What is the first setup required to start gathering insights for a website in Google Analytics?

To start gathering insights for a website in Google Analytics, implementing the analytics tag is the critical first step. The analytics tag is a piece of code that you integrate into your website, which enables Google Analytics to collect data about user interactions and behaviors on that site. Once the analytics tag is properly installed, it begins tracking essential metrics such as page views, sessions, and user demographics, laying the groundwork for all subsequent analysis.

Until the analytics tag is in place, no data can be captured, meaning that any further configuration or setup—like event tracking, custom dimensions, or data filters—would be ineffective, as there wouldn’t be any data to manipulate or analyze. Therefore, placing the analytics tag on your website is essential for anything else to happen in Google Analytics.