The current version of Google Analytics, software used for data collection and web traffic analysis, will be discontinued next year. And there will be no data migration to the new version, so Google Analytics 4 will need to be set from scratch. Understand better what to do and how to prepare yourself in this article.
Contents
Toggle- What is Google Analytics 4?
- How Google Describes Google Analytics 4
- Google Analytics Highlights 4
- New GA4 resources
- Starting with Google Analytics 4
- How to configure Google Analytics 4
- What are the differences between Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4?
- Conclusion
The report tool of Google Analytics it is widely used by millions of companies and websites to track user interaction in web domains, mobile apps and offline APIs.
For most companies and marketers, this is a platform that helps them track the amount of web traffic they receive, monitor visits, acquisitions, important marketing channels, and compare performance metrics.
With Google Analytics 4, the search giant offers a very different new version of traditional Analytics also known as “universal” (Universal Analytics).
The new Google Analytics 4 comes with several important features that make it very different from the old version. One of them, perhaps the most interesting, is Artificial Intelligence (IA), a new data modeling feature to fill gaps in data where traditional Analytics can be blocked by rules of consent to cookies, blocked JavaScript, and focus on privacy.
In addition, the user interface to the new Google Analytics standard is very different. I've prepared a list of some of the most important changes you need to know about!
See also:
- Gastronomy and Culture: A Meeting That Transcends Tastes
- Nationalvox is honored by ALESC for its 20 years of innovation in digital marketing
- NVX 20 years: A history of innovation, partnership and success in digital
- Digital Transformation in Cuiabá Companies: Benefits and Challenges
- Social media trends for 2024: platforms that are shaping digital marketing
- The Power of Google Evaluations: How to Improve Your Business’s Reputation
- 7 content to convert to funnel fund with real estate marketing
- Enhance your sales with the power of WhatsApp Marketing
- The new era of email marketing: how to stand out in the inbox
- CRM for real estate and construction companies: boosting sales and loyalty to customers
- Does organic reach still make sense in digital marketing?
How Google Describes Google Analytics 4
The goal of the new Google Analytics is a next-generation approach to tracking “privacy first”, channel x measurement, and AI-based predictive data at once.
By applying advanced machine learning models from Google, Analytics 4 can fill in data on site traffic and user behavior without relying on “hits” coming from all pages.
This new version was developed on the same platform for the “App + Web” system released in 2019. The Analytics App+Web version was focused mainly on cross-channel data, which brought a way to track users in applications, software, and website.
This means that your main goal is to change the way data is shown to focus on users and user journey from the first visit to the final conversion.
For Google, GA4 has everything to do with “events”. These events are the main way to present data in the new Google Analytics.
Finally, machine learning processing in this new Analytics means that you can fill gaps where companies cannot understand your full customer base because of users who choose not to use cookies and data collection.
Internet users and even internet browsing software are becoming increasingly resistant to allowing Analytics to track sessions or return users using cookies, for example. Firefox has changed to block Analytics and many websites are starting to use visitor consent to set their Analytics tracking .
The need for a Google Analytics 4 is largely pressed by new privacy protection laws, such as LGPD and the reduction of the stability of traditional analytics. Who uses Universal Google Analytics today has problems with inaccurate or missing data due to the consent options of cookies required by these laws.
Google Analytics Highlights 4- Machine learning is the main way to measure data, using “modeling” that can extrapolate from existing data and make assumptions about the user’s website/behavior traffic. The new artificial intelligence insights feature is intended to automatically highlight useful information for marketers.
- Focused on providing a more complete understanding of the customer journey on all devices. And it seems to be more focused on measuring a end-to-end purchase journey, and not just individual metrics on devices, pages or even segments.
- It is designed to be future-proof and run in a world without cookies or identification data.
- Google Analytics 4 presents “data flows” instead of the views and segments used by the old Universal Analytics properties.
- There is no GA4 “view” level section. While Universal Analytics has three levels (account, property and property view), GA4 has only account and property levels.
