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Businesses urged to prepare for Google Analytics 4 (GA4) - it's coming fast!
By Vanessa Willans, Marketing
15 August 2022
A new financial year is always an important date for Australian businesses. However, 1 July 2023 has even more significance as on this day, “Google Analytics 4” (GA4) replaces “Universal Analytics”.
Why does this change matter?
In today’s competitive commercial landscape where measurement is king, businesses need to navigate new challenges to understand the complex, multi-platform journeys their customers take with them — all while prioritising user privacy.
To this end, two and a half years ago, search engine giant Google introduced GA4 to address these evolving measurement standards and help businesses succeed. GA4 is an analytics service that enables business to measure and predict traffic and engagement across their websites and apps more efficiently.
Time is ticking
More significantly, in just over a year, GA4 will replace the established Universal Analytics, an older version of Google Analytics that in 2012 set new standards for how user data was collected and organised.
However, in the world of technology, a decade is akin to millennia, and Google has decided it’s time for its old school standard to go the way of Tyrannosaurus Rex and into extinction in just over a year.
What are the primary benefits?
According to Google, while Universal Analytics has done a great job, GA4 will offer additional flexibility to measure many more kinds of data and deliver a more robust analytics experience designed for the future. GA4 allows businesses to see unified user journeys across their websites and apps, use Google’s machine learning technology to predict new insights, and most importantly, keep up with a changing digital ecosystem.
As an example of how GA4 works, consider the results from custom surveys (Google surveys is a marketing tool that gathers valuable insights into the minds of your target audience). If your business regularly surveys its database, it’s common for plenty of your contacts to not respond for whatever reason. However, once you transition to GA4, you’ll receive enough data from a survey to make predictions about consumer behaviour outcomes enabling managers and leaders to make strategic decisions about the future of their businesses.
The next step is to
get GA4 on your
websites and apps.
It’s not too late to
start a new strategy
to fit the new tracking
method and create your
GA4 properties, but
delaying parallel tracking may cause reporting,
remarketing, and
compliance challenges.
How to prepare for the transition to GA4?
From 1 July 2023, standard Universal Analytics properties will no longer process data. That said, businesses will be able to see their historical Universal Analytics reports for a period after 1 July 2023.
Now is the time for businesses to start migrating to Google Analytics 4. The first step is to identify whether you have a Universal Analytics property or a GA4 property. You can do this by looking at your property ID to see which type of property you have:
- Universal Analytics property IDs start with UA and end with a number (UA-XXXXXXXXX-1).
- Google Analytics 4 property IDs have only numbers (XXXXXXXXX)1.
Make the switch to Google Analytics 4 now
The next step is to get GA4 on your websites and apps. It’s not too late to start a new strategy to fit the new tracking method and create your GA4 properties, but delaying parallel tracking may cause reporting, remarketing, and compliance challenges.
Important tip: make sure to follow Google Analytics best practice when making the switch.
After that, learning how to take advantage of GA4 should spark ideas and conversations beyond migration within your marketing and technology teams. If you don’t have in-house resources, be sure to reach out to your web or digital marketing consultants to ensure you are GA4 ready now rather than in May 2023, which might be too late. Finally, if you’re not using Google Console2, now is a great time to add this into your strategy.
__________________________
1 https//support.google.com/analytics/answer/11583832
2
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9128668?hl=en
Disclaimer
The information provided in this article does not constitute advice. The information is of a general nature only and does not take into account your individual financial situation. It should not be used, relied upon, or treated as a substitute for specific professional advice. We recommend that you contact Brentnalls SA before making any decision to discuss your particular requirements or circumstances.
