First of all, remember the date: July 1, 2023. Your Universal Analytics (current versions) will stop working for you. On 14th October 2020, Google Analytics 4 property was released. It is also known as the “App + Web” property, which is now used to measure different kinds of data. 

In order to get a powerful analytics experience that is built for the future, Google Analytics 4 offers the ability to measure a wide variety of data types. Businesses can use Google’s machine learning technology to uncover and forecast new insights, observe unified user journeys across all of their websites and applications, and most crucially, it’s designed to keep up with an evolving ecosystem.

Without a cutting-edge measuring system, you overlook important data that might have an influence on your company. Make Google Analytics 4 your cross-platform analytics solution right away. Next year, we’ll start retiring Universal Analytics, the older version of Analytics. On July 1, 2023, all regular Universal Analytics sites will stop accepting new hits. Universal Analytics 360 sites will receive an additional three months of new hit processing, which will stop on October 1, 2023, due to the new Analytics 360 experience’s recent introduction.

What is Google Analytics 4? 

Google Analytics 4 is one of the top marketing tools that track your website traffic, Real-time user data, locations, and more activities that happen on your sites. The goal of the new Google Analytics, according to Google, is to combine “privacy-first” monitoring, x-channel measurement, an AI-based predictive analytics.

The “App + Web” solution and Google Analytics 4 have the same base. The App + Web version of Analytics is primarily concerned with cross-channel data, giving advertisers a mechanism to follow customers across websites, software, and applications. All of this indicates that its primary objective is to change the way data is presented so that users – particularly the user journey from the initial visit to the final conversion. 

The new GA4 has featured “events”. The new Google Analytics primarily presents data using these events. The machine learning process in Google Analytics enables it to close knowledge gaps caused by customers who reject the use of cookies and data collecting, which prevents organizations from understanding their whole client base.

New privacy protection regulations like the GDPR, CCPA and the declining reliability of conventional analytics are the main drivers behind the need for something like Google Analytics 4. Due to the cookie consent alternatives mandated by this legislation, many firms utilizing the traditional Universal Google Analytics may frequently experience problems with incomplete or erroneous data.

Do You Need To Upgrade To Universal Analytics?

All new experience of Google Analytics 4 stands up the question for you. Should you go for it?  is  Upgrading required from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4?

The answer you get is “Yes” everywhere. As you already know, Google released a new version. So, the future is now based on it. This shows the importance of learning Google Analytics 4.

7 Major Differences Between Google Analytics 4 vs Universal Analytics

1. The User Interface of Google Analytics 4 is the most significant distinction between it and Traditional Universal Analytics.
2. Traditional Analytics works on Three tiers of data collection structure: Account > Property > View. But Google Analytics works with Two tiers only: Account > Property.
3. In traditional Analytics, Events are created by page views, button clicks, user actions, etc. But on the GA4 some of the events are measured by default without adding customized code to the on-site Analytics tracking code. 
4. The value of a purchase may be described using parameters, and they can also be used to explain where, how, and why an event was logged. These are most comparable to many of the previous “dimensions” and can include page titles, article IDs, etc.
5. GA4’s “page_view” event refers to Traditional Analytics’ “page views”.
6. Each “Event” in traditional Analytics is distributed as a Category, Action, and Label. But, in GA4, every “hit” is considered an event. There is no distribution.
7. Data variations may also result from variations in how delayed data is handled. Google Analytics 4 processes events that arrive up to 72 hours after they are first detected, as opposed to traditional Analytics, which processes hits if they arrive within 4 hours of the day’s end.

How To Set Up Google Analytics 4?

You can set up a new Google Analytics property for your website in a few different ways.

Method 1:

Steps For Connect GA4

1. Sign in to the Analytics account.
2. Go to the Admin section.
3. In the Account column, select the account for that you want to create the property.
4. In the Property column, select the desired Universal Analytics property.
5. If the option is available for users, you can select “GA4 Setup Assistant”.
6. Inside the Setup Wizard, click the large blue button.
7. Click the blue-button to Create a property.

Now it is automatically activated for your site. You can’t lose any data by upgrading this property.

Method 2:

Google claims that utilizing gtag.js for all page URLs (even with Google Tag Manager, third-party content-management systems (CMs), and incomplete gtag.js implementations) is required in order to use Connected Site tags for tagging. Particularly considering the possibility that many marketers and companies may discover that “custom” settings or erroneous track code set-ups may not effectively deliver data to the GA4 property.

This means that, for the majority of sites, this may not be the ideal method since, occasionally, it may not function as intended. It could be safer to combine a new GA4 ID with the current code fragment. The entire site must be regularly tagged using a gtag.js snippet that is managed by a single Universal Analytics property in order to use connected site tags. Only the data that qualifies will be transmitted to GA4 if the pages employing conventional Universal Analytics have “mixed implementations.”

Dual Setup for Google Analytics 4 vs Universal Analytics

Marketers may utilize GA4 in combination with Universal Analytics. Although marketers won’t be compelled to use the new version of Analytics, Google Analytics 4 will be the default for any new properties or accounts. In order to allow data to begin to populate, get used to the new UI, and make sense of the new way that data is presented, many organizations may choose to construct a fresh version of the Google Analytics 4 property utilizing the App + Web property setup. 

As we have already discussed, Google encourages users not to assume their data seem the same in all versions. The data will not exactly match the recognizable reports from the previous edition since these two platforms have very distinct conceptual foundations and because “hits” now measure things like events and parameters differently (even across devices).

How Does Google Analytics Use?

The best way to use Google Analytics is to generate reports. When you initially log in, you’ll see that the main page provides an overview of the property’s general traffic, conversions, and revenue. we must advisable to use this as a fast check to ensure that everything is functioning as it should.

• Report Segments:

1. Realtime Report

It is available on the left side navigation and shows events that happen within the last 30 minutes. It checks tracking code is working or not, View Effects from a YouTube Video, etc.

2. Life Cycle Reporting

The funnel of user acquisition, engagement, monetization, and retention is mirrored in life cycle reporting. It’s perfect for examining how people join the conversion funnel and their actions while there. User reports on demographics, technology, events, and conversions are also included in GA4.

Life Cycle Reports can immediately respond to How does the conversion funnel’s user flow work? And When consumers enter the funnel, how do they operate your sites? 

• Explorations Segments:

The new Analysis Hub could be the most significant update in GA4 (or at least what I believe will be most helpful for marketers). While the GA4 Analysis Hub offers you access to various sophisticated approaches and a template gallery that isn’t accessible anywhere else, the basic reports nevertheless assist you in keeping track of important business indicators.

Steps for Creating A New Analysis

1. log in to Google Analytics Account
2. Click on Analysis

• Magnifying glass icon on the graph in the Explore section at the bottom left

3. Choose the method you’ll employ to examine your data

• Advertising Segments:

In this segment, you can compare different models. It shows the conversions and revenue of the Attribution model for Cross-channel last click / first click / linear / position-based / Time decay models.

Other than that, you can check Conversion paths with Conversions, Purchase revenue, Days to conversion, and Touchpoints to conversion.

• Configuration Segments:

Have you set goals in universal analytics? Did you find how to set up goals in the GA4? 

From the configuration, you can easily manage your goals.

Conclusion

Greater marketing decisions result coming from better analytics insights reports. And one of the most effective marketing tools is Google Analytics 4. It improves the study of website traffic and visitor behavior.

GA4 gets us all the things we require. It gives advertisers greater freedom and a way to anticipate user behavior while maintaining user privacy. So, in our opinion, quickly learn the basic things of GA4 which improves your insights analysis.