GA4 - The Future of Google Analytics

Unless you've been living under a rock, you'd know about Google Analytics 4. It’s just not a new version of Universal Analytics, but the biggest update since Google Analytics was launched. The latest version was built on the of App+Web property, which Google introduced in beta last year. Google has rebranded it and named it Google Analytics 4. It was launched on 14th Oct 2020.

4 in GA4 is nothing but the version number. The earlier versions were Urchin (Ist version), Classic Analytics (2nd version), Universal Analytics (the existing version) and the brand new Google Analytics 4.

 With the launch of Google Analytics 4, a new generation of analytics has dawned. It’s scary and exciting at the same time. Scary because for users used to earlier version of Google analytics, the interface looks intimidating. And exciting, because GA4 is the future of Google Analytics.

 The sooner businesses embrace GA4, the better. There are no disadvantages in running Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 at the same time. You don’t have to delete your existing Universal Analytics property. Just set up a new GA4 property and get used to the new layout and features. The sooner you do it, the more information you have at your disposal as GA4 will have no historical data in the reports.

 Here are some fundamental differences between Universal Analytics and GA4 property-

 1.   The metric “bounce rate” has been replaced by “Engagement rate”. Bounce rate was never a reliable metric. For example, a user might have a successful visit, and still bounce.

Engagement Rate = (engaged sessions) / (sessions)

An engaged session is defined as -

a) a session which lasted longer than 10 seconds

b) had a conversion event or

c) 2 or more page views or screen views.

 2.   Goals have been removed from the vocabulary of GA4 and now referred to as conversions. To track conversions, you need to mark an event as conversion.

3.   Unlike the Account, property and View structure in Universal Analytics, GA4 doesn’t have views. Only Account and property.

Event tracking is one of the most powerful features of GA4. Certain events like scroll and file download are automatically tracked by GA4. Few examples of automatically collected events in GA4 are -

a) When a user launches a session with a website(or app), the session_start event is fired.

b) If the user has visited the site or app for the first time, the first_visit event will fire.

c) Scroll event. Even page scroll is an event! The event is triggered when the first time a user reaches the bottom of each page (i.e., when a 90% vertical depth becomes visible)

d) file_download event will fire when a user clicks a link leading to a file of the following types – document, text, executable, presentation, compressed file, audio, video.

Your Universal Analytics property will continue to gather data, but no new features would be added to it. If GA4 is the future of Analytics, why not switch to it now?

4. In GA4, the focus is on users and not on sessions.

 As Spencer Connell rightly puts it:

“GA4 feels like a house which is 60% built – missing a couple of walls, and maybe the roof … but you definitely don’t want to wait until the house is 100% finished before you start moving in.”

Hope you must have already started playing around with GA4.