A New Era of Web Analytics Is Here: GA4. What Is It and Why Should You Care?
In the modern world of rapidly developing technology, it’s more important now than ever for marketers to stay on top of the trends and industry standards. Although these new technologies offer countless benefits and opportunities, there are some drawbacks, such as concerns with user’s privacy. Governments are taking action by developing new regulations and Google is doing the same by releasing their latest analytical software: Google Analytics 4 (GA4). This blog post will highlight some of GA4’s most exciting features and compare the software with its predecessor, Universal Analytics (UA). Before we get into that though, let’s talk a bit about web analytics in general.
What is web analytics?
According to the Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, web analytics is “the technology and method for the collection, measurement, analysis, and reporting of websites and applications usage data Web log.” To put it more simply, web analytics is the process of understanding how users find a site and what they do once they’re there. This information is invaluable to us as marketers because it allows us to understand our customers better, therefore enabling us to better serve the target market and satisfy the goals of our organizations. Web analytics has been around for as long as the early days of Internet popularization, however, as the Internet has evolved, so have the methods of performing web analytics.
Universal Analytics (UA)
Universal Analytics is the first era of web analytics that I’ll be highlighting today. Google first introduced the software in the fall of 2012 as a more advanced, complex version of their traditional Google Analytics (GA) (BigCommerce). The release of UA changed the game of web analytics by setting new standards for how user data is tracked and stored. One important development was the User ID feature. In GA, a user who used multiple browsers or devices appeared to be unique visitors, in UA, this issue was resolved and allowed organizations to have better, more integrated data for each user.
Although UA was revolutionary at the time, like most things, it eventually became outdated due to newer, more advanced technology being created. What is this technology you ask? Well, it’s still in its early stages but it’s guaranteed to be yet another game changer for web analytics. It’s called Google Analytics 4.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
Google Analytics 4 is Google’s latest measurement protocol for tracking website data. It’s faster, more flexible, and allows both websites and apps to be tracked through the same account. GA4 is set to completely replace UA by July 1st, 2023 but organizations can and should start using it as soon as possible. I’ll share some of the benefits of early adoption later, but for now, I’ll highlight three key differences between UA and GA4.
MEASUREMENT: UA records its information through a session-based model that utilizes cookies to track a user. This means that it primarily focuses on pageviews and can only gather information from a single browser or device at a time. GA4 on the other hand uses an event-based model, which collects much more in-depth information. Each interaction a user performs (clicking a button, switching pages, making a purchase, etc.) is stored as an independent event. You can still see the session’s data but the event-based model allows for more insight into small details such as the value of a purchase or the timing of an event. This provides a more in-depth view into the steps a user takes to perform an action.
REPORTING: Since UA utilizes a session-based model, it has a limited ability to track users across various platforms and devices. When it first came out in 2012, mobile apps weren’t nearly as prevalent as they are today. Organizations had to use UA to measure their website and GA for their mobile apps. GA4 streamlined this and has features to better track users on their complex Internet usage all in one place. This allows for more accurate, flexible, and scalable analytics.
AUTOMATION: UA has limited automation, meaning that it only tracks historic user data. GA4 uses machine learning to create predictive metrics in various areas. This is a great stride forward as it allows marketers to stay ahead of the game and better anticipate their audiences’ future needs and actions.
Hopefully you’re excited about GA4 by now but you may be wondering, why is the switch necessary? It’s all about privacy!
Privacy, privacy, privacy!
As people’s lives have become more and more intertwined with the Internet, digital privacy has become a higher priority. For example, 69% of consumers are concerned with how their personal data is being collected in mobile apps (Forbes). Cookies have traditionally been used to track users’ navigation through the Internet, however, all major browsers are beginning to automatically block third-party cookies, causing a major loss in third-party data. While this may be beneficial to consumers with concerns about privacy, it could be detrimental to marketers, at least, those marketers that don’t act now.
Adopt now, benefit later
You don’t need to wait until July to begin using GA4, in fact, you shouldn’t! Even if you are currently using UA you can begin using GA4 to collect even more data. This is incredibly important, as data gathered in UA will only be accessible for about 6 months and that data cannot be imported into GA4. Therefore, the faster you adopt, the more usable data you’ll have in the future. GA4’s machine learning will benefit from this and provide your organization much more accurate predictions.
Additionally, running the software parallel to each other will make the transition easier on your team. It will provide some wiggle room for any errors and ensure that you’re completely competent by the time July rolls around. Third-party data is soon to be a concept of the past, so it’s important to stay ahead of the curve and find new solutions as soon as possible.
What’s next?
Ready to start using GA4 to help your organization meet its goals? Here’s some courses from Google to get you started:
Thank you for reading and happy analyzing!