The Future With Google Analytics 4 Is Here: Reasons to Future-Proof Your Analytics Strategy and Move to the Next Level

The Future With Google Analytics 4 Is Here: Reasons to Future-Proof Your Analytics Strategy and Move to the Next Level

Google’s newest version of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is replacing the long-standing Universal Analytics (UA) platform to provide a complete view of user behavior across the web and app by leveraging first-party data.

Here are the top benefits of GA4 that will enable you to remain relevant and future-proof your strategy for good.

Engagement metrics

Enhanced measurements like scrolls, video engagement, and file downloads show user interaction. These provide valuable information on a post – whether it is engaging enough to grab the user’s attention. Unlike the UA platform that uses custom coding for tracking, GA4 provides positive data on user engagement instead of giving you information on the bounce rate. For example, the GA4 users metric enables you to understand your audience by showing the unique users who interacted with your webpage.

Seamless tracking across both web and app

Previously, website and app tracking were done separately before GA 4. With GA4, these two can now be combined in one property – Firebase for app tracking and Google analytics for websites. This fosters a complete view of engagement across platforms.

Cookieless tracking

GA4 is aligned with heightened privacy expectations with its built-in compliance with regulatory developments like General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), thereby eradicating the worry about compromising customers’ privacy. For example, GA4 anonymizes a user’s IP address automatically, which GDPR considers as personal data.

Advanced analysis

Advanced analysis is now easy with GA4 as it allows you to identify the most common paths taken by customers. For example, heat maps add a new dimension to your analysis and the user explorer report gives a closer look at specific user segments that is most relevant to your analysis.

Complete user journey

Life Cycle reporting helps you understand the stages of the customer journey – Acquisition, Engagement, Monetization, and Retention. It is now easy to get a holistic view of user behavior and get valuable insights on where marketers should focus or change their strategy.

Enhanced visualizations and reporting

Many new visualizations and reporting functions come with GA4. For example, ‘Real Time’ visualization has been enhanced and made more engaging and the ‘Analysis Hub’ helps to simplify complex cross-dimensional metric reporting.

Better ROI

Highly insightful analytics reports help to plan your ad campaigns better and reach your target audience within the stipulated timeframe. If you plan strategically, you should be able to create successful marketing campaigns to derive ROI.

Boost your marketing strategies

GA4 allows you to create your custom metrics – create comparisons and build myriad segments to look at your data from different angles. All these combined with AI-powered predictions can help you delve deeper to understand your target audience and thereby enhance your marketing strategies.

The Way Forward – The Future of Google Analytics is GA4

The GA4 platform is very new and so it may take time to explore and see how it works. While we are not suggesting you abandon your existing Universal Analytics property, you should start with Google Analytics 4 now as it is replacing UA soon – to enjoy an enhanced experience. As a result, the standard UA properties will stop processing new hits, and the new version of “privacy-centric by design” will come in. Here are some key things to keep in mind to ease your decision-making:

  • You will lose historical data if you do not shift now – You will lose all your historical data as GA4 will only collect data from the time of creation. While you can export the data for safekeeping, it would be difficult to transform it to the new GA4 format.
  • Utilize the time to familiarise yourself with GA4 – You have very little time to adopt GA4 to future-proof your analytics plan and implement it in your current setup. There’s a big learning curve associated with ensuring you learn GA4 and use it to transform your business.

Now that you know the implications, take the plunge and gear up for a new era of analytics.

Contact us to know more about how we can extend our expertise to help you in your GA4 transition.

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