Creating Predictive Audiences & Forecasting in GA4 – Using Predictive Metrics, Churn Probability & Purchase Probability to Supercharge Remarketing
In today’s data-driven marketing world, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is not just a reporting tool – it is a powerful prediction engine. With its new predictive metrics, GA4 can help marketers better anticipate user behavior, determine churn risks, and provide purchase probabilities.
By leveraging this information, businesses can develop smarter remarketing campaigns that reach the right users at the right time, maximizing the return on advertising spend while minimizing wasted advertising spend!
So, let’s explore how building predictive audiences and forecasting in GA4 is fundamentally changing how brands approach marketing in 2025.
1. What Are Predictive Metrics in GA4?
Predictive metrics are calculations that leverage machine learning technology to forecast future user actions based on historical behavior and engagement. There are three primary predictive metrics in GA4 that marketers should be aware of:
Purchase Probability- The probability a user will complete a purchase in the next seven days
Churn Probability- The probability a user who is actively engaging with your site/app will stop engaging in the next seven days.
Predicted Revenue- The projected revenue anticipated from a user or audience segment over a given time period.
These metrics provides marketers the ability to move away from just reactive analysis (what happened?) towards proactive forecasting (what is likely to happen next?).
2. Why Predictive Audiences Matter
Traditional audience segmentation is based on static attributes — age, gender, location, or device type. Predictive audiences are dynamic and behavior-based, which means they develop automatically based on changing user behavior.
For instance, GA4 can build a predictive audience of users with a high purchase probability—people who will most likely buy in the near future. On the same topic, it can also build an audience of users with a high churn probability—users that are losing interest.
This allows marketers to develop campaigns accordingly:
High purchase users can receive time-sensitive offerings or product recommendations.
High churn users can be targeted with campaigns aimed at retention or re-engagement.
The result: more intelligent targeting, better customer retention, and higher conversion.
3. Creating Predictive Audiences in GA4
Creating predictive audience in GA4 is straight forward once your site has sufficient data. Here is how you can get started:
1. Meet the Data Thresholds: You need a minimum of purchase and engagement data (which is usually a couple hundred conversions in the last 28 day period) for GA4 to train its predictive models to what you want to build.
2. Navigate to the Explore section: Admin → Audiences → New Audience → Predictive
3. Select a Predictive Condition: Choose either “Purchase Probability” or “Churn Probability” as the audience condition.
4. Define Your Audience Rules: For example, an audience of users who have a purchase probability over 80% or churn probability above 70%.
5. Publish and connect to Google Ads: After you’ve made your predictive audience GA4 will automatically connect with Google Ads for remarketing campaigns.
You can then customize ads, messaging and the entire strategy around the users’ estimated behavior which creates a more effective and conversion-centered ad strategy.
4. Leveraging Predictive Forecasting to Enhance Your Strategy
In addition to audience building, GA4’s predictive features also enable you to forecast marketing operations.
By assessing trends in predictive revenue and purchase probability, you can identify which segments will contribute to growth and iterate your campaigns.
Examples include:
Establish seasonal purchase trends and spend your budget early to position yourself prior to peak demand.
Identify customers at risk of churning and proactively start making retention offers.
Determine revenue that can be expected, and shape promotions and content strategies around this.
Predictive forecasting takes the guessing out of marketing and turns it into strategy, allowing you to capitalize on your important resources where the biggest impact is expected.
5. Unlocking Remarketing With Predictive Forecasting
Predictive audiences are tremendously powerful for remarketing.
GA4 allows you to avoid remarketing to everyone that visited your website and only target users that statistically have a higher probability of churning or purchasing.
Examples include:
High purchase probability → Encourage visitors with limited-time offers or see if they’ve abandoned a cart.
High churn probability → Get in front of the customer with personalized retention emails or loyalty program offers.
Medium purchase probability → Extend a small incentive to help them convert.
Focusing remarketing spends on predictive audiences allows you to increase efficiency, lower CPA, and build greater ROI overall.
To conclude,
The predictive audiences in GA4 represent the evolution of smart marketing. They allow for businesses to move beyond basic analytics. No longer asking, “What happened?” Rather, “What will happen next?”
With predictive metrics like purchase probability and churn score, organizations can predict user engagement, improve ad targeting, and form super-charged remarketing campaigns.
In 2025 and beyond, the brands that will thrive will be those that predict, personalize, and perform. Using GA4 and its AI-backed analytics will not only track customers, but leverage analytics that truly understands your next customer!