- While “event monitoring” in Classic Analytics required modified Analytics code or gtag.js script, Google Analytics 4 will allow editing, tracking and fine-tuning of events in the user interface. This means interactions like clicks, page scrolling and more.
The new version of Analytics will allow marketers to edit, correct and adjust the way events are tracked in their analytics without editing the code on site.
Data import has now been expanded and may include a wide variety of data from sources that are not from the site (such as applications, for example), all in one property.
An item that will impact some businesses: tracking multiple domains that also do not require code adjustments can be done on the user interface.
The so-called “Life Cycle Report” that seems to be one of the biggest changes in Analytics will focus on the user’s journey. In addition, “model reports for e-commerce funnels” offer a way to display and view data, and this feature was previously available only in Analytics 360 accounts.
Starting with Google Analytics 4To get acquainted with this new version of Google Analytics, access here a Google videoshowing the new interface.
You can already configure a new property in the existing Google Analytics account and click on the new version on your own.
Google teaches you how to set up a Google Analytics 4 property with a universal version of gtag.js tracking or a Google Tag Manager (GTM) account.
There is also a small step by step of the interface. Information on how to manage accounts and properties and a lot of information on how to manage the Admin section. Just search or access on the Google Analytics channel.
How to configure Google Analytics 4Ready for action? There are some ways to set up a new Google Analytics property for your website. You can configure a property of this new version (formerly known as App+Web property) in the Domain section of your existing accounts.
Look at how:
- Sign in to the Google Analytics account with the existing property of your website.
- Navigate to Admin section.
- In the Account column, select the account in which you want to create the property.
- In the Property column, select the desired Universal Analytics property for your website.
- If the option is available, users can select “Update to GA4” and follow the instructions. But in some cases this button may not be available. In this case, select “Create Property” and follow the steps to create a new property for “Web + App”, by default that will lead to a new property of Google Analytics 4.
Once this step is completed, you will already have access to a new version of GA4. But the configuration process is not yet complete. Some other steps are needed before data starts to appear on the Google Analytics 4.
This is a very important one: To enable data collection, there are 2 main ways: connecting existing tracking data from your traditional Analytics or essentially starting with new tags that you can add to your website in the same way as tags are added to older versions of Analytics. If your site uses the gtag.js tag, you will have the option to enable data collection using your existing tags.
On the property of GA4, you can add “Data flows” by selecting Data streams in the property column of the Admin area. Then select “Add Flow” for the type of data you want to track (by default, most select “Web” for the site).
Then type the correct domain, name it, and click “Create Flow”. The area “Markup instruction” here is important to ensure that you are correctly connecting tracking information to a new Google Analytics 4 property.
What are the differences between Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4?It's the user interface. Do not expect to find many of the old standard reports and even some features that are also used. Traditional Analytics features three layers of data organization (Account > Property > Display), but now there are only two: Account and Property.
There are also many differences in data collection among the properties of Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4, mainly in how data is defined and which data elements are called.
Check out an introduction to the concepts in GA4:
- Events: are user interactions with a website or application, such as page views, button clicks, user actions etc. Unlike before, events do not require adding custom code to Google Analytics tracking code on the site, some events are measured by default.
- Parameters: additional bits of information that give context to each event. As an example, parameters can be used to describe the value of a purchase or to provide context about where, how and why the event was registered. These may include page titles, article IDs, etc.
- User property: attributes or demographic information about the user.
- User ID: which is used for tracking users on multiple platforms.
As you have accompanied here, for the user changes everything.
When migration happens for real, many will have doubts about how to use, get certain information and what conclusions to draw from the numbers, graphs and other data.
We're definitely gonna have to go through a learning phase.
But, taking into account Google's history of the tools it has produced, the learning acquired over the years, the investments made and the dependence it has for perpetuating its own business model, it is expected to be even more complete and powerful than the current Analytics.
So if you run any sites and use Analytics, get ready, because by 2023 Google Analytics 4 will arrive and along with important changes.
