Here’s your overview of Google Analytics 4.
Google Analytics 4: What You Need to Know
Have you been hearing about the new Google Analytics 4?
Are you curious what the update to GA4 means for your business?
In this article, we are giving you an overview of what you need to know, so your business can make better marketing decisions in the future.
But first, a little about the change and when to expect it.
The What and When of Google Analytics 4
On July 1, 2023, Google Analytics 4 will become the default version of Google Analytics, and Universal Analytics will stop processing data. Until then, Google recommends setting up GA4 properties alongside your existing properties. If you create a new property in GA, it automatically defaults to GA4.
Since the update is based on Google’s machine learning and prediction models, it can begin collecting data now to make next year’s transition easier. Your GA properties will already have data and learnings to set you up for success.
What GA4 Can Do for You
Now comes the exciting part.
The GA4 update gives you a means to predict user behavior while upholding user privacy. Marketers will find this super valuable as data modeling and machine learning will fill in the gaps created by privacy settings – giving you access to a single user journey across all platforms and devices.
Truly, this is what marketers have been waiting for, and it comes at a time when third-party data is on its way out.
Here are a few of the benefits you can expect from GA4:
Events-based model: Instead of building reports around sessions like you’ve been used to doing in Universal Analytics, the new version of GA will build data around users and events. This provides you with cross-platform analysis and more capacity for path analysis, helping you see “looping behavior” where customers may be getting stuck in the process.
Life cycle reporting: Now you will be able to analyze how users enter the conversion funnel and how they behave once they are there. You can uncover key insights and trends to guide decisions on targeting and spending.
Analysis Hub: The new hub is an outstanding feature for creating, analyzing, and visualizing specific sets of data to help your team spot trends or anomalies. You can also access a template gallery to create a funnel analysis, path analysis, segment overlap analysis, cohort analysis, and other ways to interpret data and show what it means.
New user snapshot: This feature is super interesting. While viewing the map of active users in the Realtime data, you can click on a single user to view the events triggered along their journey.
Conclusion
While Google Analytics 4 was introduced a couple of years ago, it’s coming into sharp focus now. Businesses should start planning to integrate GA4 properties in Google Analytics to prepare for the switch next year.
Questions?
If you need more information on GA4 or want to discuss adding it to your analytics reporting, simply get in touch. We are Google Analytics certified and are here to make the transition easy on you.
