Google Analytics is among the most useful free tools in digital marketing. But as of 2022, businesses must transition to the newest update—Google Analytics 4. Here’s how you can handle this change and make the most of it for your marketing.
What is Google Analytics 4 and why do we need to move to it?
- 1995 – Urchin created
- 2005 – Purchased by Google, becoming Google Analytics.
- 2011 – New version
- 2012 – UA unveiled
- 2020 – GA4
How is it different from Universal Analytics—aka GA 3?
It’s hard to explain over audio, but there are two main things:
- Instead of Pageviews, events, transactions, etc, it’s all just “Events”.
- This makes it much more complex out of the gate, but much more powerful.
What does this mean for the future of digital marketing?
- GA4 is trying to do more without cookies, which will help.
- As your audience goes into more separate channels (website + app, for example), this can do a better job of pulling all of that data into one place.
How can businesses make this transition?
- Run both sets of code for the time being.
- Start collecting data ASAP so you’ll have historic data.
- Use tools to make sense of the data (like “scorecards” for some of our clients)
Why is data and analytics vital to marketing?
- You can’t manage what you don’t measure.
- Know what’s working and what’s not, and make changes accordingly.
- Allows you to run experiments and objectively see what works better.
