GOOGLE ANALYTICS 4 – WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Today’s measurement environment presents new challenges for businesses. All of this while protecting user privacy. Google Analytics 4 was created two years ago to help businesses address changing measurement standards. It is a powerful analytics platform that’s ready for the future. Google’s Machine Learning technology is able to predict and surface new insights from Google Tag data. It adapts to changing environments.

If you don’t own a modern measuring tool, you could be missing important insights that could benefit your business, such as custom events, Video Views, or user interaction.

MOVING ON FROM UNIVERSAL ANALYTICS

Universal Analytics was developed to facilitate online measurement and offered key features to track your visitor’s journey across devices. Universal Analytics was developed to allow online measurement but this measurement method is rapidly losing its value. Google Analytics 4 is an Enhanced Measurement method that works across all platforms and does away with cookies. The key difference now is that it uses an events-based data structure to provide user-centric measurement in one easy-to-access Analysis Hub.

Universal Analytics has privacy controls. Google Analytics 4 was built with privacy in view to provide a better user experience than the previous version. Businesses can adapt to changing business needs by having more control over data collection and use. Google Analytics 4 won’t keep IP addresses enabling Path Analysis. These controls are crucial in today’s global data privacy landscape. Users expect better privacy protections.

START YOUR MEASUREMENT WITH GOOGLE ANALYTICS 4

Google Analytics 4 was designed to help you achieve your main objectives, such as driving sales or installing apps, generating leads, or connecting with customers offline and online. A Google Analytics 4 Property still allows you to track the performance of your marketing campaigns and more mundane events such as File Downloads. These are just a few of the many ways Google Analytics 4 can help your business.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR CUSTOMERS THROUGH TOUCHPOINTS

A platform-independent or event-based measurement model gives you a comprehensive view of customer life-cycles and allows you to create custom conversion funnels and offers many benefits to marketers over the default version.

Gymshark, a UK-based brand of fitness accessories and apparel, used Google Analytics 4 for measuring across its website and app. This allowed the Gymshark team better understand how users move through the purchase funnel. They were able to reduce user drop-off by 9%, increase product page click-throughs, and cut down on their time spent analyzing user journeys by 30%.

DATA-DRIVEN ATTRIBUTION CAN IMPROVE ROI

Data-driven Attribution allows you to assess the impact of your marketing on the customer journey. This assigns attribution credit for more than the last click using Analytics data. It also helps you understand how marketing activities influence conversions. To optimize campaigns, you can export this analysis to Google Ads or Google Marketing Platform media tools.

This makes for a better reporting tool. An event-driven data model that when coupled with Google Analytics 360 gives you a better understanding of the user journey.

Keep compliance and business needs in mind when measuring engagement and conversions. You can control and minimize user-level data collection, such as metadata and cookies, while still preserving important measurement functionality.

DATA CAN BRING YOU MORE VALUE

Machine learning provides sophisticated insights into user behavior and conversions. It creates new audiences of active users who are likely to buy or churn and automatically uncovers critical insights that can be used to improve your marketing.

McDonald’s Hong Kong achieved its goal of growing mobile orders by using a predictive audience consisting of “likely 7-day purchasers” as well as exporting it via Google Ads. This increased app orders six times. The team achieved a 2.3x stronger ROI, a 5.6x increase in revenue, and a 63% decrease in the cost per action.

“Google Analytics 4 has equipped us with a strong measurement foundation. We are able to get valuable insights from our first-party data with machine learning and utilize them in our marketing, driving impressive results to future-proof our business.”
— Tina Chao, McDonald’s Hong Kong Chief Marketing and Digital Customer Experience Officer

Search Ads 360 and Display & Video 360 integrations have been made available for all customers. All properties of Google Analytics 4, standard, and 360, can activate their Analytics data in the Google Marketing Platform buying tool to enhance campaign performance. GA360 users are now in a much better position to make decisions based on accurate data.

YOUR ENTERPRISE MEASUREMENT REQUIREMENTS ADDRESSED

Analytics 360 offers new sub and roll-up properties that allow you to adjust the structure of Google Analytics 4 properties to suit data governance requirements. This makes it possible for different user analytics across teams and partners (e.g. advertising agencies) to access the data they need according to your policies.

