You may have been hearing about Google’s new development in the world of web analytics, Google Analytics 4. It is the latest step forward in data tracking and although it doesn’t sound too different to its predecessor, “Google Analytics”, a lot has changed with Google’s new tracking tool. Let’s take a look at what is new with Google Analytics 4 and what you need to do to be ready for it.
What’s Different About Google Analytics 4
Previously, Google’s tracking tool Google Analytics approached data from a session perspective. This places heavy emphasis on session based data, like website clicks, session time and bounce rate. However, sessions aren’t really how we should be understanding the digital world. This can provide us with incomplete pictures of how users are actually interacting with our websites and apps. Instead of session based data, we should all be focused on tracking its users and the different events they encounter on our websites and apps.
This is the focus of the new platform, Google Analytics 4. The platform is primarily focused on tracking users and events, with an events-based model processing and tracking each user interaction on your site or app as a standalone event.
There are a number of benefits to this change in analysis. Firstly, this will allow us to better track how users are interacting with our websites on a user level, rather than data grouped by time frames. It will also enable you to perform better cross-platform analysis, track your customer journey, analyse user engagement and experience and integrate more information into your ad campaigns to drive more effective results.
How To Be Ready For Google Analytics 4
Google Analytics 4 is already live and has been since it was first launched on October 14, 2020. Google is providing users with time to get used to the new data tracking tools in Google Analytics 4 while they still have access to the more familiar tools of Google Analytics. However, Google Analytics is set to be taken offline on July 1, 2023, so it is important to be ready for Google Analytics 4 when Google makes the switch.
So what do you need to do to be ready? All you need to do is set up a Google Analytics 4 property. The good news is that if you already have a Google Analytics account set up then you will be able to use all of the tracking codes already within your site. Within a few clicks of your mouse you will have your own Google Analytics 4 property set up. If you haven’t set up Google Analytics before then all you need to do is click here and follow the steps to start tracking your website data.
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