UA is Dead & You have only 100 Days Left!

Google has officially?announced plans to sunset their popular Universal Analytics (UA) platform?on?July 1, 2023, ??

So if you are using universal analytics of Google Analytics, then you need to act fast! Not every platform will be able to install the migration very quickly.

And guess what? Every online business will be affected! 28 Million to be nearly exact ??

This may not go well as GA4 itself isn't ready, users aren't prepared, the ecosystem is far, far away from being prepared.

And users and developers don't have any incentive (at least it may look like this way) to move onto a more complex platform in such a short time.

But my dear Linkedin friends, you don't have any choice ??

So let's see what is this GA4 thing is and how can we navigate.

In this short article, I will walk you through

• What's GA4
• What's Good/Bad in it.
• Why do you need to act ASAP.
• How to install it in Shopify (I care only about Shopify based e-commerce?? )

What is GA4?

"GA4 is the newest web and app tracking platform that accommodates an increasingly cookieless and privacy-first future."

Sounds exciting and very important, right? YES!

The world is moving away from third-party tracking, and this is the exact solution we need at this moment!

GA4 is also more privacy-friendly and built with tools to adhere to global privacy standards like GDPR.

Why is GA4 a good thing?

• GA4 provides a unified view between app and web.
• The data collection method is united to "events" with traditional pageviews on a more even scope to track and analyze behavioural events ??
• GA4 data is primarily oriented toward better understanding the customer lifecycle, providing information focused on acquisition, engagement, monetization, and retention.
• GA4 assigns attribution credit to more than just the last click, helping you understand how omnichannel marketing effort influences your business goal ??
• Smooth integration between google marketing channels and properties. Unable to comment on how beneficial it is. Only time will tell ??
• Predictive insights about user behaviour and conversions across all touchpoints. Again we will have to wait and see how useful these insights are. We all know "Google Recommendations" ??

Why GA4 is bad for us?

Honestly, there is no downside apart from the learning curve which it attracts.

But the issue is how Google is tackling the whole thing

Google may end up -

1. Deleting all prior Analytics data.

2. Not providing a historical view in GA4 that merges the old data in.

This should be entirely unacceptable by business owners and marketers. And sounds like a slap in the face of every website, business, app, and marketer that ever supported Google Analytics being used.

Why do we need to act ASAP?

Let's understand this

GA4 is forward-facing?from the date of installation.

The sooner you create a GA4 profile, the more historical data you’ll have available once UA is deprecated.

Because?GA4 doesn’t backfill historical data?(it has no insights into what occurred prior to its installation), if you haven’t set up GA4 by July 2022, when UA is deprecated in July 2023, you will immediately begin missing out on valuable YoY information.

Let's look at the timeline you have

You only have about 100 days from today ??

After that how you look at your data may change forever and you literally have no ideas as of this moment.

How to Install GA4 in Shopify

This installation process I'm sharing over here will offer you 10% of what GA4 is actually capable of doing for your Shopify store.

Consider this guide as an immediate GA4 upgrade solution where you can start collecting data within the next 10 mins.

Here you go..

Codes that are being used are below.

G-CODE stands for your GA4 identifier.

Theme.liquid code >>

<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-CODE"></script
<script>
? window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
? function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
? gtag('js', new Date());


? gtag('config', 'G-CODE');
</script>>
        

Checkout Additional Script >>

<!-- Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Analytics --
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-CODE"></script>
<script>
? window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
? function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
? gtag('js', new Date());
? gtag('config', 'G-CODE');
? {% if first_time_accessed %}
? gtag('event', 'purchase', {
? "transaction_id": "{{order.order_number}}",
? "value": {{total_price | times: 0.01}},
? "currency": "{{ order.currency }}",
? "tax": {{tax_price | times: 0.01}},
? "shipping": {{shipping_price | times: 0.01}},
? "items": [
? {% for line_item in line_items %}{
? ? ? "id": "{{line_item.product_id}}",
? ? ? "name": "{{line_item.title}}",
? ? ? "quantity": {{line_item.quantity}},
? ? ? "price": {{line_item.line_price | times: 0.01}}
? ? },{% endfor %}
? ]
? });
? {% endif %}
</script>>        

NOTE: After the GA4 Test trial please wait for at least 24 hrs to see your data in action. Wait for 7 days to start having a better understanding of what things actually look like.

I must say I really like the real-time dashboard it provides