Data-driven insights have become an indispensable business tool in today’s digital landscape. Recent statistics from BuiltWith reveal that an estimated 1.6 million websites (59%) in the UK use Google Analytics, the industry-leading web analytics platform. However, Google Analytics has undergone a significant metamorphosis that has caused a stir among many business owners and digital marketers.
The standard Universal Analytics was finally phased out on July 1, 2023, and business owners and digital marketers who desire to continue using the service must migrate to GA4. According to Google, GA4 is a more advanced and comprehensive platform that boasts newer features and is capable of generating more useful insights for website managers. But what is the difference between these two platforms, and what are some steps you can take to facilitate a smooth transition?
What is the difference between GA4 and Universal Analytics?
Introduced in 2012, Universal Analytics is the traditional version of Google Analytics. In this system, Google collects user behaviour data using a tracking code snippet that has been placed on every page of the website. The tracking code measures diverse metrics such as sessions, page views, bounce rates, and conversions.
Unlike Universal Analytics, which employs a session-based model, GA4 employs an event-based tracking model. Essentially, GA4 does not only focus on page views and sessions. Rather, it measures every interaction with your website as an event, and marketers can adjust the way these events are tracked to gain better insights.
Summarily, GA4 is a newer, improved version of Universal Analytics, aka GA3. Universal Analytics has had some significant shortcomings in recent years, most especially its inability to meet the privacy standards required by laws like the General Data Protection Regulation. With GA4, Google has been able to introduce newer privacy features as well as other capabilities such as unified data tracking and machine learning.
What are the advantages of GA4 over Universal Analytics?
Here are some advantages of GA4 over Universal Analytics:
Unified data tracking
One of the major shortcomings of UA is that it couldn’t unify web analytics and mobile app analytics. As a result, marketers couldn’t accurately track and analyse data across both platforms, ultimately leading to fragmented insights. With GA4, Google has provided a unified approach to data tracking across various platforms. Businesses can now view and analyse user interactions across websites and mobile apps in a single property, guaranteeing better insights.
Machine learning capabilities
GA4 leverages Google’s advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to provide predictive metrics such as purchase probability, predicted revenue, and churn probability. Marketers can now create model audiences based on predictive user behaviour and target their ads better. Furthermore, predictive metrics can also improve the effectiveness of retargeting campaigns while also allowing you to create custom funnels for different audience demographics.
Customizable event-based tracking
Admittedly, the events GA4 measures are analogous to hits in Universal Analytics. However, marketers could not specify the exact ‘hit’ they wish to track with UA. In addition to Automatically Collected Events, GA4 has an Enhanced Measurement Events feature that allows marketers to track events such as outbound clicks, site search, video engagement, etc., without writing a line of code.
User-centric focus
GA4 adopts an event-driven model, placing a stronger emphasis on user interactions and behaviours. This shift allows businesses to analyse individual user journeys and engagement patterns more effectively, enabling them to tailor their marketing strategies and user experiences accordingly.
Privacy and data protection
Universal Analytics’ inability to meet the regulations of new data protection laws such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act was ultimately a fatal flaw. With GA4, Google went over and beyond to ensure that user privacy is protected as much as possible. The result is that GA4 is capable of collecting data without collecting IP addresses or using third-party cookies. GA4 also allows businesses to collect consent for data tracking, thereby ensuring compliance with major data protection laws.
Better product integration
GA4 seamlessly integrates with many other products in Google’s suites, including BigQuery, Google Ads, and Google Merchant Center. The free integration in BigQuery, Google’s enterprise data warehouse, is especially exciting for marketers as it offers endless data analytics possibilities. Also, marketers can now identify and target high-value audiences from the data obtained from Google Ads and import campaign results with relative ease.
Points to note when migrating from Universal Analytics to GA4
Universal Analytics stopped processing hits on 1st July 2023. Ultimately, everyone would need to transition to GA4 as existing data on Universal Analytics would become unavailable to everyone by 1st July 2024. If you’re yet to embrace GA4, below are a few useful tips that would aid the process:
Set up data streams
In GA4, data streams are used to collect data from different platforms (e.g., website, iOS app, Android app). Set up data streams for each platform you want to track so you can collect the data independently and have a more holistic view of user behaviour across your platforms.
Configure events
Identify the key user interactions you want to track in GA4 and define custom events for these interactions. Furthermore, you should migrate any existing event tracking from UA to GA4 to ensure the continuity of data.
Validate and test data
Before fully relying on GA4 data, validate and compare data between both platforms during the transition period. Run extensive testing to ensure data accuracy and consistency.
Migrate reports and dashboards
If you have custom reports and dashboards in Universal Analytics, consider migrating them to GA4. While the reporting structure is different, you can recreate similar reports in GA4 for easy validation and continuity.
Monitor and optimise
After migrating to GA4, continuously monitor the data and performance to ensure everything is working as expected. Analyze the insights provided by GA4 to optimize your website or app’s user experience and marketing strategies.
Endnote
Now that Google Analytics 4 is the only analytics fish in the sea from Google, marketers and business owners have little choice but to migrate to the platform. At Global Graphics Web Design, we believe the transition would pay off in the long run since you’ll have access to better insights and game-changing predictive analytics. We can only hope that the tips shared in this article would aid your smooth migration.
As one of the leading website development and ecommerce agencies in the UK, our team at Globalgraphics Web Design is ready to help you understand GA4 and how to make the most out of the all-new analytics platform. Contact us today to schedule a consultation and we’ll hold your hands as you navigate GA4.
