In today’s digital age, having a strong online presence is crucial for any business, but with so many websites out there, it can be difficult to keep track of your website visitors’ behaviour and preferences. That’s where Google Analytics comes in.
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics provides an easy-to-use solution that can help you better understand your website target audience by exploring valuable data insights about your website, such as how your visitors are interacting with your pages, what devices they’re using and other key metrics.
What’s Changing?
You’ll currently be using Universal Analytics (UA) but from1 July 2023 it will stop processing data as Google Analytics 4 (GA4) comes into play.
To ensure seamless functionality of your website tracking, all Analytics users are encouraged to switch to GA4 before July 2023. Doing so will help you preserve your website data history which is vital for continuous monitoring and improvement of your website’s performance.
What is Google Analytics 4 (GA4)?
GA4 is the next generation of Google Analytics, offering you privacy controls, predictive data, direct product links and customisable reports for websites and mobile apps.
With GA4, you can track and analyse your website customers’ experiences in real-time, gain insight into their preferences, and develop strategies to better engage with them.
How GA4 Differs From UA
Universal Analytics (UA) was pre-mobile phone and had less requirement to unify app-based and web-based data. By modern standards UA is considered intrusive with its use of cookies and contravening GDPR data protection standards. Therefore, GA4 brings us Analytics in a cookie-less future, where event-based tracking and AI help to fill the gaps.
GA4 offers new standard reports and customised reporting
What we get with GA4
GA4 improves on Google Analytics capabilities by:
- being built with privacy in mind, including application of a new Consent Mode
- giving you event based tracking (i.e. monitoring interactions from websites and apps as opposed to page views)
- using modelling to plug holes in data using AI predictions (e.g. enhanced insights predictions using machine learning models that can help identify data trends and patterns)
- unifying data types to solve old issues with measurement types, including enhanced integration with Google Ads and Google Cloud
- improving on reporting capabilities, including funnel reports
- allowing you to see the entire customer journey by collecting more comprehensive data about user behaviour across different platforms and devices; and combining app and web data (that UA couldn’t do)
GA4 measures user behaviour with events (instead of sessions and hits). Events measure user interactions that occur on your website or app, such as clicking a button, loading a page or completing a purchase. You can mark your most important events as conversions in GA4 (similar to goals in your original UA property).
Steps to Migrate to GA4
Set up a new GA4 property
Start by creating a new GA4 property in your Google Analytics account. This will allow you to collect data separately from your existing Universal Analytics (UA) property.
To make sure that your important settings are moved over to GA4, track your progress in the Setup Assistant. Do this by selecting the Universal Analytics property that currently collects data for your website, then, in the Property column, click GA4 Setup Assistant and click Get started under ‘I want to create a new Google Analytics 4 property’.
Update your website or app tracking code
You’ll need to update your website or app tracking code to the new GA4 code. This will enable you to start collecting data in your new GA4 property. If you are not already using Google Tag Manager it is worth setting this up, especially if yours is a business running multiple marketing campaigns.
Set up conversion tracking
You will also have the option to move over your goals from UA into GA4 if you have any.
Set up conversion tracking for all the actions you want to track on your website or app, such as form submissions and purchases.
Configure data streams
You can configure data streams to send data to your GA4 property from different sources, such as websites or mobile apps.
Analyse your data
Once you start collecting data in your GA4 property, use the built-in analytics tools to analyse user behaviour and track your business’s performance.
Use both UA and GA4 properties
Consider running both UA and GA4 properties in parallel for a period to ensure a smooth transition and to compare data accuracy. Older data can be accessed from your original property, which will collect data until 1 July 2023. To navigate between your new and old properties, switch the property or account selected at the top of the page.
Final Thoughts
Migrating to the latest version of Google Analytics, GA4, can take time and effort but by doing so you will be providing your business with a variety of long-term benefits that can prove valuable in terms of growing your brand and optimising your online presence.
By embracing this latest iteration of Google Analytics, you’ll be able to gain access to more up-to-date tracking features, as well as more robust and insightful analytics data that can help you better understand your audience, identify key trends, and optimise your digital marketing efforts.
While the initial process of making the switch to GA4 may require some adjustments on your part, we believe that the investment you make now in modernising your analytics infrastructure will pay off in the years to come.
We’re here to help if you need us
If you need any help managing your migration to GA4, contact us on 01908 736 717 or by emailing us at [email protected].