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What You Need To Know About Upgrading To GA4

Upgrading to GA4

Is your website ready for GA4? Google Analytics 4 is the newest way for you — and your marketing team — to make sure your website is strategically optimized to engage users and drive conversions. 

Google, the operator of the world’s most popular search engine and a suite of products that supports webmasters worldwide, regularly makes changes to its processes and products and 2023 is no exception. Beginning in July you — or your webmaster — will have a new method for measuring how well your website is optimized for its users. That new method is Google Analytics 4.

The good news is: you can keep your same Google Analytics account moving forward.

But beware: your Universal Analytics (UA) property inside Google Analytics will no longer work after July 1st, 2023. 

Why you need to worry about upgrading to GA4

Back in 2013, Google introduced a new type of website tracking pixel called Universal Analytics (UA). In October 2020, they then introduced the eventual replacement for UA, called Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Since then, a website could have both installed at the same time. And, in July 2023, UA will be phased out completely and no longer work. What that means for you is that webmasters who use Google Analytics should implement GA4 as quickly as possible so that they can build up some website history before UA is removed.

Main Differences of GA4 over UA:

  1. GA4 doesn’t measure Bounce Rate, which is seen as negative in nature (i.e., takes a pessimistic view of who bounced). Instead, GA4 looks at Active Users (i.e., users who engage in the site by triggering events, etc.). So, while UA only had Total Users and New Users, GA4 adds a third category of Active Users.
  2. GA4 seamlessly integrates Apps with Websites into a single view
  3. Events can be tagged as Conversions (as opposed to simply Goals in UA)

For more details on the differences between UA and GA4, visit here: https://funnel.io/blog/ga4-vs-universal-analytics

A Note on Google Tag Manager

Now more than ever, MindEcology is strongly recommending that clients implement Google Tag Manager (GTM). There are several reasons for this, but mainly it’s because it particularly plays nicely with GA4. There is also more flexibility with setting up events inside GTM directly instead of inside GA4. And, the Events that you set up in GTM will automatically get passed to the GA4 account that it’s linked to, so a client can view Events set up in GA4 in GTM.

At MindEcology we’re switching all of our clients to GA4. If you’d like to learn more about upgrading to GA4, click here to schedule a consultation. 

 

data analysis, data marketing, GA4, google analytics, google tag manager