Everything about Google Analytics is changing, and for marketers — especially those who haven’t been paying attention — the changes will be profound
“The king is dead, long live the king” is a historical proclamation in many parts of the world to simultaneously acknowledge the death of a sovereign and announce the transition to a new monarch.
This time, the announcement is not referencing some distant king in a faraway land, it’s about the passing of Google’s Universal Analytics platform, the de facto standard for measuring website performance and user behavior since its introduction in 2005.
When Google Analytics came onto the market, it was a paradigm shift from the old website counters that simply tracked website “hits” with little or no context about the underlying traffic. For the first time, and at no cost, website owners could take advantage of analytics tools previously available only in expensive enterprise-level software. By bringing website analytics to the masses, Google empowered a generation of professionals to make more informed decisions about their internet marketing.
But time waits for no one, not even a king.
After nearly two decades of analytics dominance, evolving worldwide privacy regulations related to consumer data, increasing use of web browser privacy settings and today’s varied environment of computers, mobile devices and apps have made it considerably more challenging to track online user behavior. Enter Google Analytics 4, or GA4 as it is more commonly known. Although it’s not exactly brand new (it first hit the scene in 2020), and with some lingering concerns that it may not be completely ready to assume the throne from its predecessor, the transition to GA4 promises to bring a host of predictive analysis and machine-learning empowered capabilities to more than 28 million websites that rely on Google for website analytics.
Designed for a Cookieless Future
Google developed GA4 in preparation for the “cookiepocolypse”, the planned phasing out of third-party cookies, which are small snippets of data placed on a user’s device to identify the user for the purposes of advertising. Several web browsers such as Safari and Firefox have been blocking third-party cookies for years, and Google’s Chrome browser has promised to phase out cookies by 2024. This is good for consumers, but challenging for advertisers who rely on robust user profiles to ensure ad networks serve up relevant advertising.
GA4 offers several advantages over the legacy Universal Analytics platform in preparation for these changes:
Greater Emphasis on Consumer Privacy
GA4 is designed to provide website visitors more control over their data and how it is utilized, including the ability to opt out of tracking and deleting any collected data entirely.
Better Tracking of the Customer Journey
GA4 collects data across devices, including websites and apps, for a more complete picture of the customer journey.
More Complete Data
GA4 relies on machine learning, or artificial intelligence, to predict consumer behavior and fill in the gaps that will invariably exist as the consumer privacy landscape continues to evolve.
Better Insights on Conversions
GA4 is organized around events, rather than user sessions, and those events can include multiple conversion activities. In Universal Analytics, only one conversion could be counted per session, making it more difficult to measure all the touchpoints that resulted in a transaction to occur.
The End is Here. No, Really
While Google has been heralding the end of the existing Universal Analytics platform for over a year now, and warning website owners to make the switch sooner rather than later, there will undoubtedly be marketers who fail to make the transition by the July 1 deadline.
That is why beginning in March of this year, Google began automatically creating GA4 properties for Universal Analytics users that had not yet migrated to the new platform. So even if you were not aware of the transition to GA4, or delayed taking action, Google has at least done some of the work for you with a basic GA4 setup, though it may not be ideal for every user.
So what happens now that the July 1 deadline has passed?
Universal Analytics Won’t Collect Any More Data
For websites that haven’t been upgraded to GA4, as of July 1, Universal Analytics will stop collecting new data. That means no more website traffic will be recorded. It will be like someone turned off a switch. Essentially, you’ll be flying blind. Month-over-month and year-over-year comparisons will be impossible because there will be no more data going forward.
You’ll Lose All Your Historical Data (Eventually)
In addition to no longer recording new website data in Universal Analytics, Google will be clearing out any historical data. Fortunately, not right away, but soon (Google has said they will make the data available until Oct. 1, 2023). So if you want the ability to access past performance or make comparisons, you’ll want to back up those reports soon or lose them forever.
You’ll Have to Learn a New Platform
The reporting interface for GA4 compared to Universal Analytics is very different. Many of the reports you may be used to reviewing may have changed or no longer have a comparable equivalent in GA4. You’ll have to take a crash course on GA4 to get up to speed.
You May Need to Set Up Integrations Again
Some third-party software, including CRMs like Hubspot, link to Google Analytics. If you connect your Google Analytics data to outside tools, those integrations will need to be set up again within GA4.
Your Digital Ad Campaigns May Become Less Effective
If you previously linked Universal Analytics to your Google AdWords account, conversion data will stop flowing into your digital advertising campaigns, which could have a significant impact on your campaign performance, and increase your costs.
You’ll Have to Worry About Your Data
In Universal Analytics, you could store historical data indefinitely, but in GA4, the maximum retention period is 14 months. In other words, you can only retain 14 months of historical data unless you backup your data to a warehousing solution, such as Google’s own BigQuery product, which adds additional complexity.
Most of All, the End of Simplicity
Perhaps the biggest change in the transition to GA4 is the loss of simplicity. Google Analytics in its previous incarnations was an incredibly powerful tool for marketers that was relatively easy to configure and utilize. At the same time, there were plenty of additional features and customizations for more advanced users.
GA4 works very differently than its predecessor, and with these changes come some technical requirements that may call for a new skill set. At the very least, marketers may need some time to learn the GA4 platform and ensure everything is configured correctly for their needs.
Fortunately, Google offers a robust support section for GA4 including free, online courses, developer support and documentation, and a series of instructional videos on its @GoogleAnalytics YouTube channel.
Google Analytics, at least as marketers have come to know it, is dead. And while its successor is very different in many respects, GA4 promises to continue a legacy of delivering actionable insights for marketers. Long shall it reign!
MHInsider is the leader in manufactured housing news and is a product of MHVillage, the top website to buy, sell, or rent a manufactured home.
