Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
By stating that Universal Analytics will cease processing hits in July 2023, Google Analytics stunned the marketing sector on March 16th, 2022.
This was not well received.
Some marketers dislike the user interface, while others are displeased because GA4 lacks essential functions.
The Reason For The Update To Google Analytics 4 In Universal Analytics
Many marketers are curious as to why this transition is taking place since they have built their business procedures upon Universal Analytics.
So I questioned Krista Seiden, a former Google employee who worked on GA4 and is the founder of KS Digital, “Why is this GA4 upgrade happening?”
GA4 has really been in development for many years, according to Seiden.
It debuted as a public beta under the name App+Web, but in October 2020 it ditched the beta moniker and changed its name to GA4.
“GA4 isn’t really an upgrade, but an altogether new method of conducting analytics,” said Seiden. It is designed to scale for the future, operate in a cookie-less environment, and be much more privacy-conscious.
Prepare for the future with Google Analytics 4, according to Google’s announcement blog.
What does “for the future” mean—something we constantly hearing?
After reading through Google’s material and speaking with analytics professionals, I identified three key themes or ways that GA4 will set up your company for the future:
operates without cookies, has an upgraded data model, and has privacy concerns.
Let’s examine every one of them.
Modeling Data
What Google Analytics should do with the data it gathers about website visitors is determined by a data model.
The session-based data model, on which Universal Analytics is based, is 15 years old.
This was before cellphones and other internet-enabled gadgets were commonly used.
On a desktop computer, UA measurement was developed for separate sessions (a collection of user interactions occurring over a certain period of time), and user activities were monitored using cookies.
Fun fact: You can still use GA javascript code from 15 years ago, as Charles Farina, the director of innovation at Adswerve, informed me.
I am referring to the original tracking code, of course (Urchin).
It still functions today.
This outdated measuring technique has been around for a while.
Even while we like Google Analytics, there are numerous instances when it just does not match up with how people now engage with our websites.
Farina provided conversions with an example.
Goals in Universal Analytics are based on sessions. Goals cannot be measured by user.
One conversion may only be recorded if a consumer sees four videos in a single session.
