Migration From Universal Analytics To Google Analytics 4
You must be aware that is it not an option but a compulsion for all to switch from Universal Analytics to GA4. As Google’s Universal Analytics (UA) will stop collecting data from July 1st, 2023, and after that, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) will be the default platform.
When changes like this happen, it can be stressful for many marketing agencies or businesses. However, finding new opportunities in this change with the right transition planning is possible.
Before coming to the right transition planning decision, it’s important for us to understand what exactly is changing between GA4 and UA and why.
What is Universal Analytics?
In October 2012, Google released Universal Analytics premium customers and later opened to the public in 2013. UA collects data based on web sessions and hits. In UA, event tracking isn’t set up by default, and one has to configure it manually.
What is Google Analytics 4?
In October 2020, Google introduced Google Analytics 4 and cited changes in user behaviour and privacy standards as major reasons for the switch. GA4 has many features and tools which allow more control over our data.
App Tracking: In UA, users needed to create a separate Property for platform-specific tracking whereas in GA4 everything can be tracked in one platform. In GA4, it is much easier to see combined data across different systems and enables you to obtain a thorough understanding of how customers engage with your business across platforms and devices.
Data Collection: The data collected by Universal Analytics was based on sessions. There were a variety of different hit types in each session. But GA4 is an event-based platform, which means that everything is considered an event and records user interactions, or events, as they take place rather than depending on page views.
Purchase Probability: One of the most exciting features of GA4 is its machine-learning capability. In GA4, machine learning can predict purchase probability and churn for each individual user. Do note that purchase probability measures how likely a user is to purchase on your website or app whereas Churn measures how likely a user is to stop using your product. Also, it predicts the revenue. Yes, you read it right, it shows the predicted revenue estimates of how much revenue the user will generate in the next 28 days.
BigQuery Integration: Before talking about integration, let’s learn what is BigQuery? So, it is Google's serverless, multi-cloud data warehouse created to assist you in transforming large data into insightful business information. Integrating with BigQuery is one of GA4's best features. As a result, you may export your GA4 data, easily store it, and analyze it in BigQuery.
Metrics: In UA, we can see the bounce rate but were you aware that there is no bounce rate metric in GA4? Yes, bounce rates have been omitted from reports. The bounce rate is a measurement to tell you how many of your visitors left your site without interacting with it either by clicking a link or making a purchase. GA4 displays a new metric called engaged sessions which displays the number of interactions with your content.
While there are some changes in GA4, they are only meant to provide you with a more comprehensive view of your data. So, are you ready for the change?
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