What is Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. It allows website owners to understand how users interact with their website, including the number of visitors, their behavior on the site, and the sources of their traffic. This information can be used to improve website performance, design, and user experience. Google Analytics provides a range of features, including real-time analytics, user tracking, and advanced reporting options, making it one of the most popular web analytics tools in use today. Additionally, Google Analytics integrates with other Google services, such as Google AdWords and Google Search Console, providing a more comprehensive view of a website’s performance.

What is the new Google Analytics GA4

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest version of Google Analytics, which was introduced in October 2020. It replaces the previous version, Universal Analytics, and provides a more advanced and integrated way of tracking website and app data. Unlike Universal Analytics, GA4 is designed to be more user-friendly and intuitive, with a focus on machine learning and artificial intelligence. Some of the key features of GA4 include:

• User-centric measurement: GA4 provides a more comprehensive understanding of user behavior, by tracking interactions across multiple devices and platforms, such as websites and apps.
• Cross-device tracking: GA4 provides cross-device measurement and attribution, which helps to better understand how users interact with your website and apps across multiple devices.
• Event tracking: GA4 provides more flexible and customizable event tracking, which allows you to track user interactions on your website and apps, such as button clicks, form submissions, and pageviews.
• Machine learning: GA4 leverages machine learning algorithms to provide insights and recommendations, such as which pages are most important to users, and which sources are driving the most conversions.

GA4 represents a significant shift from the traditional web analytics model and provides a more comprehensive and integrated way of tracking website and app data, with a focus on machine learning and AI.

Migrating to Google Analytics GA4

Standard Universal Analytics properties will stop processing hits on July 1, 2023. We strongly recommend that you create and customize your Google Analytics 4 setup as soon as possible. This will allow you to start collecting the right historical data for your unique business needs.

The best setup for Google Analytics 4 comes from creating a customized property that is tailored to your unique business needs, Magenium Solutions can help guide you in customizing your setup. The earlier you do this, the more valuable data you will have available in Google Analytics 4. This includes collecting important historical insights for the specific conversions, audiences, and other Analytics data that you care most about.

If you haven’t created a new Google Analytics 4 property, Google Setup Assistant could will automatically create one for you when the Standard Analytics stops processing but it will be configured with just some of the same basic features and events that you set in your corresponding Universal Analytics property. But this Google Analytics 4 property will not be configured to meet your specific business goals and may not capture all the historical data you need.

We suggest you schedule a two-hour minimum initial engagement with a Magenium Developer to review your current configuration.  During this initial engagement, the Developer will provide advisory services, discovery, and recommendations towards Client changes supporting the Google Analytics Version 4 Property update.

To get started today contact us or call us at 630.786.5900 right now.