At the end of 2021, Google announced the latest version of Google Analytics – Google Analytics 4 (GA4), also known as the next generation of analytics. Google deploys machine learning in GA4, built to adapt to a world without cookies due to recent privacy laws. The old version of Google Analytics, Universal Analytics, will no longer exist come July 1, 2023 since this new change will affect how Google gathers and saves data. Because of all the new changes, it’s important to make the switch to GA4 now and start gathering data as soon as possible.
Event-Tracking vs Session-Tracking
Although there are plenty of pros to the latest implementation of analytics, the big change is that GA4 will implement event-tracking instead of session-tracking. But what does that mean?
Thanks to GA4, tracking a user’s journey across devices is significantly simpler. Universal Analytics was released in 2005 before it was common to search different devices. Because of this, Universal Analytics wasn’t suited to follow the customer journey among devices. Some other useful changes that come with GA4 are:
- Predictive Analytics
- Better Conversion Tracking
- More Accuracy with Your Data
- Expanded Integration
The Differences in Metrics from Universal to GA4
Some well-known metrics that were used in Universal were changed in GA4; however, GA4 also adds new metrics that could be useful for measuring the success of your business. It’s important to be aware of these changes to accurately compare metrics between GA4 and Universal.
Active User Metric
As for user metrics, GA4 will be adding an active users metric. This will display how many unique people visited your website or app. An active user is when there are users participating in a session.
New Bounce Rate
The bounce rate feature will have a bit of a different meaning in GA4 as it will be calculated differently to provide more insight into the user journey. If a user doesn’t engage with your content for more than 10 seconds, it is classified as a bounce. It is also considered a bounce if a user doesn’t complete a conversion, or less than two pages are visited.
To take a deeper dive into all of the metric changes that GA4 will be implementing in July, visit the Google Analytics help page.
Why Should I Make the Switch to GA4 Now?
Come July 1, 2023, Universal Analytics will be completely obsolete. If Google Analytics users want to continue to track data across their website, they will have to use GA4. But why switch now?
Because the data we have in Universal Analytics is not compatible with the analytics in GA4, we will no longer have access to any previous data once Universal Analytics ends. Making the switch to GA4 sooner rather than later will help avoid any holes in your data.
Plan Ahead – TPI is Here to Help!
Needless to say, there’s a lot to learn with this new change. Without a plan in place for tracking data using GA4, the accuracy of metric reporting can seriously be affected.
If you need help switching your site over to Google Analytics 4, or if you’re unsure if your site even needs it, contact us at Thoughtprocess Interactive.