GA4 is Here!
This past March, Google announced the long-awaited release of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) which promises a better way to measure various kinds of data, enabling businesses to identify unified user journeys across their websites and apps.
Google will begin sunsetting its previous solution, Universal Analytics, which means now is the time to upgrade. Writes Google:
“All standard Universal Analytics properties will stop processing new hits on July 1, 2023. Given the new Analytics 360 experience was recently introduced, Universal Analytics 360 properties will receive an additional three months of new hit processing, ending on October 1, 2023.”
Built for the Future
Why the switch? Consumer behavior has outgrown Universal Analytics, which was designed to understand user behavior as they surfed the web via their desktops. Cookies played a big role in their understanding. G4 eschews cookies, relying instead on an “event-based data model to deliver user-centric measurement.”
The other impetus is privacy. According to Google, GA4 is designed with privacy at its core. It offers more granular data collection controls so that you can comply with the privacy regulations of every region in which you operate.
What Can You Do with GA4?
According to Google’s announcement** , GA4 will allow brands to achieve key business objectives, including:
- “Understand your customers across touchpoints Get a complete view of the customer lifecycle with an event-based measurement model that isn’t fragmented by platform or organized into independent sessions.
- Measure engagement and conversions with business and compliance needs in mind With new country-level privacy controls, you can manage and minimize the collection of user-level data — like cookies and metadata — while preserving key measurement functionality.
- Get greater value from your data. Machine learning generates sophisticated predictive insights about user behavior and conversions, creates new audiences of users likely to purchase or churn, and automatically surfaces critical insights to improve your marketing.
- Easily activate your insights. Expanded integrations with other Google products, like Google Ads, work across your combined web and app data, making it easy to use Analytics insights to optimize your campaigns.”
** Above bullets quote Google’s announcement directly.
Let Paragon Digital Services Manage Your Migration and Beyond
You don’t have a lot of months to plan and manage your migration. Nor do you have a lot of spare time in your day to concentrate on all that migration will entail, now that you’re in the thick of the holiday season.
That’s okay. Paragon Digital Services teams are fully trained on GA4 and are prepared to handle your migration on your behalf. We will:
- Migrate your data
- Ensure GA4 is accurately deployed across your customer touchpoints
- Activate the right data collection controls to ensure you adhere to all regulations in every region you operate
- Train your staff on how to interpret your incoming data, or
- Manage GA4 on your behalf post migration
Why turn over ongoing management to a partner like Paragon? We have the time and expertise to dedicate to parsing your GA4 data and analysis so that your teams can act on the insights contained in your data. We get that your teams already have their hands full, and won’t have a lot of time to focus on GA4, so we can do that task on your behalf, delivering reports according to your specifications.
For additional information about GA4 migration and ongoing management, contact Sujith to arrange a 15 or 30-minute call with Paragon Digital’s new client development lead.