Features that’ll change your mind about GA4

In 2020, you may remember that Google announced a significant change to their analytics, and that was the introduction of Google Analytics 4. Google Analytics or otherwise known as Universal Analytics, is one of the most popular and powerful tools available to your data-driven business. You can collect user interactions and gain valuable insights into the current and future audience of your app and website. However, with the changes in behaviour and privacy settings, Google Analytics 4 was implemented to completely overhaul the service. 

With a large change like this, comes a lot to learn and it’s only normal to wonder what’s changed? How am I going to use it? And how will this affect my business going forward? Hitting the ground running and making the most of GA4 will ensure no loss of productivity and put you on the right track to collecting data and insights which will ultimately inform your business on its next marketing moves. 

What are the key differences between UA and GA4

Google Analytics 4 introduces new functionality, builds on, and in some cases replaces the features of Universal Analytics. As with any new business tools, it’s important that you fully understand its functionality so you can fully leverage it.

TRACK WEBSITE AND APP DATA

One of the most anticipated functions of GA4 is the ability to track website and app data in the same property.

HIT TYPES

Another significant difference between UA and GA4 is how interactions are captured. In UA, interactions were captured in many different hit types such as page views, transactions, and social interactions. In GA4 by contrast, everything is built around users and events, not sessions. An events-based model processes each user interaction as a standalone event.

SESSION CALCULATIONS IN GA4 VS UNIVERSAL ANALYTICS

In UA, a session represents the period of time that a user is actively engaged with your site. After landing on your site, these are the things that ends a session in UA: 

• 30 minutes of inactivity (or your session timeout settings)
• The clock passing midnight (resulting in a new session)
• New campaign parameters are encountered (i.e. if you use UTM parameters for internal links on your website – therefore, this is not recommended by Google) 

In GA4 by contrast, the session start event generates a session ID with which all subsequent events during the session are associated: 

• A session ends after 30 minutes of inactivity
• Sessions can carry over past midnight and are not affected by new campaign parameters.

EXPORTS TO BIGQUERY ARE FREE WITH GA4

UA exports were limited to Analytics 360 properties, however with GA4, BigQuery exports are made available to all properties. 

BOUNCE RATE AND ENGAGEMENT RATE

In GA4, Google has chosen to report on figures for engagement rate, taking a positive approach and omitting bounce rates. This will put more of an emphasis on engaged sessions.

GOOGLE TAG MANAGER IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER

If you were using the more basic functionality of Universal Analytics, you could use it without Google Tag Manager. For instance, you could create destination page conversions in Google Analytics itself. 

Now, with GA4, all goals are event-based, so it is more important than ever to know your way around Google Tag Manager, especially if you are working in digital marketing or e-commerce.

What are the new features of GA4?

GET PREDICATED DATA

GA4’s powered predictive metrics gives you the data to predict the future behaviour of your users. With predictive metrics, you can learn even more about your customer by collecting structured event data. 

What does this look like? For most businesses, predictive analytics can significantly impact retargeting campaigns. AI metrics include:

• Purchase probability
• Churn probability
• Revenue prediction

With the above metrics, you can create audiences based on their predicted behaviours.

TEST THE NEW SEARCH BAR

The new search bar in GA4 lets you access more than ever. Whether that’s instant answers for specific queries, reports, property configuration or insights and access to help.

SEE SUGGESTED AUDIENCES

Google Analytics 4 now suggests new audiences for your business. If you’re looking to expand your user base or break into new markets, this information is crucial.

CHECK DATA RETENTION SETTINGS

Google Analytics 4 will automatically set your data retention to two months. The two month retention period is always applied to age, gender, and interest data regardless of your settings. 

To record and hold even more data ensure you change your settings, you can do this for up to 14 months. When you increase the retention period it is applied to data that you have already collected.

LIST UNWANTED REFERRAL TRAFFIC

Why is it important to only track the traffic that’s suitable to your business? That’s because it benefits accuracy.

Referral traffic refers to a portion of your visitors who reach your website from external sources, such as links and third-party domains. Analytics detects the origin of this traffic just before it lands on your site and presents these source links into your referral traffic report. 

To ensure that your data is of interest to your business, you can establish specific criteria to pinpoint the domains whose traffic you wish to exclude from being categorised into your referrals. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF EMBRACING GA4 

With the push for even more user privacy, it’s becoming even more difficult to track users as they travel across multiple platforms, using multiple devices. 

GA4 is an innovative solution using enhanced machine learning techniques to create  single user journeys for all data linked to the same person. Giving you and your business the ability to track behaviours, insights, clicks, and engagement. 

Making the most of GA4 is crucial to collecting data, and strengthening your machine learning models will better your future analysis and make it more meaningful. GA4 is the next generation of analytics. It is evolving with the times and helping you maximise your potential in marketing and digital analytics. This update aims to provide a deeper understanding of your customer’s usage of your platform and gives you improved insights and metrics, and provides you with a foundation to make better and bolder business decisions.

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