After almost 15 years of anticipation, Google Universal Analytics has finally received a new version. This powerful data analytics tool, essential for tracking, measuring, and understanding performance and user behavior, has taken a significant leap with the launch of Google Analytics 4.
With advanced features and more comprehensive analysis, this update stands out for its ability to perfectly adapt to the current market scenario. It is crucial to stay informed about all the details of this new version, especially considering Google's announcement to sunset Universal Analytics in July 2023.
In this post, we have gathered the essential information for you to understand and explore the new features of Google Analytics 4, enhance your understanding of user behavior, and boost your business's marketing strategies.
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is an indispensable tool for any online business. With it, you can gain valuable insights into your website's performance and understand visitor behavior. This information is crucial for making strategic decisions based on data and improving user experience.
Imagine you have an online store and want to understand how visitors are interacting with your site. Google Analytics can help you with this. It provides data on the number of visitors, their origins, the time they spend on the site, and the most popular pages. Based on this data, you can identify problems, such as high cart abandonment rates, and take corrective actions.
Furthermore, Google Analytics helps identify which traffic sources are generating the most sales. For example, if you are investing in paid ads, you can track the performance of these ads and verify if they are yielding a return.
What's new in Google Analytics 4?
But what exactly has changed in the update to Google Analytics 4? The update to Google Analytics 4 brought several significant changes compared to previous versions. We highlight the most important ones for you:
1) New event-based approach
In Universal Analytics, the data model was based on Sessions and Pageviews, meaning when someone loaded a website page, the GA code was loaded along with it and sent information to the platform. Now, measurement is event-based. When a user visits a site on different devices, access is counted in a unified way, and events throughout this visit are analyzed more richly, with more insights, offering a much greater understanding of the user's journey.
Previously, with Universal Analytics, simply installing the tag in the site's code was enough to extract most of the information. Now, GA4 comes with only 6 pre-configured and enabled events by default. Therefore, if you don't want to lose important information, you need to adjust a series of other events.
Among the options, there are events collected automatically as soon as the user adjusts the Google tag:
Additionally, GA4 has custom and recommended events, which, on the other hand, must be manually configured in the tool. In Google Analytics' official documentation, it is possible to check 12 events for websites and 85 events for apps.
2) Multi-device integration
Now, you can track all web and app activity in one place, which is simply incredible! In previous versions, it was necessary to analyze this information separately.
In Google Analytics 4, the way data is organized has changed a bit compared to Universal Analytics. Now, instead of using the term "View," they use "Data Stream." This allows you to track your website or app metrics in a single view. If you want to analyze app metrics, you need to create an account on Firebase, a Google platform for app developers. This will allow you to get detailed information about how your app is being used.
And if you want to create custom views of your data, you'll need to use Google Data Studio. It's a tool that helps create custom reports and dashboards based on Google Analytics 4 data. These changes were made to make data analysis easier and more integrated, allowing you to better understand the performance of your website or app.
3) Advanced data modeling and predictive insights
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) offers powerful features for advanced data modeling and predictive insights, which allow for a deeper understanding of user behavior and support strategic decisions.
Advanced data modeling uses machine learning techniques to fill gaps in data, even when information is missing or incomplete. This is particularly useful when factors such as cookie blocking or privacy restrictions limit data collection. Based on existing data and identified patterns, GA4 can predict user behavior, offering more accurate insights.
Predictive insights in GA4 are generated by advanced machine learning algorithms. These algorithms analyze available historical data and make predictions about future user behavior.
For example, through advanced data modeling and predictive insights, GA4 can identify user behavior patterns that indicate the likelihood of purchase or engagement with specific content. This allows companies to adjust their marketing strategies, personalize experiences, and optimize results.
4) New tracking metrics
In the Universal version, the bounce rate was measured based on the simple fact of whether the user interacted with the site or not, and time was not a computed factor. Now this has become much better, as it is possible to check engaged sessions (by default, all sessions with more than 10 seconds in the foreground are counted), engaged sessions per user, and analyze the average time and engagement rate of the website or app.
Therefore, a user who accesses the site and remains on the same page would contribute to this bounce rate in Universal Analytics. The new metrics in Analytics 4 change this analysis, bringing marketing KPIs that complement the evaluation. See what they are:
– Engaged sessions: Counted after the user keeps the site or app open in the foreground for 10 seconds;
– Average engagement time: Average time the site or app remained open in the foreground;
– Engaged sessions per user: Average of engaged sessions per user;
– Engagement rate: Total percentage of engaged sessions.
