UPDATE: Google Analytics will stop processing new data on July 1, 2023 for Universal Analytics (standard version). However, Universal Analytics 360 properties have until October 1, 2023. Google Analytics 4 is the only tool that will be available to track your website activity after those dates.
For regular website owners, the transition to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) won't mean as much— most changes will be subtle and minor. But for agencies like yours that monitor the website activity of multiple clients, understanding how it impacts each site on an individual level will be critical for delivering the best service to your clients.
The good news is that the transition to GA4 doesn't necessarily require you to start from scratch; it's built on Universal Analytics, and much of the data will be comparable. But there are some critical differences between the two versions of Google Analytics that you should understand before transitioning your agency and its clients over.
In this article, we'll give you everything you need to know to prep your clients for the upcoming change.
Universal Analytics was a game-changer for the digital analytics industry when it first launched in 2012. It set a stronger standard for user data tracking, providing websites with new and improved tracking codes to better measure user behavior.
Universal Analytics is more than just a marketing tool—it's an invaluable resource that helps businesses capture more detailed and accurate insights. And with an 86% market share, it's by far the most widely used web analytics tool out there.
Combined with its other features, such as advanced segmentation, cross-device reports, and integrated data layers, Universal Analytics offers organizations of all sizes the opportunity to maximize their understanding of customer journeys and draw actionable conclusions from the data they collect.
Google Analytics is the go-to platform for website analytics and digital marketing. With GA4, Google once again raises the bar—it provides more accurate data tracking than Universal Analytics and Analytics 360, with an emphasis on machine learning and AI to deliver insights that will help improve customer experiences.
A quick overview of GA4 features:
With clearer reporting and understanding of the customer journey, agency owners can use the data to gain a deeper understanding of their clients' customers and provide even better service by tailoring strategies to meet their specific needs.
This added information also means greater transparency in client-agency relationships and more opportunities to create unique and impactful campaigns.
Let's take a look at the fundamental differences between Google's previous analytics tool and its upcoming rollout:
The most significant difference between Universal Analytics and GA4 is how user activity is tracked: instead of using cookies (a session-based model), GA4 uses “user-centric measurement,” an event-based data model, to track user activity.
This means that you can track individual users across multiple devices and platforms more efficiently than ever before.
With Universal Analytics's session-based model, page views were at the core of its analytics engine.
GA4 collects cross-platform analytics data. It identifies the customers' journey across multiple devices, channels, and campaigns, giving businesses an unprecedented level of insight into their users' behavior.
GA4 incorporates machine learning algorithms for enhanced measurement and more accurate predictions about user behavior. This allows agencies to have an even better understanding of what works and what doesn't when crafting digital campaigns for clients.
GA4 also simplifies the setup process by introducing universal measurement protocols and advanced segmentation capabilities, meaning agencies can quickly customize their analytics tracking to fit their individual clients' needs.
Additionally, GA4 has easy-to-use data-sharing capabilities, making it easier to collaborate with clients on reporting and analysis.
GA4 offers agencies more control over how they measure user activity, allowing them to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their client's customers and provide better service.
Let's examine the key advantages of GA4 for agencies.
GA4's in-depth analysis capabilities and intuitive reporting dashboards allow for more effective segmentation and targeting of customers.
With new demographics and interest reporting features, agencies can work with clients to create highly targeted campaigns that are better tailored to the specific needs of their customers.
GA4 makes it easier than ever to understand how users interact with your website or mobile app as each interaction can be associated with that same single user ID.
This helps create a longitudinal path for individual customers, making them easier to identify when they come back and providing insights into how all their interactions fit together in the grand scheme of their user journey.
Rather than having to piece data together from different reports using Universal Analytics, you instead have access to the ultimate user journey on-demand via GA4 without needing separate User-ID reporting views.
Each Universal Analytics data point used to be siloed—combining data was cumbersome, and responding to client inquiries was often challenging. GA4 simplifies this process and makes it easier to communicate with clients about their campaigns and the results they are getting.
Google Analytics 4 makes it easier to measure and optimize for SEO performance with the new page path and page depth analysis, which shows how users interact with your content.
Agencies can analyze historical data over 7, 28, and 90 days as well as real-time data to keep them informed about their clients' website performance and track key website KPIs.
Like Universal Analytics, the new Google Ads integration shows you in-app and web conversions from Google and YouTube ads.
But it also enables you to see conversions from Facebook, search, social media, and email marketing campaigns, all in one place.
This mobile and app data integration measures the overall influence of all your marketing efforts, no matter which acquisition channel you use.
When creating GA4, Google's primary goal was to help businesses track their customers through their funnels.
The platform's new "Life Cycle" report includes:
Previous versions of Google Analytics only had a single "Acquisition" report, which provided limited insights into the customer lifecycle.
It also allows users to choose a template based on the metrics they want to track, so agencies can create reports like:
Whether your clients are SaaS companies, eCommerce storefronts, bloggers, service providers, or all of the above, they'll love the in-depth reports you produce with GA4.
And you'll love how easy it was to do it.
Since Google Analytics 4 is such a robust platform with numerous features, it may be easy to forget that there are still some areas where the platform falls short.
The process of migrating to Google Analytics 4 is complex and time-consuming. Plan your migration carefully to avoid any issues. If you don't migrate your data and tags, you will lose all of your Universal Analytics historical data.
This issue only grows with your organization's size. So if you have dozens of clients, prepare for the process to take much longer.
The GA4 user interface is new and confusing. The dashboard differs from what marketers are used to, with hit types essential to how Universal Analytic properties work.
