Despite objections, marketers who use Google for analytics must understand Google Analytics 4 (GA4) since it is not going away. “This is Google’s world, and we’re all just living in it,” said Colleen Harris, Ansira’s director of product management. Here’s what marketers need to know to get the most out of GA4.
On July 1, Google discontinued Universal Analytics for all users, leaving hesitant businesses with little choice but to adopt GA4, which has provided a steep learning curve for advertising.
The primary distinctions between Universal Analytics and GA4 are how data is tracked and security.
GA4 monitors everything as an event, thus generating meaningful insights from GA4 takes more customization than Universal Analytics.
- Events may include clicking on a product image, scheduling a service appointment, or opening a piece of material.
- These events provide opportunities for remarketing by establishing targeted audiences. For example, a clothing firm may retarget those who have viewed one product image differently from those who have viewed three images.
- However, the volume of data that event tracking provides might be overwhelming. “There is so much potential of what you can do, it’s hard to figure out what you should focus on,” according to Harris. “You have to be more strategic about what events you’re looking at and what data you’re piecing together to tell your story [than with Universal Analytics].”
Marketers should begin by choosing simple occurrences to track. Harris advised making a list of five questions to answer with Google Analytics 4 and then diving down to further information within those questions. Some such questions are:
- How many users go to a website?
- How many leads were submitted via the page?
- Where are people clicking on a page?
- What are the most popular pages?
- When do clients leave their journeys?
According to Harris, the second major distinction between GA4 and Universal Analytics is that GA4 has greater security requirements.
- Because GA4 does not collect or keep IP addresses, marketers utilizing the technology are less likely to violate privacy restrictions.
- However, because marketers cannot follow individual customer behavior, signal loss makes retargeting more challenging. “We know less about the person [visiting a website], and that’s not coming back,” Harris told me.
Source- emarketer