Everything you need to know about Google’s major Analytics Update by Brandon Vehrs, CoLab Cooperative Analytics and Search Engine Optimization Specialist and David Abramson, CoLab Project Manager
Overview
Google has released a major update to its widely used analytics platform. Unlike previous changes to the Google Analytics framework, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is in effect a completely different platform with a completely different data model. It calls for a different event architecture and new code to be added to websites and other applications.
Updating your Analytics configuration.
Here’s what you need to know
Goodbye Universal Analytics, Hello GA4!
By July 2023, Universal Google Analytics (the version you are likely using) will stop recording data entirely. Although no definite announcement has yet been made, it has also been implied that historical Universal GA data will not be available for viewing indefinitely.
We highly recommend that all Google Analytics users migrate to GA4 as soon as possible to allow for uninterrupted data collection as well as like-for-like year-on-year comparisons for this transitional period leading up to July 2023.
For most sites, we are recommending running GA4 and Universal Google Analytics side by side from this point in time until July 2023, to allow for the least interruptions in data flow and longest possible run of data in GA4.
Disclaimer
We’d like to be clear that we aren’t writing this guide as evangelists of Google Analytics and stop well short of offering our recommendation of their service to readers. Google Analytics has its strengths, particularly in the robustness of its data, dashboards, and reports but also has many drawbacks, including concerns about user privacy and more recently, requirements associated with opt-in for cookies.
We do not use Google Analytics for the colab.coop site, and instead use privacy-first Simple Analytics, which we feel, despite the more limited data, is more in line with our values, protects user’s data, and still meets our need for tracking the most important metrics for our site. We have also worked with Matamo and have no complaints (plus it’s open source!)
All this said, we recognize that over 50% of website owners use Google Analytics and will need to take action should they want to continue using the Google Analytics platform so in that spirit, we offer this. One of the biggest strengths of Google Analytics is that it’s free. It also integrates nicely with other Google tools and services, such as Adwords. Most of our clients opt for Google Analytics, and we make no judgments on using it and understand the positive reasons for doing so.
If you have been considering a switch, now is a great time to explore alternatives. If you’d like to do some discovery on analytics migration with us, feel free to reach out.
Highlights
Here are some of the biggest changes with GA4 that are relevant to most organizations tracking web analytics:
- GA4 tracks events instead of a series of webpage visits.
This allows much greater potential in what can be tracked. Setting up the tracking for a new event is easier than before and has more options available - GA4 focuses on the user journey. If a user starts on mobile and switches to desktop, GA4 can track that in ways that GA3 cannot. This is cross-device and cross-platform tracking. This also allows for tracking complex conversions.
- GA4 has predictive insight capabilities. It uses machine learning and probabilistic matching to allow greater analysis of overlapping data sets.
- GA4 natively tracks data from apps as well as websites, which allows for seamless integration of the data.
- GA4 has far greater data visualizations capabilities.
How Do I Navigate this Switch
Both GA3 and GA4 can, and ideally should be, set up through Google Tag Manager (GTM).
If you have existing Google Tags set up, some can be automatically migrated in the creation of the GA4 setup. Some will require extra configuring and Quality Assurance testing depending on the complexity of your setup.
This is also the perfect opportunity to do some strategic work around your analytics trigger events, goal conversion targets & tracking, sales funnels, and user flows that you want to prioritize, as well as other custom events tracking that is now possible. This is especially the time to integrate tracking of a website and an app if you have both.
Need Help with your Google Analytics Migration?
If you want support from CoLab’s Analytics Specialist to do the setup and make sure everything is running correctly, or need any kind of custom analytics integration or custom analytics event migration, don’t hesitate to contact us or schedule a time for review.
If you have someone on your staff who handles Google Tag Manager, we can share some resources (such as this guide from Google) for them to start the process.
And as always, feel free to reach out if you have any questions or have any kind of technology needs. That’s what we’re here for!
Note: if you have a support contract with CoLab, a CoLab project manager will reach out to you soon to get you all set up on GA4.
Want to know more about CoLab’s website/technology support offerings?
All the best,
Brandon Vehrs & David Abramson
CoLab Cooperative
Contact us:
friends@colab.coop
colab.coop