GA4- What it is, why it’s important and how we can help you.
There are two types of people in the world, those who got the email from Google that informed them that Universal Google Analytics would be updating to a new version called GA4 and thought “right this sounds interesting and important I better start doing some research and come up with a plan about how we migrate our website analytics over, so we keep all our metrics and tracking.
And then there was the rest of us who thought “Ugh why do they keep changing things? I just got the hang of that version, I better look at it I guess, I mean I will when I get 5 minutes, and then we carefully filed it away to the important, but not very interesting pile and we will look at it when we can’t avoid it any longer.
Well, I have bad news and good news.
The bad news is that it is important, and you need to start planning for it because Universal Analytics is ending in July 2023 and if you haven’t moved over to GA4 you will lose your existing analytics data (although there is a 6 month grace period). After that time, you won’t have a reference point to compare traffic to moving forward.
So, you need to upgrade to Google Analytics now, or as soon as possible before July 2023.
The good news is that we have a team full of the type of people who love data and are informed, skilled, and ready to make this transition for you.
The sooner you have a plan for moving over to GA4 the better, the more time you have ahead of July 2023 means the more data you will have. At the very least, you should get GA4 setup and configured now for page views, event tracking and e-commerce data so that by July 2023 you will have around several months of data in place.
Once that is set up, you should dip your toe in and start to familiarise yourself with what lies ahead in terms of data analysis so that it’s not a complete shock when you no longer have a choice.
When you are set up there are positives to GA4, it is better, and will allow for:
· Enhanced reporting and visualisations
· Enhanced engagement metrics
· Default event tracking including clicks, scrolling behaviour, clicks and file downloads
· More flexible event parameters
· Better integration of website and app tracking data
· Improved channel acquisition measurement
Our Google Analytics 4 Migration Package
We can help you prepare for GA4 and life after UA with the following services:
Audit & Configure your existing Universal Analytics account: A full audit of your existing UA account to ensure that you are tracking data as accurately as possible.
Install & Configure Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics 4: Moving forward, we would highly recommend using Google Tag Manager to track GA4 page views, events and transactions. If you don’t have an account already, we can help set this up, and if you do, we can audit this to ensure all is set up correctly.
Setup & Configure Bespoke Reporting For Historical Data: We can also provide bespoke reporting dashboards that will migrate your key existing UA metrics such as page views, events, channel acquisition, goals, conversions and e-commerce data. These bespoke dashboards will hold up to 50 key data points for your reference even when UA has been shut down completely and is no longer accessible.
You can have up to 3 years’ worth of rolling data to look back on moving forward, for example:
From July 2023 you will be able to view data back to July 2020
From July 2024 you will be able to view data back to July 2021
From July 2025 you will be able to view data back to July 2022
From July 2026 you will be able to view data back to July 2023
After that, there will be no more UA data (unless you export this yourself to Excel or PDFs), but by July 2026, you will be fully versed in GA4, and UA will be a distant memory.
Sound good? Contact us today and we can put a plan in place, and you can move this item from the important, but not interesting pile, to the done and dusted pile!