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What’s happening, how is it affecting advertisers, and what can they do to combat changes?

For years, websites and web apps have relied on Google Analytics to get a complete picture of their website’s performance and the overall behavior of their users. However, Google has recently announced a new version of Google Analytics that is more advanced than the universal analytics that most of us currently have on our sites. They call this new version Google Analytics 4.

It will come with several changes that every website owner needs to know about and plan accordingly to take full advantage of. This article will discuss everything you need to know about Google Analytics 4 and how to prepare for this new analytics generation.

What is Google Analytics 4?

Google describes Google Analytics 4 as a new generation of analytics emphasizing “privacy-first” cookie less tracking of website/app users. This new version of Google Analytics uses events instead of session-based data. Google intends to fully transition to Google Analytics 4 starting July 1st, 2023.

Your current Universal Analytics will continue to collect data and show you your site or app’s performance until July 1st next year. However, all data will flow through the new analytics version after this date. Unfortunately, that means all websites that will not have installed Google Analytics 4 will be unable to get data about their website’s performance.

Google encourages all website and app developers to install Google Analytics 4 by July 1st, 2023. However, it would be better to install it now if you intend to make year-over-year performance comparisons of your site come July 2023.

What is new in Google Analytics 4

I know you are reading this article because you want to know what new changes this version of analytics is bringing to the table. Let’s explore some of the core features and capabilities of Google Analytics 4.

Making AI-based Predictions

One of the most exciting new features in this new version of Google Analytics is the ability to look at target segments and make informed predictions about their purchase likelihood. It will also give you an estimated revenue that this target segment could generate for your business. This will help website owners know which target segments to focus more on.

Multi-device Customer Journey

This new feature will enable businesses to learn about customer experience on different devices and platforms. Companies can monitor user behavior on every device and platform they are using. This data can be used to optimize the experience of apps and websites based on how users interact with them on the different platforms.

Stronger Conversion Insights

In Google analytics 4, businesses will get conversion insights that will be more detailed and centered around the customer. For instance, companies will now be able to see where customers first discovered their business. Such data will help advertisers, and business owners reimagine how they run lead-generation campaigns.

Cross-domain tracking

This is another core feature that is coming to Google Analytics 4. It will enable businesses that own multiple domains to track their users’ behavior on all these domains. In addition, Google Analytics 4 will transfer first-party cookies from one domain to another to monitor how specific users using your different domains behave.

Use of events

The current version of analytics tracks specific actions, including clicks or page views made by the user on a website or web app. This makes tracking multiple marketing campaigns a little complicated. With the new version of analytics, all metrics will be tracked as events, making it possible to track detailed actions that your users make while using your app or website.

How Google Analytics 4 is affecting advertisers

Every website or app will be required to switch to Google Analytics 4

Want to continue relying on Google to get analytics data for your site or app? You have no option but to switch to their next generation of analytics. Universal Analytics will continue to show your website’s past performance data even after July 1st, 2023. However, it won’t be processing new hits. So, you will essentially be stuck in the past if you don’t update to the latest version.

Advertisers will have to learn how to use the new tools in GA4.

Google has completely overhauled its analytics tool with this new version. This will require advertisers to go back to the drawing board to best to take advantage of them. The user interface has also been revamped! This could take advertisers some time to get used to the new changes.

The future is bright

Despite the learning that advertisers must go through while adapting to the changes Google has introduced in GA4, these changes are all for the better. The new features like event-based tracking, AI-based predictions, multi-device tracking, and more will give more data to advertisers to help them understand their target customers even better.

Some of these features also address the privacy concerns that most people have had about Google’s tracking for years. This could make some of your target customers more sensitive about their privacy and be open to browsing your website or apps. This is because Google’s tracking is now more susceptible to user privacy.

Final thoughts

Google Analytics 4 is the new and next generation for tracking user behavior on apps and websites. Even though Google Analytics 4 officially takes over on July 1st, 2023, users can install and use it now. It is recommended to install it now if you want to seamlessly track year-over-year data. This way, when the old version of Google Analytics is finally retired, you’re ahead of the game.

Don’t forget to check out the Infographic below for more details on the steps to a successful GA4 migration!

Google Analytics 4: A Marketers Guide