On July 1, 2023, Google Analytics will sunset Universal Analytics (UA) and migrate to its successor, GA4 (web+app properties). If you’re using UA for your tracking, this is a big change.
UA was built for a generation of online measurement that was anchored in the desktop web, independent sessions and more easily observable data from cookies. Meanwhile, Google Analytics 4 operates across platforms, does not rely exclusively on cookies and uses an event-based data model to deliver user-centric measurement.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest version of Google’s popular analytics platform, replacing Universal Analytics as of July 2022. It is designed to give marketers a more complete understanding of their audience, including how to best engage, monetize and retain them.
While it has a lot of exciting new features and data insights, it can also be overwhelming to learn. Fortunately, Google has made it easy to get started with GA4 by providing an extensive guide and several videos to help you familiarize yourself with the platform.
A Google Analytics property is the place where all of your website or app data gets processed by Google Analytics. You can set up one property for each website, or you can create a test property to get an idea of how it will work.
When you first sign into the account, it will ask you if you’d like to create a new property. Click the option and follow the prompts.
You can connect up to 50 data streams to a single GA4 property. Each stream can be a combination of web and app data, but you cannot connect more than 30 app data streams per property.
There are some major changes that come with GA4. For example, the ‘view’ level in Universal Analytics has been replaced by ‘data streams.’ In GA4, ‘views’ still count repeat views of the same page, but ‘data streams’ are used to track data from multiple sources.
In addition, GA4 uses ‘events’ as the primary measurement model instead of the’session+pageviews’ centric model that has been in Universal Analytics. This allows you to track user activity as events such as page views, scrolls, outbound clicks, site search, video engagement and file downloads.
It also uses a ‘lifecycle’ model, condensing data more neatly into the key areas of acquisition, engagement, monetisation and retention. This makes it easier to understand the different stages of your users’ journey and help you to target them better.
If you are ready to transition to GA4, make sure you take the time to learn all of the new layout, features, integrations, tracking, metrics, and reporting. You don’t want to get too far ahead of yourself and find that your reports and dashboards don’t work the way you want them to.
Google Analytics 360 (GA360)
Google Analytics 360 (GA360) is the paid-for version of Google Analytics, offering a suite of enterprise data analytics capabilities. This tool can be a game changer for organizations looking to increase their digital marketing efficiency and optimize their ad spend using data science and machine learning techniques.
It also offers more advanced reporting capabilities than the standard version. For example, GA360 offers unlimited exports of raw, unsampled data to BigQuery, which is a significant improvement over the limited amount of data exports offered in the standard version.
In addition, GA360 gives you access to BigQuery-level hit-scoped data, which can be a great foundation for data science and machine learning applications. This multi-column, hit-scoped data is not available in the free version of GA and is a powerful tool for marketers.
Another key feature of Google Analytics 360 is its support team. This team is dedicated to helping customers manage their analytics data, reports, attribution and BigQuery exports. This team is available via email and chat with SLAs of 48 and 24 hours, so you can always get the help you need.
The ability to customize your reports is another big advantage of Google Analytics 360. You can add branding and analytics views to reports to make them more visible and accessible across your organization.
Additionally, Google Analytics 360 lets you roll up reports across properties for a more seamless look at your digital marketing campaigns. This can be particularly useful for marketers who want to monitor their efforts across multiple properties.
With more real-time reporting options, GA360 allows you to analyze big online events as they happen and adjust your strategies in the moment or be alerted to any issues with your online experience like downtime. This is important for a variety of reasons:
For example, if your business has a major holiday sale, you can be notified right away to change your strategy to maximize conversions. This can save you time and money by making sure you are delivering the best possible experience for your visitors.
Google Analytics 360 also shares audiences between your various marketing tools, like Google Ads, Google Display and Video 360, or even Salesforce Marketing Cloud. This data can be used for audience creation and intelligent targeting.
Google Analytics Standard (UAStandard)
The Use of Universal Analytics Ends in 2022
Google recently announced that the current version of Google Analytics, called Universal Analytics, will stop processing new hits on July 1, 2023. This means that digital marketers need to get used to using the new version of Google Analytics, called GA4, as soon as possible.
What To Do
When you transition to GA4, it is important that you do so carefully and properly. This will help ensure that your data is secure and that you are getting the most value out of the platform.
In order to do so, you need to have a proper understanding of what is happening on your website and how it is affecting your business. This is where a certified Google Analytics expert can be extremely helpful.
To help you understand what is going on on your website, Google Analytics separates data into dimensions and metrics. Dimensions are categorical attributes, such as the city a user is in or the browser they are using, while metrics are quantitative measurements, such as number of sessions or pages per session.
While this can be confusing at first, it is a very important distinction to make. It will allow you to better track your marketing campaign effectiveness and truly understand what is or isn’t working.
Another difference is the way in which data is accessed and collected. While Universal Analytics uses cookie-based tracking, which is based on sessions and pageviews, GA4 uses event-based tracking. This means that data gets collected when a user performs certain actions on your website, such as registering for an account or clicking on a link.
With this type of measurement, it is very easy to calculate things like pages / session and bounce rate. In the past, these things could not be calculated as easily since Universal Analytics relied on pageviews and sessions to track data.
In addition to the above changes, Google Analytics 4 also boasts a brand-new reporting interface and an event-based data model that can be more flexible and responsive to changing user needs. This is particularly important as users continue to expect more privacy controls and regulations in today’s world.
Google Analytics Advanced (GAAdvanced)
Google Analytics Advanced (GAAdvanced) is a powerful web analytics tool that can help you better understand your business and its website. It is a free service offered by Google and allows you to track your website’s traffic, engagement and conversions. This data can then be used to improve your online presence and direct digital marketing campaigns.
If you want to use Google Analytics for your business, it is important to learn how to use the tool properly and effectively. There are a number of online courses that can help you get started.
These classes are designed for both beginners and experienced web analysts. The courses are primarily made up of video lessons, but you can also read through the material.
One of the most powerful features in GA is the ability to build comparisons, which let you isolate and analyze subsets of data side by side. You can create comparisons to compare a user’s sessions by device, for example.
Using comparisons, you can easily analyze trends in your data and identify areas that need attention. For example, if you notice that organic search traffic is dropping off, you can quickly isolate non-branded keywords and analyze their performance to find out what is causing this.
Another useful feature in Google Analytics is the ability to create custom dimensions and metrics. This lets you define your own metrics and dimensions, which can be extremely valuable for your business. You can then set up your own reporting and alerts for this data, allowing you to monitor your business and improve it.
For the most part, these features are easy to use and can provide a lot of insight into your website. However, there are a few tricky parts that you may have to work out on your own.
A very powerful and effective feature in Google Analytics is the ability to set up remarketing audiences. This allows you to retarget users who have visited your site but haven’t completed a transaction. This can be particularly helpful if you are running an ecommerce business.
To set up a remarketing audience, you need to know your visitor’s details. This includes their name, email address and other demographic information. You can then set up a campaign to display ads to this list.