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There is just a year left until Google Universal Analytics, also known as GA3, walks out of our lives for good.
The current familiar and trusty version of Google’s web analytics platform will be superseded by Google Analytics 4, which was first released in beta in 2019.
However, this isn’t just a simple UI change, and you need to act now if you want to have historical data you can utilise once Universal Analytics is retired. Your data will not be carried over from UA to GA4, as the platform operates and tracks differently.
If you get your GA4 account set up now, you will have a year’s worth of data to play with by the deadline. The longer you leave it, the less historical data you’ll have. So make this a priority if your analytics data is important to you.
You can keep your current Universal Analytics property when you set up your GA4 property, so don’t worry about losing that immediately. You’ll have that until its retirement.
GA4 is very different, there is no avoiding this fact. It will take some time to adjust to, and with any luck, Google will continue to evolve it to make it more user friendly.
One of the biggest drivers for this wholesale change was the growing concerns around web privacy and 3rd party cookies. As companies central to providing access to the web face greater scrutiny from lawmakers across the globe, the likes of Google and Apple are looking for ways to change how they collect data and phase out third-party cookies, without hamstringing businesses relying on the data and targeting they provide.
The major difference between Universal Analytics and GA4 is how they collect data. Where UA used collected and used session-based data, GA4 collects and uses event-based data. This means that virtually all data you can collect and report on is some kind of event.
Some of these events are standard, like:
Whilst others you will need to custom create. You can have up to 500 events per property.
You will no longer set up goals to track, but instead, conversion events. Nearly any event can be marked as a conversion. You can have up to 30 conversions set up per property.
You can also create custom dimensions and metrics to tailor the platform to your needs.
GA4 can collect both website and app data to give you a more thorough and joined-up understanding of user journeys across platforms. Very useful for businesses with both.
The other most obvious change from a user perspective is the UI design. It’s a big change and not the most intuitive. Particularly for those so accustomed to working in Universal Analytics.
Hopefully, as with previous iterations, Google will invest time in developing the product to make it a more intuitive and accessible experience for marketers of all levels of experience.
If you are in your Analytics account with any regularity, you’ve likely seen this banner.
Some will have jumped to action, and some will have ignored it or compartmentalised it as a job for another day. Others may have just buried their head in the sand hoping it will go away.
The pale blue colour of the banner may not convey the urgency of getting your GA4 account set up if you want to have any historical data to use come next July.
Luckily getting the initial set-up done isn’t too laborious. Implementation of the GA4 site tag can be done by placing the code snippet directly into your website or via Tag Manager. I prefer the latter option.
We have a guide on getting GA4 up and running here. There are also a host of other resources to help you online. For those who prefer video tutorials over written guides, I’d recommend the Analytics Mania Youtube channel.
If it’s all a bit too much for you, reach out to your website partner or marketing agency. They will no doubt have plenty of experience in getting clients’ GA4 properties started.
This is a slightly more involved process, and will depend on what conversions you want to track, and how you want to track them. GA4 does allow you to create very granular events
If you’re pretty handy at setting up custom goal tracking for Universal Analytics, this should be well within your means. But if you tend to outsource this kind of thing, you may need to do the same for this.
As everything is event-based, you will need to replicate the goals you track in Universal Analytics as Conversion Events in GA4. First you’ll create an event, and then you’ll mark it as a conversion for reporting. Most of this can be done in the GA4 interface, but custom events may require additional tagging in Tag Manager.
First, I’d recommend reading Google’s guidance on setting up conversions. They also have a video you can find here to acquaint you with the basics. The real-time dashboard and the debug tool will help you test and debug events and conversions as you create them.
For more information on creating events, conversions, and some of the common mistakes to avoid, here are some useful resources:
E-commerce tracking involves some extra steps. Here are a few resources to help:
With the new UI, metrics and reports, you’re going to want to have a good poke around and explore everything.
You can start editing reports and getting things set up in a way that works for you.
You can use this switch to GA4 as a good opportunity to spring clean and ensure your data hygiene is up to scratch.
Check that your tracking and tags are set up right and not duplicated. I’ve come across many websites running duplicate UA and/or GA4 tags recently. This frequently causes data accuracy problems.
If you’re seeing ridiculously low bounce rate figures in your Universal Analytics property, this could be why.
A big cause of this is people using the Monster Insights plugin, which creates an implementation of your Analytics tags, on top of having Analytic implemented in the more standard ways (direct via the code, or through Tag Manager).
You can easily check the Google tags in use on your website using the Tag Assistant Legacy Chrome extension. You want to look for any tag IDs that are shown multiple times.
When recreating your tracked UA goals as conversion events in GA4, you can use this opportunity to drop any that are no longer in use.
Perhaps you set up a goal for tracking a specific campaign that no longer exists and you forgot to remove it. That’s one less goal you have to recreate, and lets you start in GA4 with a clean slate free of pointless configurations.
Don’t forget to update your cookie policies to include GA4. Although it uses first-party cookies to comply more with GDPR and other similar regulations, it still isn’t 100% compliant, highlighted by recent bans and hearings across Europe.
It is important to mention it in policies for transparency. Even more so if you use Google Ads and other tools which you link your GA4 account with and share data across. You can read more about Google’s Data Privacy here.
If you use a Cookie Consent Management tool which allows you to block tracking cookies until a user consents to their use, you may want to add GA4 to whichever category you include your Universal Analytics in.
For example, if you break your cookies out into categories so users can specify which cookie types they will accept, you could include GA4 in the same category that you include Universal Analytics.
It is wise to keep an eye on the latest updates and changes over on Google’s ‘Analytics Help’ support pages, as it is still being actively developed.
However, if the prospect of GA4 setup and conversion tracking is causing you to break out in a sweat, don’t panic. If you need additional help getting the GA4 tag implemented on your website, or if you need your current UA goals migrating over to be recreated as custom conversion events, we can help.
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