As many of us are already aware of, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is not an analytics update. It’s an entirely new Analytics product altogether. And along with implementing a new Analytics product comes the inevitable learning curve of not only figuring out how to set it up, but also familiarizing yourself with the new UI, finding and pulling reports, and analyzing the most important data.
Though Universal Analytics (UA) isn’t being sunsetted until July 2023, advertisers should still get ahead of the curve and set up GA4 as soon as possible. The sooner you bite the bullet and switch to GA4, the better you’ll be set up for the future and the sooner you can begin actioning on relevant customer insights.
By following along with advice from Russel Ketchum, Google’s Director of Analytics, and Steve Ganem, Group Product Manager at Google Analytics, implementing GA4 correctly, while time-consuming, can be broken down into a few steps.
Account Structure
Businesses should start by structuring their GA4 properties and accounts to meet their business needs.
Setup Assistant
Next, businesses should engage with the Setup Assistant, through which they can save time setting up a GA4 property to measure a site or app that already uses Universal Analytics with the setup assistant.
Analytics Tag
Businesses and advertisers should add the Google tag to their sites to start collecting data. We encourage businesses to explore how they can use the Google tag to begin viewing data in their GA4 properties. It’s important to note that if businesses were using the global site tag, they are now using the Google tag and nothing further needs to be done.
Link to Google Ads
Importing Google Ads links from their existing Universal Analytics into the new GA4 property is critical to begin seeing Google Ads data in your GA4 reports. Once that’s complete, businesses should take action in their Google Ads account to start using GA4 data in their campaigns.
Custom Events
Custom events allow businesses to complete their measurement by mapping Universal Analytics custom events to GA4.
Goals & Conversions
To get a better understanding of how websites and apps are performing, businesses should Import Universal Analytics goals into GA4.
Bidding
To enhance bid optimization, validate and bid on GA4 conversions in Google Ads.
Audiences
To get the most from GA4, advertisers and marketers need to build relevant audiences in Google Analytics 4 and activate them wherever they are most useful. Learn about predictive audiences available in GA4.
Ecommerce
For businesses selling products online, they should set up ecommerce in GA4 properties to ensure they are using names and parameters that will provide the most useful ecommerce reporting.
Users
Finally, copy Universal Analytics property users to GA4 property manually or through the automated tool.
Reports & analysis
Now that GA4 is set up, it’s time to start getting familiar with the navigation, standard reporting available, and learn how to customize reporting in brand new ways based on what’s important to the business.
Content Source: searchengineland.com
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