You’ve heard the rumblings. You’re aware of the hype. Are you still wondering what Google Analytics 4 is all about and if, when, and how you should migrate? Then you’re in the right place! Inside this guide you will discover why GA4 is making waves in the world of digital marketing.
What is Google Analytics 4?
For nearly 20 years, Google Analytics has been a go-to resource for marketers and business owners. There is no better way to keep abreast of the results of your marketing campaigns.
Technology has progressed tremendously since its launch in 2005. Over time, upgrades led us to the current version known as Universal Analytics (UA). But until the inception of its beta (called Google App+Web), there were still limitations that frustrated users like you.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) promises an exciting new way to track user interactions. However, to solve frequent reporting issues and provide greater insights, major changes have been made. So much so that many regard GA4 as a new product as opposed to just another upgrade.
Universal Analytics vs Google Analytics 4
To simplify the differences between UA vs GA4, let’s use a table to visualise them:
| 🐏 | Universal Analytics properties | Google Analytics 4 properties |
| Reporting | Cumbersome reporting across platforms and devices | Full cross-platform, cross-device, and cross domain reporting |
| Automation | Little automation | Machine learning used to simplify and enrich insight formulation |
| Measurement | Based on sessions | Based on more flexible events |
| Price | Free | Free with free connection to Big Query |
R-A-M-P it up with GA4
Reporting
With the massive prevalence of app usage nowadays, being able to monitor what’s going on across devices, on your related websites, and in your mobile apps is a huge time-saver. Using one Google Analytics 4 property for collated data also simplifies statistical analysis.
What’s more, in GA4 it is way easier to create custom reports and to customise the default reports – allowing you to cover everything that is important to your business. You can see what’s working at a glance and even automate reports.
It’s easier to create cross-dimensional metric reports and include additional reporting visualisations.
Automation
Using the power of Google machine learning makes insights more useful.
As the public gets antsy about sharing their data, so new privacy laws such as GDPR and CCPA are tabled. Looking forward to a time when cookies and other identifying data are forbidden, Google’s use of machine learning and AI will be extremely helpful in tracking anyone visiting your online platforms.
Measurement
Each user interaction is now considered a standalone event – no technical coding or tagging knowledge required. The advantage of events is that you can better track a user’s journey as they move between platforms and devices to consume your content.
Events provide endless ways to track and measure user behaviour. Better insight resulting from flexibility and data granularity leads, in turn, to better-informed decisions.
Price
As with UA, GA4 is free to use. The bonus is that you can now connect to BigQuery for free too. Then you can access GA4 data and run SQL queries on it at no extra charge!
Google Analytics 4 – What Next?
At this point, you may be wondering, “Is GA4 better?” and “Should I switch to Google Analytics4?”
The answers are, “Yes!” and “Hell, yes!” Here’s why:
The new features offered by GA4 provide actionable insights that are more accurate, customisable, and relevant. At the same time, all this valuable data can be gathered without violating any privacy laws.
In fact, Google Analytics 4 must be better, because the old UA will be discontinued at the beginning of July 2023. Moreover, Google has announced that all your historical Universal Analytics data will be deleted in 2023.
Having said that, do not rush to switch away from UA. Rather, set up GA4 as soon as possible, and run it parallel to your existing campaigns. The beauty of this is two-fold:
- It gives you time to get totally comfortable with the new product and its interface.
- GA4 can gather more data for analysis comparison before it becomes your default version. (This is one of the reasons GA4 has been designed to run without conflict in the background.)
Contact Unibit Solutions today. Book an obligation-free consultation to find out more about migrating to this exciting new analytics platform. Just as “we simplify the internet”, we will simplify Google Analytics 4 for you!