GA4: The Most Straightforward Guide You Will Ever Read

With the GA4 rollout in full swing since July 1, 2023, there’s definitely a learning curve involved in understanding its new features and harnessing its capabilities to improve your digital presence. Also, with high-ranking articles like 10 Things We Hate About GA4 from Search Engine Land and ‘Kicking and Screaming’ About GA4 from MarTech – we get it, “the struggle is real,” as Millennials say.

If Google Analytics 4 has left you feeling lost and frustrated, you’re not alone. Let this article be your comprehensive and straightforward companion on this GA4 journey. We’ll break down the facts about GA4 into manageable sections, offering easy-to-follow descriptions and practical tips.

What Is GA4?

Google Analytics 4 is the current version of Google’s web analytics service and the successor of Universal Analytics (may it rest in peace). The developers behind GA4 designed it to address the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing and user behavior tracking, making it significantly more powerful, flexible, and future-focused than its predecessor.

Standout Features and Updates

Some of GA4’s key features and improvements include:

• Event-based tracking: GA4 takes an event-centric approach to tracking user interactions. It monitors and records specific user actions as individual events, encompassing button clicks, page views, audio plays, video views, transactions, and more. This giant leap from session-based to event-based tracking paves the way for a more granular understanding of user behaviors. Moreover, GA4 introduces the ability for businesses and marketers to create and track as many as 300 events and 30 conversions.
• Enhanced user tracking: Unlike Universal Analytics (UA), GA4 focuses on user-centric data tracking. In layman’s terms, you can now track users across devices and platforms. GA4 provides each visitor with a user ID, allowing you to gain insights into the entire user journey, from app to website and back.
• Predictive insights: GA4 introduces predictive metrics powered by, you guessed it, machine learning! Instead of making assumptions based on previous behaviors, this new feature allows you to anticipate user behaviors and trends to make calculated decisions, such as forecasting churn rates and potential revenue. In our opinion, this is one of the platform’s best added features.
• Better customization: One of GA4’s most noticeable, you-cannot-miss changes is the new and improved dashboard, which you can customize to your liking and even integrate with Google Looker Studio to create data visualizations, giving you greater control and flexibility in your decision-making processes. In addition, GA4 enables custom segments based on trigger events. This feature simplifies the process of tracking and monitoring specific interactions, especially the ones most relevant to your goals.
• Data collection and privacy: Google’s developers designed GA4 with data privacy at its core, aligning with evolving privacy regulations like GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act). It allows you to manage data retention and offers features for user consent and data deletion.

What’s the Difference Between Universal Analytics and GA4?

You might be wondering, doesn’t UA offer the above, too? Yes and no. Here’s how they differ:

• UA is session-centric: While GA4 follows an event-based tracking approach, UA has a session-based tracking model. For example, suppose a user visits your site and watches a video, leaves a comment, and fills out a contact form. These are three individual events in one web page. In a session-based analytics model, standard reports will only consider page views within a session.
• UA has limited tracking capabilities: While GA4 excels in user-centric data tracking by assigning a user ID to each visitor, UA offers limited cross-device tracking capabilities. It can hinder you from getting a bird’s-eye view of interactions, especially as users switch between various devices.
• UA lacks predictive functions: UA does not offer predictive insights to the same extent as GA4, restricting your ability to respond to user behaviors and trends in a proactive manner.
• UA has fewer customization options: UA’s customization abilities are limited to tailoring dimensions, metrics, and events, as well as creating a few custom reports.
• UA was not designed with privacy in mind: Unlike GA4, UA requires more manual setup to ensure compliance with privacy regulations. It also lacks some of the built-in features for data privacy that its successor offers.

Why Should You Upgrade from Universal Analytics to GA4?

The reasons above are well worth the move to GA4. But if you need more convincing, here’s why you should make the switch now:

• Continue using analytics: Universal Analytics stopped processing data on July 1, 2023, meaning the platform no longer measures web traffic or updates reports. In other words, if you want to keep leveraging Google Analytics to measure traffic and engagement, your best option is to migrate to Google Analytics 4.
• Future-proofing: GA4 is Google’s vision for the future of web analytics. By upgrading, you ensure your analytics capabilities remain current.

Embracing change allows you to acclimate now instead of later, a.k.a. when your competitors have already adjusted and you’re still struggling to adapt. Don’t get left behind–stay ahead in the rapidly changing digital space.

How to Set Up Google Analytics 4

The GA4 Setup Assistant is available for anyone with a Universal Analytics website property. Here’s a quick summary of what Google needs you to do:

1. Login to Google Analytics.
2. Click the “Admin” option on the bottom-left corner of your screen.
3. Go to the “Account” column and choose the Google Analytics account that aligns with your website.
4. Go to the “Property” column. Choose the Universal Analytics property that currently gathers data from your website, then click “GA4 Setup Assistant” to initiate the setup.
5. Select “Get started” under “I want to create a new Google Analytics 4 property.”
6. If your website uses the gtag.js tag for tracking, you have the option to streamline data collection by selecting “Enable data collection using existing tags.” After this selection, proceed by clicking the “Create Property” button.
7. If you encounter any obstacles at this stage, it may be due to the following:
   1. Your Content Management System (CMS) does not currently support the gtag.js tag, which is necessary for this setup.
   2. Your website uses the analytics.js tag instead of the gtag.js tag.
   3. You have implemented Google Tag Manager for your website, which requires a different setup process. If you encounter this problem, check out Google Tag Manager for more troubleshooting tips.

On the other hand, if your website does not have Universal Analytics set up, you must start from scratch. Go to Google Analytics to create an account. The default is GA4.

Need Help Setting Up and Using GA4? Choose PrimeView

As digital marketing experts, it’s our role and pleasure to help clients transition and navigate the GA4 environment from unfamiliar to familiar. If you need a reliable team to guide you through this journey, drop us a line. Let’s work together to ensure a seamless transition and seize GA4’s opportunities for enhanced insights and sustainable growth.