Analytics 360 has higher limits to accommodate increasing demand. It can store up to 125 custom dimensions, 400 audiences, and 50 conversion types per asset. Service legal agreements (SLAs), covering most core functionality such as data collection, reporting, and attribution, will give you peace of mind.

“As a large enterprise business with a wide product portfolio, the new Analytics 360 has unlocked insights for our teams to make data-driven decisions, while providing the ability to meet our complex data governance needs with ease and flexibility.”
— Rashi Kacker, Director of Marketing Technology Innovation, Constellation Brands

WHAT IS NEXT?

All properties of the Universal Analytics standard will cease processing new hits from July 1, 2023. 360 Universal Analytics properties, however, will continue processing new hits until October 1, 2023. You’ll still be able to access to your previous data in Universal Analytics for at most six months.

Move to Google Analytics 4 immediately to get the historical data you need before Universal Analytics stops processing new hits. You can enable this in your Google Analytics Account User Properties.

HOW TO USE GOOGLE ANALYTICS 4

The first step in learning how to use Google Analytics 4 is to create a GTM container. Next, publish the changes you make in the Google Analytics dashboard. Complete the user interface steps and your changes should be reflected in the new data soon. Real-time reports are one of the best ways to track changes in your website traffic. Click on Reports > Real-Time to access these reports and learn more about how to improve your website’s performance.

The next step in configuring Google Analytics 4 is to create your first data stream. A data stream is a collection of events that are sent from one web page to another. A property can have multiple streams, but for most tracking scenarios, you’ll only need one webstream. Once you’ve created a webstream, you’ll be ready to configure it. After establishing the webstream, you’ll need to add a URL to the property. You can also add multiple data sources, but only one will be necessary for your tracking needs.

WHAT IS GOOGLE ANALYTICS 4?

The biggest difference in Google Analytics 4 over previous product releases is the addition of a new tool called BigQuery. While BigQuery was designed for serious analysts, it is now available for all users as a free download. This new tool is more flexible than ever before, allowing you to collect data about just about any topic you choose. It is easy to set up and uses advanced AI to help you understand your website’s data. If you’re using this type of service, here’s what you need to know.

The most important change is the ability to use AI-powered insights. These tools are based on advanced machine learning models and can alert business owners and suppliers to trends. In addition, they can predict the behavior of customers and can calculate the potential revenue of a group of customers or how likely a user segment is to churn. With AI-powered insights, Google has made analytics even easier to use and much more accurate. In this way, it’s possible to make more informed decisions.

Among the most impressive improvements in Google Analytics 4 are the new tracking options. Universal Analytics is used to track only screen time and page views. With the new version, you can track events 72 hours after they’ve occurred. This means that you’ll be able to make better-informed business decisions with the information you’ve collected. There are also improvements to the data model and audience management features. You’ll find improved analytics, AI-powered insights, and a more comprehensive view of your website’s visitors.

MAIN ADVANTAGES OF GOOGLE ANALYTICS 4

If you haven’t upgraded to Google Analytics yet, you should. This new version is more powerful and offers more features. For instance, you can customize the reports to better understand the behavior of your users. You can also create audiences to tailor your reports. You can also create custom login tracking. You can see where your customers are coming from, what pages they’re visiting, and what they’ve done after they arrive on your site.

When deciding which version of Google Analytics to use, it is important to understand your data and why you need it. Using a single set of statistics for your website will allow you to get a better understanding of how your visitors are using your products and services. This will help you make better decisions and improve your customer’s experience. With the right tools, you can track and analyze every activity on your site. By utilizing these tools, you can make your business better.

The advantages of Google Analytics 4 go beyond improving your analytics. The new version combines data from your website and your app to evaluate customer behavior through the funnel. You can see how customers behave at each stage of the purchase funnel. You can also see how they find your products. With the right tools and data, you can create a more personalized experience for your customers. You can also regulate the amount of data you share with Google. The best part about Google Analytics 4 is that it’s free.