What Is Google Analytics 4? And How to Set It Up Before It’s Too Late

If you have your own website or work with someone who does, it would be a good idea to start familiarizing yourself with the changes introduced by GA4. The new platform is not as straightforward as the previous one and can be difficult to get used to. The most important thing to remember is that if you are using Google Analytics 4 on your website, it will continue to work perfectly when Universal Analytics is discontinued in 2020.

This article will serve as a guide for those who want to start using Google Analytics. Using the advanced features of Google Analytics 4 while avoiding the issues associated with transitioning from GA3 can help make your analytics experience more rewarding and successful.

Why is it necessary to switch to Google Analytics 4?

The new version of Google Analytics will provide greater visibility into user behavior, improving opportunities for businesses to learn how to better guide users toward conversion. Although there is no perfect solution for every business, the ultimate goal is clear: we need new ways to discover insights that provide a great user experience and improve business results. Google Analytics 4 will continue to evolve in the future, but it is already offering analytics capabilities that were not previously possible, and that is an important thing.

With the arrival of omnichannel marketing, whose goal is to provide a consistent customer experience across all touchpoints, from the website to social media, email, and app usage, it is essential to have an analytics solution that can track these journeys. GA4 attempts to achieve this in part with its channel, web, and app usage analytics capabilities.

GA4 can track visits from non-Google platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, while continuing to monitor metrics such as comments, actions, etc., on the Google Analytics platform. This allows GA4 to track visitors from these channels and help map out consumer journeys on websites and apps, something that cannot be achieved through Universal Analytics.

How does GA4 differ?

There is always a good side and a bad side to every paradigm shift. At Ecommedia, we consider these to be the main advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages:

• Unifies website and mobile app data
• Can track visits from non-Google platforms
• Provides more data and insights in a single location

Disadvantages:

• The interface is less intuitive, or at least it is difficult to get used to the new interface.
• Reports can be difficult to find
• Some features are still under development

Overall, GA4 is a powerful platform that can help marketing professionals track user interactions and journeys across all devices, websites, and apps. However, the transition from Universal Analytics can be difficult, which is why at Ecommedia we are starting to migrate all our clients to begin collecting data and training our team so they can use the tool.

How do I set up Google Analytics 4?

If you do not yet have Universal Analytics on your website or mobile app, you can sign up for GA4 by visiting analytics.google.com and following the installation and coding instructions. For those who use Universal Analytics, the GA4 setup assistant must be installed separately and will collect data from the moment it is installed.

Although the most important thing is installing the correct tags on your website to track all the necessary events, the paradigm shift is that it counts events instead of visits. In our case, as an agency specializing in ecommerce, tracking ecommerce is paramount; if we cannot analyze conversions, we are lost. Now, in the final months of 2022, ecommerce plugins are appearing for PrestaShop, Magento, Shopify, and others, without the need to manually include the tracking code. If you are lost and do not want to miss out on tracking your sales, we can help you at Ecommedia.