Out With The Old and in With The New – Farewell Universal Analytics and Hello GA4

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We spent the time fully understanding GA4 so you wouldn’t have to. Did you know that after 11 years of Google running Universal Analytics (UA), they just replaced it with Google Analytics 4 (GA4)? On July 1, Google officially said goodbye to UA and there is no going back. Now its replacement, UA, has received backlash throughout the marketing community. The biggest complaints include “not being user friendly” or generally being “hard to understand.”  Analytics are crucial for digital marketing as they provide valuable insights, enable data-driven decision-making, measure campaign performance, facilitate targeting and personalization, optimize strategies, and assess ROI. On top of that, the digital marketing world is constantly evolving, so you have to constantly keep up with it. Well, you don’t have to worry about keeping up with the crazy world of analytics when you partner with us because this is the kind of thing we specialize in to ensure your company is leveraging analytics effectively. With our Google Analytics-certified team, we will enhance your marketing efforts, increase your company’s competitive edge, and achieve better results! Get ready to learn how we adapted GA4 quickly and how we can use it to leverage your website’s online rankings.

There are a few key differences between UA and GA4. Universal Analytics hit types include page hits, event hits, eCommerce hits, and social interaction hits. In contrast, Google Analytics 4 data is event-based, assuming that any interaction can be captured as an event. Universal Analytics property hit types translate to events in a Google Analytics 4 property. Events represent a fundamental data model difference between Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 properties. A Universal Analytics event has a Category, Action, and Label and is its own hit type. In Google Analytics 4 properties, every "hit" is an event; there is no distinction between hit types. For example, a page view event is triggered when someone views one of your website pages. Google Analytics 4 events have no notion of Category, Action, and Label, and, unlike Universal Analytics reports, Google Analytics 4 reports do not display Category, Action, and Label. Therefore, it’s better to rethink your data collection regarding the Google Analytics 4 model rather than port your existing event structure to Google Analytics 4.

One of the main points of contention for users who are weary of GA4 is the overload of information and deciphering what's important and what’s not. We won’t lie–it’s a little overwhelming to look at. Luckily, we’ve put in the hours necessary to fully understand GA4 and how to use it to best help our clients. We know what we're looking for and where to look for it! We know how to set up and analyze the data to understand it fully. This way, we can create adjustments and pivot your marketing to increase ROI! For example, we can find out the most successful focus groups and redirect your budget to market to that group. You don’t have to stay up-to-date with the little intricacies of the marketing world when you partner with us because that's what we do best and we love it!

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