What not to do when migrating to GA4!

The new #GoogleAnalytics makeover, #GoogleAnalytics4, is a real hassle for some marketers. With the introduction of this more technical and event driven version of Google Analytics comes the responsibility for marketers to optimize the way we track and report certain data. Together with the possibility to customize your data collection and analysis, comes the introduction of some other changes, like: the data driven data model, the end of the bounce rate (as we know it) and much more exciting things!?

Google announced that because of the end of data collection for Universal Analytics, your Universal Analytics property settings will be copied automatically to a Google Analytics 4 property. In this article I’ll explain why it is important to make the switch to Google Analytics 4 now, what mistakes not to make and why we should not let Google make a copy of our Universal Analytics! If you want a full guide on how to set up the Analytics 4 property (check this link)

As we all know, Universal Analytics will stop collecting data on the first of July 2023, the data however will be available until the first of January in 2024. That’s why it is crucial to make the switch to Google Analytics 4 as soon as possible, this gives you the chance to gather data on the new platform and get to know the new features.?

Some of the key features of Google Analytics 4 are:?

• Powerful machine learning
• Focus on privacy
• Switch from session based data collection to event based
• More customizable data collection?

Event based measurement

While Universal Analytics focused heavily on sessions as a primary event, Google Analytics 4 will track each event separately. Some events will be tracked automatically, others will need some configuration. The events can be divided into 4 categories:

Automatically tracked events?

• First visit?
• Session start?
• User engagement?

Enhanced measurement (turned on in admin settings)

• Page view
• Scroll
• Site search
• Video engagement
• File download
• Form tracking (Tip: read the end of the article!)

Recommended events

Recommended events are specific names that you should give to your custom events. These recommended events make sure that your e-commerce data, for example, gets reported in the standard reporting format. Here is a list of all the recommended events by Google.?

Custom events?

Custom events are free format events that can be tracked for example via Google Tag manager.?

How to set up a Google Analytics 4 property (full guide)

Advantages to Google Analytics 4:?

• Better cross device & platform tracking
• Event driven data model
• Advanced and customizable reports
• Free connection with BigQuery?
• New metrics and functions
• Easy to make audience

Disadvantages to Google Analytics 4

• No possibility to make annotations
• No query parameters exclusion in platform?
• No custom channel grouping (UTM strategy is very important)
• New interface, you need to get used to it
• It is a bit more technical to get Google Analytics 4 right

Some common mistakes when setting up a Google Analytics 4 property:?

Collect Universal Analytics events?

There is a possibility to let Google migrate your Universal Analytics settings automatically, but this is a big no-go! The strength of Google Analytics 4 is that you can easily customize events, metrics and reports. If you migrate your Universal Analytics events, you’ll only limit yourself.?

Form interaction tracking in enhanced measurements

The enhanced measurements feature of Google Analytics 4 is really good to track basic on site events, so we recommend turning it on, however there is one exception, form interactions. The automatic tracking of form interactions do not work properly. They fire when they are not supposed to, and often do not fire when supposed to. It’s better to custom track your form submissions.?

Not setting up custom dimensions

GA4 allows us to customize our reported dimensions as needed. You can set up 50 event related custom dimensions and 25 user related custom dimensions per property, make use of those custom parameters!

Not excluding URL query parameters?

I know, it is more technical to exclude URL Query parameters in GA4 than it was in Universal Analytics. However, with the possibility of the custom reports (like landing page reports), it is important to exclude those query parameters!

Let's migrate to Google Analytics 4 together!

Having trouble finding out how to set-up GA4 or trouble with other marketing related things? Send me a message ( Stef De Bremme ) to get to know each other!