Migrating from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 [INFOGRAPHIC]
Google Analytics recently announced its upcoming shift to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) from its current software, Universal Analytics. Google made the official announcement on March 16, 2022, notifying clients that Universal Analytics will stop processing data on July 1, 2023. Following the end of data processing, interface access for Universal Analytics will cease sometime in 2024, at least 6 months after the halt of its processing capabilities. The experts at Infotrust have outlined a plan to ensure your organization is equipped to migrate to the future of web analytics.
The first analytics solutions appeared just 3 years after the birth of the internet. From the internet’s inception, log analysis became more difficult as websites began creating multiple HTTP requests per page visit, adding images, audio, and video. Metrics for user behavior allowed companies to optimize conversion rates, page performance, and user experience, while also creating targeted advertising. The applications of this data created a larger demand, and new analytics solutions were adapted to provide tracking of more than just page views.
Google has been one of the leading companies in the data analytics industry, stemming from its acquisition of Urchin, a data processing company, in 2005. An approximate 28 million active websites use Google Analytics currently. Google introduced its current iteration of web analytics software, Universal Analytics, in 2012. Google Analytics was built as a hosted analytics solution focused on quantitative data, with Universal Analytics enabling the tracking of users across multiple devices and platforms through user IDs.
Google Analytics 4 is different from Universal Analytics in a few key ways. There will be news of upcoming privacy-focused features that will allow more data controls and customizations that are exclusive to GA4. The switch to GA4 is centered on the privacy-focused capabilities. Additionally, GA4 supports predictive analytics for customer behavior. It employs revenue prediction, purchase probability, and churn probability. A third major component of GA4 is the combination of app and web analytics on a single platform. Instead of tracking engagement differently than Firebase for mobile, GA4 collects comparable data in the same manner for both web and mobile.
GA4 also employs a range of new features. All users have access to funnels, a new debugging mode, automatic data collection on any engagement, and free BigQuery integration. Additionally, GA4 allows businesses to exclude users, temporarily or permanently, based on behaviors or conditions. Any usage of Universal Analytics will need to be rebuilt or recreated during the switch to GA4 because they are a separate set of properties. There is no direct upgrade path because of this separation, meaning dual-tagging with GA4 is critical. Experts are there to support you and your enterprise analytics needs during this transition.
Source: InfoTrust
