GA4 Content Groups: The Complete Setup Guide

Staring at hundreds of individual page paths in Google Analytics 4 is exhausting. Your “Pages and screens” report quickly turns into a wall of URLs, and when you’re trying to spot trends fast and make smart content decisions, that wall doesn’t help.

That’s the problem GA4 content groups are built to solve.

Content grouping in GA4 lets you bucket your pages into custom categories that match how your business actually thinks. Instead of scrolling through /blog/post-a, /blog/post-b, and /products/item-c one at a time, you can group them into “Blog,” “Products,” and “Services,” and analyze each category as a whole.

The catch? Setting up GA4 content groups requires working in Google Tag Manager, writing regex patterns, and configuring event parameters. It’s not a button you click inside GA4.

If you’re running a WordPress site, it’s worth knowing upfront that there are different paths to getting this kind of structured content visibility. Some WordPress analytics tools surface content performance by type, category, and landing page without any of the GTM configuration. I’ll cover that option before walking through the technical setup.

Either way, this guide gives you everything you need — from the basics of what content groups are, to both setup methods, to where to find the data in your reports.

In This Article:

What Is a GA4 Content Group?

A GA4 content group is a custom label you assign to pages on your website. You define the rules, and Google Analytics attaches the label to every event fired on matching pages, and your reports let you filter and analyze by that label instead of by individual URLs.

Think of it as tagging your content at the analytics level. You decide the categories. You decide the logic. GA4 stores and reports on whatever values you send.

Here’s a simple example. Say you run a shoe store with URLs like /mens-shoes/running, /womens-shoes/hiking, and /blog/how-to-choose-trail-shoes.

Without content groups, you’d compare each page individually. With content groups in place, you could instantly see how “Men’s Shoes,” “Women’s Shoes,” and “Blog” perform as categories, including pageviews, engagement rate, and conversions for each bucket.

According to Google, the content_group parameter is a built-in GA4 dimension that doesn’t need to be registered as a custom dimension, as long as you’re only using one content group.

Why Content Groups Matter for Your Strategy 

Individual page reports are useful for troubleshooting. They’re less useful for strategy.

Content groups move you from page-level noise to category-level insight. When auditing your eCommerce site, you don’t want to compare 200 product pages against each other. You want to know if “Footwear” outperforms “Accessories,” because that’s a decision you can act on.

Here’s what you can do with content groups that you can’t easily do otherwise:

• Analyze categories, not just pages. Engagement time, bounce rate, and conversions become more meaningful when grouped. Comparing “Blog” content versus “Product” content tells you where users spend time and where they convert.
• Build smarter ad audiences. You can use the content_group dimension inside GA4 audience definitions. For example, create an audience of users who visited your “Pricing” group but didn’t convert, and retarget them in Google Ads.
• Simplify explorations. Custom explorations in GA4 get much faster to build and read when you have a content group dimension to work with instead of individual paths.

According to Semrush, websites that regularly analyze and adjust their content strategy see significantly stronger organic traffic growth than those that don’t. Knowing which content types are driving that growth, not just which individual posts, is what makes that analysis actionable.

Limitations to Understand Before You Start 

Before diving into setup, there are three constraints worth knowing.

One built-in group by default. GA4 gives you one native content_group dimension. If you want to categorize content in more than one way, by topic and by content type, for example, you’ll need to use additional parameters registered as custom dimensions.

No retroactive data. This is the biggest gotcha. Your historical reports won’t change. Whatever you set up today starts tracking from that moment forward. For WordPress users especially, this is a reason to get this in place sooner rather than later, configuration errors or delayed setup create permanent gaps in your data.

URL dependency (for the easiest setup method). The most common setup method uses your page paths to assign content groups. If your URL structure ever changes, your regex rules will break silently and stop categorizing correctly. Plugin-based analytics tools that pull content metadata directly from WordPress avoid this problem entirely because your categories don’t depend on URL patterns.

Do You Actually Need GA4 Content Groups?

Content groups are genuinely useful, but they’re not always the right starting point.

