or return to the GA4 for Marketers track.
03Common questions
What explorations does GA4 offer? Free form, cohort, funnel, segment overlap, user explorer, path and user lifetime. Free form is the one marketers use most.
Why is my exploration missing older data? Explorations respect your data retention setting. On 2 months, older data is missing. Set retention to 14 months (lesson 2).
Are explorations shared? Explorations are private by default. You can share a read-only version with others on the property.
Questions people ask
3 answersWhat explorations does GA4 offer?
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Free form, cohort, funnel, segment overlap, user explorer, path and user lifetime. Free form is the one marketers use most.
Why is my exploration missing older data?
+
Explorations respect your data retention setting. On 2 months, older data is missing. Set retention to 14 months (lesson 2).
Are explorations shared?
+
Explorations are private by default. You can share a read-only version with others on the property.
Sources
- Google Analytics Help, Get started with Explorationssupport.google.com
- Google Analytics Help, Data retentionsupport.google.com
- Google Analytics Help, About data samplingsupport.google.com
- All accessed 4 Nov 2026.