In July 2023, Google replaced Universal Analytics (UA) with Google Analytics 4 (GA4).  If you’re feeling a little overwhelmed with this recent analytics evolution, we’ve compiled a GA4 overview to set you up for success.   

What you need to know 

Why the switch?
Privacy is the main reason. GA4 doesn’t rely exclusively on cookies and has a variety of privacy features to protect your data.  

How is GA4 different from UA?
GA4 uses an event-based data model rather than a data model based on sessions and page views.  

Other differences you’ll find: 

• Fewer standard reports are available in GA4 relative to UA. 
• Some metrics are either gone completely or measured differently. 
• Setting up conversion tracking has changed. 

What’s an event-based model?
Don’t worry! In GA4 you can still see session data. But now, user interactions are collected and stored as events. Events provide more in-depth insight and context about what’s happening on your website. With events, you can narrow down on specific actions a user took like the title of the page a user visited, the value of a purchase and much more. 

Find more helpful overviews on Google’s support site. We recommend starting with how GA4 works and GA4 hierarchy. 

Using GA4 to reach your business goals  

Know your marketing objectives. Whether you want to drive more traffic or see your users engage more efficiently with your site, it’s important to define your key performance indicators (KPIs) and overarching marketing goals before diving into GA4. This will help you translate your data to a meaningful story.  

Use event-tracking to your advantage. With GA4, you’ll have the advantage of getting a granular view of specific interactions happening across your site or app such as video views, downloads and link clicks. Seeing how your audience is engaging with your content gives you the opportunity to optimize your current site and plan ahead. In particular, the AI “Insights” tool can help provide information about user data.  

Take the time to learn and experiment. Set aside time each month to dive into the platform as well as stay updated on the latest web analytics trends. Being able to understand and interpret data using the latest tools is vital to an effective business marketing strategy. 

In conclusion, GA4 is a powerful new platform offering improved insights into your customer journey that you’ll want to take advantage of in the months ahead. And if you’d like help in translating your data’s story to reach your larger business goals, contact Markstein today.