Google Analytics 4: your questions answered

You might have heard that Google Analytics is getting an update. Don’t worry—it won’t come into force any time soon, but since Google Analytics is such an important tool for marketers and business owners alike, you should be prepared for the changes coming. That way, you can take preemptive measures and ensure minimal disruption to your data collection and analysis. Here’s what you need to know.

What is Google Analytics 4 (GA4)?

According to Google: “Google Analytics 4 (formerly known as “App + Web”) is a new kind of property, with different reports than what you're used to seeing in Universal Analytics properties. One advantage of a Google Analytics 4 property is that you can use it for a website, an app, or both a website and app together. Universal Analytics properties only support websites.”

Read Google’s full announcement on the new platform. 

Google stated the reason for the update as “major shifts in consumer behaviour and privacy-driven changes to longtime industry standards” with which the current analytics platform isn’t quite keeping up. 

What are the benefits of GA4? 

As mentioned above, the new update will particularly benefit those running both an app and a website, who want to track everything in a single property. Currently, Universal Analytics properties only support websites, but GA4 will provide users with a much more straightforward experience when carrying out statistical analysis, which will save time and money. 

New benefits include; 

Cookies & user journey insight 

It used to be impossible to move online without seeing or hearing about cookies, but they’re being phased out with the introduction of GDPR laws and privacy regulations, making it increasingly more difficult to track users’ actions on your website. However, GA4 will help towards filling the data gaps left behind by a lack of ‘opting in’ to cookies. 

The new roll-out will also move focus away from sessions and towards user interactions, which will help to give a more accurate picture of the actions that users take as they travel through your site or app. This will also apply when users are moving between devices and platforms, which with the current UA, it’s not possible to do. 

Return on Investment (ROI)

Since GA4 will join together website and app journeys, you’ll be able to make better marketing decisions based on more reliable data for ROI and ad spend. 

Tracking

The new platform will automatically set up a number of actions and events, which means you can track events and conversions without laying a finger on your code. The current Universal Analytics requires you to create and set up a number of tracking elements manually. This new benefit will be an advantage to e-commerce businesses, as although you’ll still be required to implement custom code to track third-party elements, the new rollout will make things a lot easier for basic forms of tracking. 

So, what do you need to do? 

Well, first of all, there’s no need to panic. Google hasn’t announced any plans to shut down Universal Analytics.

However, we do advise that you install GA4 as soon as possible, and run it in conjunction with the current Universal tracking property for at least 12 months. This is because GA4 will be set up as a new property and will need to generate a year’s worth of data in order to be used in the same way as the current GA. 

What you don’t want is to lose any tracking from moving to the new property. Plus, in doing this, you will be more prepared when the switchover is officially rolled out.

Our advice? 

Speak to your developer and get GA4 installed sooner rather than later. But, keep your existing tracking in place until Google advises that Universal Analytics are being retired. 

This article explains why Universal Analytics still has the edge on GA4 in some respects (for the time being). As such, it would be best to keep UA running indefinitely until GA4 has caught up and Google has announced they will be shutting down UA.

For more information, check out the following resources;

GA4 Properties - What’s new in GA4? 

Getting started with Google Analytics 4 properties

If you have any further questions or would like help with your GA4, get in touch with our digital marketing experts today!