Google Analytics is the free analysis service from Google that allows you to track lots of different elements and metrics about your website. By installing some coding on to your website, Google will track specific page views, entrance pages, and website traffic. This data allows you to make changes to your website to maximise the usability for your web visitors.
The existing platform, known as Universal Analytics (UA), will be sunsetted after 1st July. It is being replaced by the new Google Analytics 4 (GA4). If your business has not yet set up a GA4 property, but you have an existing UA property, don’t worry! From March 2023, Google has started to create GA4 properties on your behalf. Once the switch to GA4 has completed, UA will stop collecting data from your website. You’ll still be able to access the previously collected data though, for at least 6 months, though it will eventually be inaccessible. Google are therefore suggesting that you export your previous data during this time.
Why are Google changing Analytics?
The original Google Analytics was introduced in 2005. In the 18 years since then, the way businesses operate and how clients and customers access their goods and services has changed. So has the information that businesses are looking to track and analyse.
The move to Google Analytics 4 reflects this. It allows your business to track both web and app visits in one property. This enables you to undertake analysis for each of the platforms independently and in comparison to each other, more easily and comprehensively.
Differences between Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics
As mentioned above, GA4 allows you to track both your website and app in the same property. On UA, businesses must have two separate properties, one for their desktop site and the other for the app. This means on GA4, you can get a deeper understanding of how customers are using your website (both in desktop and app form). It can also help you to prioritise where your efforts should be lie in making improvements to your website.
Events
The way in which website interactions are captured by Analytics is different between GA4 and UA too. Where on UA they are split out into individual actions, such as page views, transactions and events, on GA4 everything is captured as an event. Analytics users can determine what each event is, in order to monitor when the event has been completed. The reason for this change is that it is deemed there are too many gaps in data for the method used by UA. Video watches and clicks, for example, are not able to be tracked in UA, however they can be set up as events to track in GA4.
Metrics
There is also a difference in the metrics that are able to be tracked. The most commonly used of these now unavailable metrics are those such as average session duration and bounce rate. It is possible to still extract this data from GA4, however it is not as straightforward as it was previously. For example the “engaged sessions per user” metric includes sessions where users stay on a page for 10 seconds or more, trigger one or more events or view 2 or more pages in the session. The remaining percentage – the percentage of sessions where users do not meet any of the above factors – is the bounce rate. The average session duation metric from UA can be found as the “average engagement time” metric. So the data is still available, but how it is found and what it is called are different.
Reports
On GA4 there are less standard reports available, though this shouldn’t be a concern to users. You are able to customise reports to a greater extent, creating reports that only contain relevant data. The search functionality in GA4 is superior to that in UA also. In a similar way to the Google search engine, questions can be entered into the Analytics search function, with the answers shown in the search function too. It can therefore be deemed that it is easier to find the answers you’re looking for in GA4.
Conclusion
Whilst the prospect of moving your analytics over to the GA4 platform might seem daunting, it is certainly worth setting up your GA4 property now. This will give you a chance to get used to the new reports and dashboards, and customise any reports you need to. You are also able to run both GA4 and UA concurrently until 1st July so you can make sure you’re reading the data in GA4 the right way. You can compare the new metrics to the UA metric to ensure you know what to look for in GA4.
Whether your business is completely new to Analytics or you’ve been using UA for some time, one thing that hasn’t changed is the importance of data analysis. There are so many ways in which the information you can garner from Google Analytics is useful to your business and can help you determine strategy.
Should you not have the time or expertise to get your head around the new Analytics, Westwinds Marketing can help. Contact us now to discuss your marketing requirements!