How to Create a Utilization Report in Google Analytics

Want to know which parts of your website your visitors are actually using and which ones they're ignoring completely? That essential feedback is exactly what a utilization report provides. This article will show you how to build a powerful utilization report inside Google Analytics 4, allowing you to see what content engages users, which features they interact with, and where they are getting the most value.

Understanding Website Utilization Reports

First things first: Google Analytics doesn't have a specific report labeled "Utilization Report." It's not a pre-built template you can just click on. Instead, it's a concept - a way of analyzing data to answer one critical question: "What are my users doing and where are they spending their time?"

Creating one involves pulling data from a few different places to build a complete picture of user engagement. A well-built utilization report helps you answer questions like:

Which pages or blog posts are getting the most meaningful attention (and which are getting none)?
Are people actually clicking on that new "Request a Demo" button we launched?
Do users from our email campaigns interact with the site differently than users from paid ads?
Which key product features are being underused or overlooked?

By answering these questions, you move beyond simple traffic metrics (like page views) and start understanding user behavior. This knowledge allows you to improve your website's navigation, optimize content for engagement, and double down on the features that actually drive results.

Creating A Utilization Report in Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 is built around events and user engagement, which makes it perfect for creating a utilization report. We will use a combination of standard reports and the powerful "Explore" section to piece together our analysis. Let's break it down into three key areas: content utilization, feature utilization, and building a custom dashboard.

1. Analyze Page and Content Utilization

The simplest way to start is by seeing which pages your users are spending their time on. This is the foundation of your utilization report.

How to build the report:

From your GA4 property, navigate to Reports on the left-hand menu.
Under the Life cycle section, click on Engagement and then select the Pages and screens report.

This report gives you an immediate overview of your most popular content. By default, it's sorted by "Views," but the real insights come from digging into the other metrics:

Views: The total number of times a page was seen. Good for identifying your most visible content.
Users: The number of unique users who viewed a page. A page with many views but few users means people are visiting it repeatedly.
Average engagement time: This is a crucial metric for utilization. It shows you how long, on average, your webpage was the primary focus in a user's browser. A high engagement time is a strong signal that your content is valuable and holding attention.
Event count: This tallies all the events that occurred on a particular page.
Conversions: If you've set up conversion events, this column shows which pages are most successful at driving key actions.

Reading the results: Look for patterns. A page with high views but a very low average engagement time might have a catchy title but fail to deliver on its promise. On the other hand, a page with fewer views but an incredibly high engagement time and several conversions is likely a high-value asset that you should promote more heavily.

Pro Tip: Click the small blue "+" icon above the table to add a secondary dimension. Choose Traffic source > Session source / medium. Now you can see not just which pages are popular, but how users from different channels (e.g., google / organic, facebook / cpc) engage with that content differently.

2. Track Feature Utilization with Event Reports

Modern websites aren't just static pages, they're full of interactive features like download buttons, video players, sign-up forms, and dropdown menus. To understand if these features are being utilized, you need to track them as events in GA4.

GA4 automatically tracks some key events for you through its "Enhanced measurement" feature, including:

Clicks: Clicks on any outbound links.
Scrolls: When a user scrolls 90% of the way down a page.
File downloads: When a user clicks a link that leads to a common file type (PDF, docx, etc.).

For more specific features - like a newsletter signup button or a specific product "Add to Cart" click - you will likely need to set up custom events. This is typically done through Google Tag Manager, which lets you tell GA4 exactly what to track.

How to find the report:

Go to Reports > Engagement > Events
This will show you a list of every event being tracked on your site, sorted by its count.

This report is your go-to for feature utilization. Are people clicking generate_report more than view_tutorial? Is the newsletter_signup event count much lower than you expected? These insights tell you which features attract user interaction and which might need a design or placement change.

To go a level deeper, click on any event name in the report. For example, if you click on the "click" event, GA4 can often show you more context about those clicks, such as the link_url, telling you exactly which external links are being clicked the most.

3. Build a Custom Utilization Dashboard using "Explore"

The standard reports are excellent for quick insights, but the true power of GA4 lies in the Explore section. Here, you can combine dimensions and metrics from different reports to build a single, comprehensive utilization dashboard.

Let's build a free-form exploration that shows us which events are happening on our most popular pages.

Follow these steps:

Click on Explore in the left-hand navigation and select Blank a new exploration.
Name your exploration something clear, like "Page & Event Utilization Report."
In the Variables column on the left, import the dimensions and metrics you want to use:
- Click the "+" next to Dimensions. Search for and import a few essentials: Page path and screen class, Event name, Session source / medium, and Device category. Then click Import.
- Click the "+" next to Metrics. Search for and import Views, Total users, Event count, and Conversions. Then click Import.
Now, drag and drop the dimensions and metrics from the Variables panel into the Tab Settings panel to build your report:
- Drag Page path and screen class into the Rows field.
- Drag Event name into the Columns field.
- Drag Event Count into the Values field.

What you've just created is a powerful pivot table showing exactly which events occur on which pages. You can quickly see that your /pricing page had dozens of demo_request_click events, while your blog posts mostly generated scroll and file_download events. This is utilization at its clearest - connecting user location (the page) with user action (the event).

From here, you can continue to slice and dice your data. Try swapping Event name in the Columns field with Device category to see if mobile users are utilizing your pages differently than desktop users. This customization is what turns raw data into actionable business intelligence.

Tips for Interpreting Your Utilization Data

Building the report is only half the battle. The next step is interpreting the data to make improvements. Here are a few things to look for:

Disconnects between traffic and utilization: Is your most visited page also the source of your most important events (like form submissions)? If not, why? Maybe you need a clearer call-to-action on that high-traffic page.
Underperforming content and features: Use your report to find important pages or key features with little to no engagement. These might indicate a problem with discoverability - perhaps users simply can't find them. This could be solved with better internal linking or a clearer navigation bar.
Segment your insights: Avoid looking at your users as one monolithic group. Add Session source / medium or User first-touch channel to your reports to see if users from paid channels behave differently than those from organic search. Maybe one group heavily utilizes your blog content while the other goes straight to your product pages.

Final Thoughts

Creating a utilization report in Google Analytics is about moving past surface-level metrics to understand true user behavior. By combining data on popular pages, feature interactions, and conversion events, you can build a detailed map of how people navigate your site, which helps you make smarter decisions about what to build, what to promote, and what to improve.

At Graphed, we aim to eliminate the manual work of building these kinds of reports. Instead of clicking through different GA4 sections and assembling custom explorations, our tool allows you to use simple, natural language. You can just ask a question like, "Show me my top 10 pages and the number of newsletter signups on each," and get a real-time, shareable dashboard in seconds. We connect your data sources so you can get straight from question to insight, without a single manual report build slowing you down.