5) Simplified conversion funnels
One of the significant improvements of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) over Universal Analytics is the simplification of conversion funnels. Conversion funnels are used to analyze the path users take towards a specific goal, such as a purchase, subscription, or form submission.
In GA4, conversion funnels have been enhanced to provide a clearer and more intuitive view of user behavior throughout the conversion process:
1) Flow-based visualization:
When viewing a conversion funnel in GA4, you will see a flow format, which makes it easier to understand the user's journey. The flow shows the sequential steps that users go through to achieve the desired goal. This allows for identifying problem areas or bottlenecks that may hinder conversion completion.
2) Elimination of the need to set up goals:
One cool thing is that you no longer need to set up specific goals to create conversion funnels in GA4. It automatically tracks important events along the visitor's path, such as clicking a button or filling out a form. This way, you can analyze funnel performance without having to do a lot of extra configuration.
3) More precise conversion metrics:
In GA4, you can see specific details about each step of the conversion funnel. This means you can know how many people added a product to their cart, how many started to checkout, and how many actually completed the purchase. This information helps to better understand where people are dropping off and what can be improved to increase the conversion rate.
6) Cross-domain tracking
With cross-platform analytics, cross-domain tracking tends to be easier in Google Analytics 4.
The function of tracking users across multiple domains already existed in the Universal Analytics version, but now this process does not require any additional configuration to measure data flow.
Simply add the domains or subdomains you want to track to the tool to access the metrics. This way, those who work with more than one website, multiple domains or subdomains, can track the user journey between different platforms, in addition to having the option to integrate web browsing data into the app.
7) GA4 Reports
In the previous version, Google Analytics was known for providing pre-configured metrics and more limited reports. However, with the launch of Google Analytics 4 (GA4), there has been a significant evolution in how reports are presented. GA4 adopts a more flexible and event-driven approach, allowing users to analyze specific events that occur on their websites or apps. This means it is possible to have a more precise and detailed understanding of user behavior.
Furthermore, GA4 offers advanced features, such as the ability to create custom metrics and explore data in more depth. With exploratory analysis features, you can ask specific questions about the data and get real-time answers. For example, you can segment your data by different user groups, such as age, geographic location, or purchasing behavior. This allows you to better understand the characteristics and preferences of different target audience segments. Additionally, you can apply filters to view specific data, such as traffic from a particular marketing channel or from a specific time period.
Google Analytics 4 Limits
In the Universal version, there was already a limit on the volume of data collected, calculated every 30 days. The value of 10 million data points remains. However, new limits emerge:
Accounts:
Each Google Analytics account is linked to a Gmail email account and can create and manage up to 1,000 Google Analytics accounts.
Properties:
Within each Google Analytics account, you can have up to 100 properties. Each property is used to track and analyze a website, app, or other digital resource.
Events:
In Google Analytics 4, everything is based on events. An event is an action performed by users, such as button clicks, form submissions, or page views. You can create up to 500 events per property. However, it is important to carefully consider the events you want to measure to avoid unnecessary data overload.
Conversion events:
To track conversions, such as purchases or form submissions, you need to set up a specific event in Google Analytics 4. You can define up to 30 events as conversions in each property.
Data retention:
Standard reports have no time limit and display complete data. However, exploratory reports have a data retention limit of 14 months. This means that when creating custom reports, you will only have access to historical data from the last 14 months. However, for regular analysis, data will be displayed without time restrictions.
What happens to my Universal GA account?
Now that you know more about Google Analytics 4 and how it differs from Universal Google Analytics, it's natural to wonder what will happen to your Universal GA account.
As of July 2023, Universal GA accounts will no longer receive updated data. This means you will not see new information on the platform. If you look at the real-time visit count in Universal GA, even when you are accessing your website, it will still show as zero. Therefore, it is recommended that you create a Google Analytics 4 account as soon as possible.
Regarding the data you already have, Google will allow access to old data processed in Universal GA for some time. This means you will be able to consult and use your old reports during that time. However, it is important to export these reports and save them in a secure format so that you can access them in the future, even after Universal GA is shut down.
Finally, it is not possible to directly transfer data from Universal GA to GA4. The two versions are different in several aspects, such as the way data is collected, the metrics, and the appearance of the interface.
To learn more about the impacts of not performing this migration, read our article: Google Analytics 4: Time is running out. Don't wait until the last minute to migrate!
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Don't wait until the last minute to migrate to GA4. The impacts of postponing this transition can be significant. By migrating to GA4 as soon as possible, you can take advantage of all the benefits and advanced features offered by this new version, improve your data analysis, optimize your site, and make informed decisions based on more precise information.