Are You Prepared for the New Google Analytics?
Estimated Time Reading: 4 minutes
Intended Audience: B2B Marketing Strategist, B2B Business Owners
In March 2022, Google announced that it will sunset the current Universal Analytics and soon replace it with the 4th version of its analytics property – Google Analytics 4. Starting July 1st, 2023, Universal Analytics will stop processing new hits. Google Analytics 4 has been in development for years with a different beta name called ‘App+Web’.
The Mavens are here to make sure you are equipped for Google Analytics 4. Let’s dive into the changes and how you can conquer them.
Google Analytics 4: What You Need to Know
A Brand-New Google Analytics
Krista Seiden, a former Googler, described the new analytics property as “an entirely new way of doing analytics – set up to scale for the future, work in a cookie-less world, and be a lot more privacy-conscious.” Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is set to prepare digital marketers and business owners for the changing marketing and technology landscapes, including fluctuations in privacy policies, cookies, and browser updates.
To unpack how analytics will transform, let’s explore the three primary changes brought about by GA4’s new features:
Change 1: Additional Mobile App Activity Tracking
The new Google Analytics 4 offers a more comprehensive and unified view of the consumer journey with app activity tracking. With the increasing rates of mobile app usage, GA4 will eliminate the blind spot for app tracking and activities, thus bringing a more accurate insight to app + website owners. In case you don’t have a mobile app for your services, GA4 can still be an excellent tool to measure your website performance.
Change 2: Adapt to a Cookie-less and Privacy-Driven World
As much as we love a warm cookie with a glass of milk (just like the rest of the web), cookies pose a privacy risk because they share users’ data with third parties. The current Universal Analytics was built to measure cookie-based independent sessions on desktop devices; hence, the goals in Universal Analytics are session-based. But with GA4, the goals will be event-based, no longer relying on cookies as a measurement parameter.
As internet users are demanding greater privacy on the web, many of them are opting out of sharing data when accessing a website. In addition to that, new laws such as GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act enforce strict data privacy, creating a big data gap in user engagement reports. To keep pace with such regulations, Google Analytics 4 is designed with user privacy at heart. It utilizes machine learning and other protocols to fill in the gap in website data, thus, providing event-based conversions. In addition to this, it no longer stores IP address of the users.
Change 3: New Predictive Data Modeling
Not only does Google Analytics 4 help you understand consumer behavior in a cookie-less world, but is also capable of predicting the future thanks to its machine learning models. The three predictive metrics are:
1. Purchase Probability
Purchase Probability predicts the possibility that users who have visited your application website in the last 28 days will reach a conversion event in the next 7 days.
2. Churn Probability
As the name suggested, Churn Probability predicts the possibility that visitors who have been active on your website in the last 7 days will be inactive in the next 7 days.
3. Predicted Revenue
Change 4: Customer Life cycle Reporting
In addition to the current User Collection, Google Analytics 4 now offers the Life cycle to help you understand user activities from acquisition to conversion with the following reports:
- Acquisition reports: This capability will show you the sources of new and returning users. The report highlights your acquisition statistics to assist you in developing a clear understanding of where your users are coming from.
- Engagement reports: This report allows you to track user engagement through the events that users initiate, as well as the website and app screens that they visit. These reports can help identify the pages and screens that gain the most user interaction, as well as understand user behavior.
- Monetization reports: This topic shows you a summary of your monetization from sales, advertisements, and subscriptions on your website.
- Retention reports: This feature explains how frequently and for how long visitors interact with your website after their initial visit. It also assists you in determining how valuable users are, based on the additional money generated following their initial visit.
Google Analytics 4: What You Need to Do
The time to act on Google Analytics 4 is near. Here are a few actionable items for your GA4 configuration journey:
- Step 1: Determine the current version of your Google Analytics property.
- Step 2: If you are still running only Universal Analytics (UA), upgrade to GA4 before July 1, 2023. If this is you, you will only be able to track data before UA’s end-of-life. Follow this useful guide from Google to transition to GA4.
- Step 3: Start planning team training sessions to make sure your team is comfortable using the new version of Google Analytics and is empowered to make critical decisions.
- Step 4: Before July 2023, extract and store historical data from Universal Analytics to ensure you have enough data for future comparisons.
Adapt to the Future of Analytics with GA4
- Universal Analytics versus Google Analytics 4 Data
- Send Events to Both your UA and GA4 Properties
- Google Analytics 4 Reporting
- SEJ’s GA4 Setup Beginner’s Guide
With all the changes in store, we understand that you may feel a bit overwhelmed. The Mavens are just a click away if you need any assistance with Google Analytics 4, and / or your B2B marketing and SEO strategy. Send us a quick message at maven@mavencollectivemarketing.com for a free consultation.
