In one of our previous post we told you everything about Google Analytics 4, what it is, what to expect and the best practices for it, we also mentioned how to prepare for its arrival.
Google Analytics 4, is like a brand new system, not just an upgrade of Google’s web analytics tool. The upgrade on July 1, 2023 definitely replaced the old version, the new version focuses on events, which are actions people take, instead of sessions like before and in this article we want to tell you about its lights and shadows so that you know what you are going to find.
Is Google Analytics 4 a positive step?
We believe so. However, Google Analytics 4 should not be seen as an evolution of the previous system, but as a completely new web and app analytics system, since its tracking is based on events, and not on sessions, as Universal Analytics did.
The arrival of GA4 is due to the great changes that the digital world has been experiencing in the last ten years, especially with regard to user privacy. And that is why GA4 was designed to preserve people’s data, but at the same time be able to continue offering valuable data to companies, something that Universal Analytics was unable to do.
Why is it important to adopt it as soon as possible?
On July 1, 2023 Universal Analytics stopped processing data. Due to this, there are many companies that months ago began to familiarize themselves with the new version of the tool and to adopt it in order to have enough data to work with. So we recommend that you also get to it as soon as possible if you haven’t already, especially considering that you can only migrate the configuration, but not your data and metrics. In short, the sooner you do the migration, the more historical data you will have to work with. For now, Google has announced that from July 1 you will only be able to access the data processed by Universal Analytics to date for a minimum of 6 months.
What we liked the most about Google Analytics 4
In general, the impressions have been very good. Although the differences are notable and the learning curve is significant, GA4 is a much deeper and clearer tool. In fact, we believe that Google Analytics 4 is the version that differs the most from the rest. Below we leave you the 3 aspects that we fell in love with the most.
Conversion events
Setting up conversions is much easier with GA4 compared to Universal Analytics. Just indicate any of the existing events in the tool as a conversion event and you’re good to go. The fact that it is so simple is a great advantage, but it has the downside that since it is done with a simple click, someone on the team may configure it by mistake. To avoid this, we recommend that you limit access to certain people in the company.
Event data collection
It’s now much easier to set up events and data collection is much more streamlined. Before, you had to create custom events for everything, but not anymore. In fact, you can enable some events to be captured automatically.
Focused on engagement
One of the most outstanding novelties of the new Google tool is that the bounce rate ceases to exist. In Universal Analytics the default bounce rate was not a very interesting metric, as it needed some extra configuration to increase its accuracy. GA4 has replaced it with the “engaged session” metric, which by default is more accurate when measuring user interaction with the application or website.
Apart from that, two very interesting new metrics have been created to better understand if there is engagement by users: average interaction time and sessions engaged by the user.
What we liked least about Google Analytics 4
Although we liked the experience with Google Analytics 4 a lot, there is something that we would have kept: the views. GA4 has removed views and has not implemented any alternatives to them. It is something that many companies used to use and that they will no longer be able to see, at least for now.
But outside of that aspect, our experience with GA4 was very positive and we encourage all companies that used Universal Analytics to take the plunge as soon as possible so as not to be left behind.