You probably need content groups if:

• Your site has a large number of pages across multiple content types (blog posts, product pages, landing pages, documentation)
• You want to compare performance across categories in GA4’s standard reports
• You’re using GA4 Explorations or Looker Studio for advanced analysis
• You want to build remarketing audiences based on content category visits

You may not need them yet if:

• Your site has a small number of pages that are easy to filter manually
• You only need basic traffic and engagement data
• You’re already getting category-level insight from your existing analytics setup

For many WordPress site owners, tools like MonsterInsights already surface post type performance, landing page data, and category-level engagement inside the WordPress dashboard — without any GTM configuration.

If you’re getting the insight you need from that, native GA4 content groups may be optional rather than essential.

That said, if you want the full power of GA4 content groups, available across Explorations, custom reports, Looker Studio, and audience building, the setup below is worth doing.

If You’re on WordPress, There’s an Easier Path 

Setting up GA4 content groups the standard way is pretty technical. It involves creating a Regex Table variable in Google Tag Manager, writing regex patterns, adding event parameters, and much more.

It’s a lot to manage, and it requires ongoing maintenance. What’s more, if a URL pattern breaks, your content groups stop working, and you may not notice right away.

MonsterInsights offers a different approach for WordPress users. Rather than replacing GA4 content groups, it gives you structured content visibility inside your WordPress dashboard.

This includes landing page reports, publisher reports broken down by post type, and a Search Console report.

If you’re a WordPress user who wants content category insights without the GTM overhead, it’s worth exploring MonsterInsights before committing to the full manual setup.

See What MonsterInsights Tracks Out of the Box →

That said, if you need true GA4 content groups, for use in Explorations, custom audiences, or Looker Studio, read on. The setup below covers both methods clearly.

How to Set Up GA4 Content Groups (In 5 Steps)

There’s no way to create content groups inside the GA4 interface. You have to send the content_group parameter to GA4 using an external tool — and Google Tag Manager is the recommended approach.

The most beginner-friendly method uses something called a Regex Table variable, which matches patterns in your page URLs to assign group names. 

That’s what I’ll walk you through below. There’s also a more technically robust method that involves a developer pushing values directly from your CMS. 

If you have a developer available, that approach is more reliable long-term (since it doesn’t depend on URL patterns), but it’s outside the scope of this guide.

This method works by reading your page path — the part of the URL after your domain name — and matching it to a content group name you define.

Step 1: Create a New RegEx Variable in GTM

Once you have your account set up, log in to Google Tag Manager. In the left sidebar, click Variables, then click New under the “User-Defined Variables” section.

Next, click on Variable Configuration and select RegEx Table. This lets you define matching rules based on URL patterns.

After that, you’ll need to set the Input Variable to {{Page Path}}. This tells GTM to look at the URL path (for example, /blog/my-post) when checking your rules — not the full URL or query string.

Step 2: Add Your Regex Rules

Each row has two fields: Pattern (the URL rule) and Output (the group name you want to appear in GA4).

Here’s a simple example for a typical website:

Pattern	Output
/blog/	Blog
/products/	Products
/services/	Services
/about	About

The pattern /blog/ will match any page path that contains /blog/ — so posts like /blog/my-post and /blog/seo-tips both get labeled “Blog” automatically.

I recommend checking the “Ignore Case” box under Advanced Settings so your rules match regardless of capitalization.

It’s also a good idea to uncheck “Full Matches Only,” and uncheck “Enable Capture Groups and Replace Functionality” — leaving those on can cause rules to not fire as expected.

Step 3: Set a Default Value & Save Your Variable

Check “Set Default Value” and type Other. This ensures every page gets a label, so you won’t see “(not set)” in your reports for pages that don’t match any rule.

Give it a clear name like Regex – Content Group and save it.

Step 4: Update Your GA4 Configuration Tag

At this point, you’ll need to go to Tags in GTM and open your existing GA4 configuration tag.

Scroll down to Shared Event Settings and click Add parameter:

• Parameter Name: content_group (must be exactly this — lowercase, no spaces)
• Value: Select the Regex variable you just created (e.g., {{Regex – Content Group}})

Save the tag, then click Submit to publish your GTM container.

Step 5: Verify in GA4 DebugView

Go to GA4 → Admin → Data Display → DebugView while browsing your site with GTM preview mode active. You should see content_group appearing as a parameter on your page_view events, with the correct group name showing next to it.

