GA4: are you ready?

GA4 a step change for Google Analytics

GA4 is the latest version of Google’s, web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic. The main difference between GA4 and the previous version, Universal Analytics, is the focus on

user behavior and engagement rather than just page views and sessions.

One of the key features of GA4 is the ability to track and analyse user interactions across multiple devices and platforms, including web, app, and offline. This allows you to gain a more complete understanding of your users' behaviour and how they interact with your brand.

Another major feature of GA4 is the integration of machine learning, which allows for automated insights and predictions about user behavior. This can help you make more informed decisions about your marketing strategy and improve the overall performance of your website or app.

Additionally, GA4 includes a new data governance feature that allows you to control how your data is collected, shared, and used. This helps to ensure that your data is being used in a way that is compliant with privacy laws and regulations.

Overall, GA4 provides a more comprehensive and user-focused approach to web analytics, with a greater emphasis on user behavior and engagement. This can help you make better decisions about your marketing strategy and improve the overall performance of your website or app.

What about your current Universal Analytics?

When it comes to concerns about what to do with your current Universal Analytics set up, rest assured that there is nothing to worry about. Universal Analytics will still be in good working order and you can continue using it for the time being. However, it is recommended that you create an instance of the GA4 property and run it alongside Universal Analytics so you can start collecting data. This will allow you to progressively get familiar with the new features and eventually start moving away from the previous version.

Why is GA4 a game changer?

Machine Learning at its core

What is the difference between this new version and the previous one? The main difference that we can now benefit from, is machine learning capability, with AI powered insight and predictions:

You can now get automatic alerts to data trends

Predict user behaviour and act with the predicted metrics and conversions feature, allowing for anticipation and focus on audiences with high value

Understand what channels are driving new customers in the user Acquisition report and then use the Engagement and Retention reports to understand the actions these customers take, and if they continue to engage after converting

There are less reports in GA4 and what there have been simplified and built around the customer life cycle, so you can quicky access the data that you really need. This now gives you a more complete tool for a deep dive and analysis of the end-to-end customer journey.

Measure of App and Web interactions together

GA4 can measure App and Web engagement together, providing a better understanding of all online marketing activities. This new approach to customer centric, cross device tracking in GA4, provides a more complete understanding of customers journeys across devices, from acquisition to retention, by bringing together data across app and web at scale.

For the first time this gives you customer centric measurement, instead of measurement fragmented by device or by platform. By using multiple identifiers, including marketer provided User IDs and unique Google signals, from users opted into ads personalization, you get a more complete view of how your customers interact with your business. For example, you can see how a customer first interacts with your brand, from an advert online, and then goes on to install your mobile app and make a purchase from there.

GDPR and the cookieless future

Data Controls that are Privacy focused with an eye on a Cookie-less future

Google has made it easier to comply with the GDPR and CCPA regulations, with more granular user data controls and options to help advertisers comply with these new data regulations. Google also states that GA4 has been designed, *"to adapt to a future with or without cookies or identifiers".*

Given the importance of privacy not only for Google but for users and businesses, Google has made it easier for us to access and configure it within the platform. This can be seen across the platform, for example:

Consent mode (in Beta): Adjust tag behaviour based on consent

Consent mode is designed for websites that must obtain user consent to collect analytics data. This new mode provides separate consent opt-ins options for both analytics and advertising. This new level of granularity avoids the need to exclude all analytics data, which some people were doing.

Would you like help is setting up GA4 properly for your business?

We know how to measure what matters

We are experts at setting up GA Universal and GA4 havng already implemented both standard (free) and premium versions (GA4 360) for both large global enterprises and smaller SME businesses.