Unlike Universal Analytics, GA4 uses events instead of hit types. Hit types include page hits, event hits, eCommerce hits, and social interaction hits.
To keep the same level of progress, marketers will have to quickly adjust to this new way of categorizing data.
Custom dimensions are the bread and butter of Google Analytics. They enable you to get a granular understanding of user behavior on your website or app.
GA4 allows for custom dimensions to segment reports, though there is a limit of 25 user-scoped and 50 event-scoped custom dimensions per property.
Channel groupings are simply marketing channels that have been put into similar groups to make measurements and tracking more efficient for the marketer. Customizing these groupings allows for a deeper level of analysis.
GA4 enforces the use of default channel groupings, which means that marketers cannot customize or create their own. This can be a problem for organizations with large user bases, as the default groupings may not match how they want to track and measure data.
Google has left the marketing community with an unnerving task: transitioning to a new platform and introducing it to clients in an incredibly short timeframe.
A few potential reasons for this include:
But now that there is no turning back, it's time to look forward and prepare your agency and clients for the transition.
Note: Google Analytics 4 is an entirely new tool, separate from Universal Analytics. To set it up correctly, you must run UA and GA4 simultaneously.
According to Google's resource on adding a GA4 property, you can't import all your existing data. However, the old and new accounts will be linked, meaning you can use the Setup Assistant to migrate data from your Universal Analytics property.
Another crucial point to be cognizant of during migration is that GA4 properties don’t use the “Views” reporting structure. Instead, they use “Data Streams.” And each data stream uses a Measurement ID that acts as an identifier.
Consequently, you must connect a data stream and configure it appropriately based on whether you're joining a web or app data stream.
To set this up:
The UA property won't go away until next year, but learning this process and moving your clients through it earlier rather than later will position them for success when the time comes.
If you are setting up the GA4 property for the first time, you'll need to follow this step-by-step tutorial:
Once you've created the property and set up Google Analytics, you'll need to create a data stream. Head to the ‘Data Stream’ tab in the property settings and click ‘Add Data Stream.’
Choose whether this is a web or app data stream. Web streams are for websites. App streams are for mobile applications.
For web data streams, you can enable enhanced measurement. This provides auto-tracking events that don't require manual tagging or custom coding.
Once enabled, the ‘Enhanced Measurement’ toggle will appear in the left navigation bar of your Analytics reporting page. It's important to note that this feature must be enabled prior to collecting data.
If you're setting up an app data stream, you'll need to install the Firebase SDK. This can be done through one of these two methods:
Once you've completed these steps, your GA4 property should be ready for data collection. Note that if you are transitioning from a UA to a GA4 property, you'll have to wait until all of the code is changed over before collecting any data.
Google Tag Manager (GTM) offers an uncomplicated way to install GA4 on your site and create custom events tailored to you via tags (gtag.js).
You can add tags for a variety of events, such as button clicks, form submissions, and more.
To set up configuration tags, follow this guide from Google.
Also, you can watch this webinar to learn more about implementing Google Analytics 4:
When the time comes, you’ll need to explain the change and its importance to your clients.
If you don’t have much experience with GA4, educate yourself on its functionality a bit more before broaching the subject. All the major features have been documented by Google—all you have to do is familiarize yourself with them.
After you understand GA4, you can then explain it to your clients.
You’ll also want to explain why the transition is important and how GA4 will help them in the long run. Google has made a lot of changes, so besides getting familiarized with them, you should make sure they understand why these changes were implemented and what advantages they bring.
Transitioning from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 isn't the easiest.
To ensure you cover all your bases and help clients make a smooth transition, use this checklist before and during the process:
Because Google Analytics 4 is still in its early stages, keeping track of specific metrics while you transition is essential.
To collect data from new data streams, pay close attention to the following:
It's essential to differentiate between UA's Total Users and GA4's Active Users. The word "User" refers to different metrics in each—the new primary user metric in GA4 is Active Users, which has replaced Total Users. Although Total Users still exists, it's not as crucial as before.
Universal Analytics defines Pageview as the total number of pages viewed, while GA4 counts web page and screen views.
If your clients' Pageviews drastically improve after switching to GA4, consider that GA4 lumps web and app views together.
In GA4, we call a Session a Session Start. Each session has its own Measurement ID number, which makes it simpler to keep track of every event that takes place during that session. However, sessions in GA4 don't automatically reset at midnight.
The main difference between UA and GA4 is that in UA, Conversions are defined by goals, whereas GA4 specifies the actions you take as conversion events.
This means that UA only counts one conversion per session for each goal while GA4 counts every occurrence, even if the event repeats itself within a single session.
Bounce Rate used to be defined by the number of single-page sessions, but it's now calculated in GA4 by the amount of time spent on the page.
This means that if a user spends more than 10 seconds on the page, they won't be counted as a bounce anymore, and their session will be considered active.
Total Events from UA is no longer supported in GA4. In its place, Event Count was introduced as a cumulative metric that considers all actions to be events.
Duda is ready to support our customers around the transition to GA4 - we’ve added support for GA4 IDs in the platform several months ago and to make the transition easier for larger partners, we’ve also extended our API to allow controlling Google Tag ID via Site API.
You may want to update the tracking code within Duda to reflect the new measurement ID.
Transitioning from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 isn't easy, but the process should be seamless with proper preparation and guidance.
Using the above checklist and our resources, you can help your clients successfully switch to GA4. Stay up-to-date on all of the latest changes in analytics technology and be sure to watch out for any potential issues that may arise during the transition.
