Google has announced the EOL (End of life) for Universal Analytics, the version of Google Analytics you’ve probably been using for the past few years. Although the date is set for July, 2023, it is high time to start thinking about setting up the new Google Analytics 4 already now.
The recommendation we give right now is to continue using Universal Analytics (UA) as a complement along with Google Analytics 4 (GA4) for now. GA4 is still under development, which means that not all the features you might need are implemented yet.
What’s new with Google Analytics 4?
The new version of Google Analytics means a bit of a shift in how you will use Analytics in the future. In GA4, the focus is on raw data and events that can be measured and compiled across multiple platforms.
This means that GA4 will shift to being more of an analytics platform that creates raw data that you can then choose how you want to analyse and create reports for. This will give users more freedom to choose which data to produce for analysis and provide better opportunities to analyse data as a whole, but it also means a steeper learning curve.
Events, events and events
When talking about Google Analytics 4, Event is something you will hear repeatedly. This is because you now largely go away from using cookies and instead make all measurement points into events. This means, for example, that things like sessions, bounce rate, etc. will be handled as events from now on. Just like it works for a contact form conversion.
With this, several common events from Tag Manager are introduced in GA4. Some examples are events for scroll, clicks for external links, on-site search and more.
Tag Manager will not become obsolete with this, but you will be able to handle many common events directly in GA4.
Reports
The concept of the new Google Analytics 4 can be seen as starting from a blank piece of paper where you as a user can build up what data to collect and how it should be presented. This means that the many different predefined reports available in Universal Analytics will no longer be available in GA4. Instead, you choose which reports you want to create for which data. It will be a little harder to get started, but once you do, your reports can be much better optimised for how you want to analyse your data.
Help with implementation and training for GA4
We understand that there will be a lot of new things to learn with Google Analytics 4. But you shouldn’t wait to implement it. You don’t want to be left with incomplete data when the EOL of Universal Analytics comes into effect.
We can help you implement the new Google Analytics and set up the events and reports you need for your conversion optimisation. We use Google Data Studio to create reports, to give you beautiful, interactive reports that help you make the right business decisions.
We also offer basic training to get you started with GA4. You can concentrate on doing what you do best and we can help you with what we do best.