Once you see it there, you’re set. Data will start populating in your reports within 24 – 48 hours.

GA4 Content Groups vs. Custom Dimensions 

This distinction confuses a lot of people, so it’s worth explaining clearly.

The built-in content_group parameter is a dimension GA4 recognizes natively. You don’t need to register it anywhere. As long as you’re sending the parameter, it shows up automatically in the “Pages and screens” report dropdown. This is the dimension covered throughout this guide.

Additional content group parameters — like content_group2 or content_group3 — are custom. GA4 does not recognize these automatically. 

You must register each one as a custom dimension under Admin → Custom Definitions before it appears in your reports or explorations.

When to use each:

• Use content_group for your primary content taxonomy (for example, Blog vs. Products vs. Landing Pages).
• Use content_group2 (registered as a custom dimension) when you need a secondary layer, such as sub-category or content format.
• Use custom dimensions more broadly when you want to track content metadata that doesn’t fit the page-level grouping model — like author, publication date, or word count — and when you need that data available in Explorations and custom reports.

Scope matters too. The content_group parameter is event-scoped, meaning it’s sent with each event and tied to the page that was viewed at that moment. 

Custom dimensions can be event-scoped or user-scoped depending on what you’re tracking. For content analysis, event scope is almost always what you want.

Where to Find Content Groups in GA4 Reports

Once GA4 has collected some data, you can access your content groups in a few places.

Pages and Screens Report: Go to Reports → Engagement → Pages and screens. Click the dropdown that says “Page path and screen class” at the top of the table and select Content group. Your data is now grouped by the categories you defined.

GA4 Explorations: When building a custom exploration, add “Content group” as a dimension from the left panel and drag it into your rows. You can then analyze any metric — sessions, conversions, revenue — broken down by content group.

Custom Reports: You can build a dedicated report inside GA4’s report builder and pin it to your navigation for quick access.

Looker Studio: The content_group dimension is available as a field in Looker Studio. If you build dashboards for clients or stakeholders, you can pull content group data directly into your reports there.

Best Practices for GA4 Content Groups

Plan before you build. Sketch out your content groups before touching GTM. Think about how your team talks about the site, not just how the URLs are structured. Categories like “Product Pages,” “Lead Gen Pages,” and “Educational Content” map directly to business goals.

Keep groups mutually exclusive. Avoid regex rules where one page could match two groups. The first matching row in your Regex Table wins, so order your rules from most specific to most general.

Always set a default value. Set “Other” as your fallback. Seeing (not set) in your GA4 reports makes data harder to trust.

Audit after URL changes. If you restructure your site’s URLs, update your regex rules immediately. A broken content group silently fills your reports with wrong data — and you may not catch it until weeks later.

Use content groups in Google Ads audiences. This is an underused tactic. Creating remarketing audiences based on content group visits — particularly high-intent pages like pricing or comparison content — can meaningfully improve ad performance without additional tracking setup.

Get Analytics Without the GTM Overhead

If you’ve read through this guide and found yourself thinking “this is more configuration than I want to maintain,” that’s a reasonable reaction.

GA4 content groups are powerful. But the regex-based setup requires ongoing maintenance, carries a risk of silent breakage when URLs change, and requires GTM familiarity that not every WordPress site owner has.

MonsterInsights was built specifically for WordPress users who want meaningful content analytics without becoming GTM experts. 

It connects your WordPress site to Google Analytics in a few clicks, pulls your most important data into a dashboard you can read at a glance.

It also handles a lot of the tracking configuration automatically, including eCommerce tracking, form submissions, link clicks, and more.

If you’re on WordPress and you want to start making better decisions from your content data, without a complicated setup, it’s a practical place to start.

Get Started with MonsterInsights →

Frequently Asked Questions: Content Groups in GA4

That’s it! I hope this article helped you learn about GA4 content groups! If you liked this article, I recommend you check out the following beginner-friendly guides:

• Digital Marketing for Small Business: Start Getting Customers This Week
• Guide to Google Analytics Cookies & Consent in GA4
• Best AI Tools for Digital Marketing: Your Complete Guide

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