Google Analytics 4 will be replacing Universal Analytics and GA 360.
Everyone needs to migrate, no exception.
Google Analytics has been instrumental in revolutionalizing digital marketing and ecommerce since mid-2000’s. The analytics and insights help businesses identify and understand their audience. 15-year is a long time. It is easy to imagine the dependency on GA businesses have developed over the years. The process of migrating to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) will cause disruption to all kind of businesses.
A successful migration will require thoughtful planning, effective communication, and cross-team collaborations. So, give this migration plenty of thoughts, preparation and lead time to properly extract historical data and upgrade existing touchpoints to GA4.
Universal Analytics will stop processing data on July 1, 2023 (October 1, 2023 for GA360).
Will this affect my Google Ads campaigns?
Unless your Universal Analytics property is linked to your Google Ads account, your Google Ads account will be unaffected. However, if your Universal Analytics property and Google Ads accounts are linked, Universal Analytics data will stop flowing to Google Ads after July 1, 2023. (October 1, 2023 for Analytics 360 properties.) This could affect your Google Ads campaigns if you’re:
- Bidding on imported UA goals or ecommerce transactions
- Using a UA audience in your campaigns
- Importing UA site metrics
What do I need to do?
Rethink your data collection in terms of the GA4 model rather than port your existing event structure to GA4.
Migrate your UA property’s Google Ads links to your GA4 property.
If you use conversion data in Google Ads for reporting or bidding purposes, import conversions from GA4 into Google Ads.
Set up GA4 audiences to a campaign or ad group.
How to export my data?
- Export individual reports from GA in flat files
- Export data using GA Reporting API
- GA 360 enterprise users can export data to BigQuery
Universal data collected before July 1, 2023 will be accessible for about 6 months for export. After that, you will no longer be able to see UA reports on the GA website or access your UA data via API.
How to start the migration?
There are three ways to get started if you are an editor or administrator:
Option 1: Set up Analytics data collection for the first time
Do this if you’re new to Analytics and ready to collect data for your website and/or app.
Option 2: Add Google Analytics 4 to a site with Universal Analytics (Analytics “classic”)
The GA4 Setup Assistant will add a Google Analytics 4 property alongside your existing Universal Analytics property. Your Universal Analytics property will continue to collect data. You can access both using the property selector in the Admin area.
Option 3: Add Google Analytics 4 to a website builder platform or CMS (content management system)
Do this if you use a CMS-hosted (Content Management System) website, e.g. a website created using Wix, WordPress, Drupal, Squarespace, GoDaddy, WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, Awesome Motive, HubSpot, etc.
Are You Impacted?
If you created your property before October 14, 2020, you’re likely using a Universal Analytics property.
If you created your property after October 14, 2020, you’re likely using a Google Analytics 4 property already, and no action is required.
What’s new in GA4?
Technical Changes
Unlike UA reports, GA4 does not support the concept of Category, Action, and Label. As such, GA4 reports do not display Category, Action, and Label.
In GA4 properties, every “hit” is an event; there is no distinction between hit types. GA4 improves data precision by measuring against user session.
Did You Know
The acronym “utm” that is commonly appended to URLs stands for “Urchin Traffic Monitor”.