What’s New in GA4?

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest version of Google’s popular website analytics tool. It was released in beta in late 2017 and had been gaining traction among users since then. GA4 offers several new features and improvements over its predecessor, Universal Analytics (UA). This blog post will look at some of the most important new features in GA4.

The New Google Analytics 4 Highlights

• It’s built with machine learning as the primary form of data measurement, using “modelling” that can extrapolate from existing data and make assumptions about site traffic/user behaviour. The new “Insights” feature powered by AI is designed to highlight helpful information for marketers automatically.

• It aims to give marketers a “more complete understanding of the customer journey across devices.” It is more concerned with measuring an end-to-end shopper journey rather than individual metrics across devices/pages/segments.

• It is intended to be “future proof,” meaning it will function without cookies or identifying data.

• The new Google Analytics 4 includes “data streams” rather than the views and segments found in previous Universal Analytics properties.

• GA4 does not have a “view” level section. Unlike traditional Universal Analytics, which has three levels (Account, Property, and View), GA4 only has two levels: Account and Property. Whereas “event tracking” in classic Analytics required modifying the Analytics code or using the gtag.js script, Google Analytics 4 allows for event editing, tracking, and fine-tuning within the UI. This includes interactions such as clicks, page scrolling, and more.

What are the Key Properties of the New Google Analytics 4?

Insights and Predictions Powered by Artificial Intelligence

Machine learning insights have been around for a while, but GA4 can now highlight data trends such as increasing demand for a product or service.

This technology can forecast outcomes such as churn rates and a company’s potential revenue from a specific customer segment. Those insights can help you anticipate your customers’ actions in the future. Allowing you to concentrate on higher-value audiences.

Deeper Audience Integration With Google Ads

You can now build and maintain audience lists in greater depth, with increased return on investment. How? Suppose a user has qualified for your Google Ads audience list because of an action they took while browsing a web page or app. In that case, they can be automatically removed from that remarking list once they have reached the target for that particular campaign. This will reduce wasteful advertising spending.

Customer Lifecycle-Framed Reporting

The organisation of reports is one of the most noticeable differences between Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics. GA4 aims to provide a comprehensive view of how customers interact with your company across devices and channels. Furthermore, you can now assign an ID to a user or enable Google signals to deduplicate users across devices for better reporting and ad targeting.

More Granular User Data Controls

Analytics 4 also includes options to assist you in meeting data regulations such as GDPR and CCPA.

Analytics in a Cookie-Less Future

Google predicts that sparse data will become the norm once third-party cookies are phased out. As a result, GA4 will rely on machine learning to fill data gaps, which will help maintain reporting accuracy for better insights.

Wrap Up

What’s Next?

This is an excellent question. GA4 is still missing features that should be easy enough to create. A Google Search Console integration and site speed metrics appear to be no-brainers, but only time will tell.

Even without some more basic features, it’s time to step into GA4.

It isn’t still being prepared to replace your primary analytics platform, but it provides enough to keep you on your radar and collect data for you.

It’s best to start preparing now.