If you haven’t heard yet, there’s a new thing in town called Google Analytics 4 (GA4). The current Google Analytics platform (Universal Analytics or UA) is on its way out. GA4 will be the only version available to track data on your site as of July 1, 2023, when you will need to rely solely on data collection with GA4.
How Do I Upgrade to GA4?
If you’re a client of ours with the Safe and Sound Hosting plan, we’ve already automatically taken care of this for you or reached out if there were any roadblocks.
If you haven’t upgraded yet, Google has likely already created a new GA4 property for you. However, you’ll still need to go through your configuration settings to make sure things are setup the way you need them to be, and ensure you implement the tracking code on your website. We recommend running that version alongside UA until it no longer collects data. It would be a good idea for you to jump in there and start getting familiar with the new interface if you’re planning on spending time in Analytics yourself.
What About My Historical Data?
Data that was collected with Universal Analytics will not be able to be imported or retained within GA4. This is because these two versions are based on different data collection models. UA will retain your historical data for at least 6 months after the transition. If there is any historical data that you want to keep for future reference, you will need to manually export the reports you’d like to save into a PDF or spreadsheet. There is no simple “save all” button, so you need to choose which reports are most important to you.
What’s Different About GA4?
There are quite a few differences between the new GA4 & UA. Just a couple of the differences you may notice are a brand new interface & a new way of measuring and collecting data. Because data collection models are different, if you’re running these two at the same time you’re going to see different results. In addition, not all the same metrics will be present. This is also why you can’t import historical data from UA into GA4 — they’re just not the same.
Universal Analytics (UA)
Home Dashboard Interface:
Data Collection Model:
Data collection for UA is Session-Based. This means interactions like pageviews & events are collected as different hit types within a session.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
Home Dashboard Interface:
Data Collection Model:
Data collection for GA4 is Event-Based. This means that every single interaction is tracked as an event that gives better insight into user interactions.
If you’re planning on digging into your Analytics data yourself, we highly recommend jumping into the new experience to learn more and get familiar with all the changes. Here’s a link to Google’s help article on the comparison of UA & GA4 metrics for more of the details.
GA4 Is Still Evolving
Keep in mind that GA4 is still frequently releasing updates & new features, so if you’re interested on keeping up with those you can typically find them on Google’s release notes page.
Need Help?
We’re here to help you with this transition upgrading from UA to GA4 if you need it! Just reach out to your Account Director if you’re a client, or get in touch using our online form.
