How can I measure session/users with the GA4 Measurement Protocol?

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The documentation for the GA4 measurement protocol only describes sending events, and notes that the key events for measuring session duration etc. are reserved (automatically provided by gtag/firebase).

I'm attempting to use the measurement protocol in a .NET desktop environment (not firebase/web/android/ios). Sending events works as expected (they show up on the dashboard), but the user count always shows as zero. Sending a session_started event to the debug endpoint does not pass validation (states that it is a reserved event name).

Is it possible to manually send the events required to track sessions or is there another way to get an accurate user count without using firebase/gtag?

Protocol reference: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/protocol/ga4

google-analytics
1 Answers

You need to include the 'engagement_time_msec' parameter with a value of '1', e.g.:

{
    "client_id": "XXXXXXXXXXXX",
    "timestamp_micros": 1655281222643640,
    "events": [
        {
            "name": "page_view",
            "params": {
                "page_location": "https://test.com",
                "page_title": "Home Page",
                "engagement_time_msec": 1
            }
        }
    ]
}

This was answered here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/71482548/7205473

user_72054730
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