Your Guide To Google Analytics 4

Google Universal Analytics Set To Retire

With the latest release of Google Analytics 4 comes a wide range of new features and updates – but what are a few of the major changes to take note of?

It’s no secret that the more people who see your site equates to the more potential customers you could have at your disposal. The number of visitors your website manages to generate also indicates the number of opportunities that your business has at giving an impression, generating qualified leads, sharing your brand and building relationships. 

However, to see what’s working and what’s not for your digital marketing efforts, then some careful analysis is required. While most social media platforms offer their own tools to do so, the godfather of all website dissection almost always is considered to be Google Analytics. 

For the unfamiliar, Google Analytics is a web analytics service that provides statistics and basic analytical tools for search engine optimization and marketing purposes. The service is part of the Google Marketing Platform, and is available for free to anyone with a Google account. First launched in 2005, the service has received significant upgrades along the way, with the latest offering being Google Analytics 4. 

Five Noteworthy Changes To Google Analytics 4

To say that some of the new features rolled out with Google Analytics 4 have been polarizing would be an understatement. While some marketers have applauded the amendments, other corners of the internet have dubbed them as a flop. Regardless of which end of the spectrum you identify with, here are a few of the most significant changes that have been released with the latest update. 

Menu Interface – A side-by-side comparison between the menu structures of the previous Google Analytics and GA4 shows some pretty significant differences in the user interface. For a start, the number of menu items have been culled from 111 to just 24. Although these are fully customisable, the reception has been mixed from users of the platform.

Better Integration – GA4 is the latest version of Google Analytics that uses Firebase Analytics on the backend. It provides a better representation of user behavior, with less time spent on collecting and aggregating data. Google Analytics 4  users can deploy the software to track a website, an app, or both a website and app together. 

Event Tracking – A major perk of the latest Google Analytics 4 is that it puts the emphasis firmly on users and their interactions, which are now captured solely as Events. Web developers can now create and capture a custom User ID within your app and web environments, allowing for greater understanding of the customer’s journey.

Enhanced AI – GA4 uses machine learning and natural language processing (NLP). As such, it can predict the probability of conversion and create audience forecasts for Google Ads based on that probability, warn you about important trends in your data, find anomalies in reports, and predict the likelihood of customer outflows so you can effectively invest in retaining customers.

Improved Privacy – GA4 is less dependent on tracking cookies or personally identifiable information (PII), and for online traders who have a global customer base and ship internationally, and has extra features to help brands comply with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

Needless to say, it’s more important than ever to stay relevant in the online space as a means to craft a consistent message that matches the tone of your business. If you manage or run your own brand or business, maintaining your website  and learning how to use platforms like Google Analytics 4 can be quite daunting. If this is something that you can’t quite commit to, it might be time to consider outsourcing. 

The Key To Good Marketing Is Great Content

Producing quality, consistent and on brand content takes time, effort, experience and resources, but avoiding these responsibilities altogether may actually be doing your brand a disservice. Thankfully, investing in a solid content marketing strategy has actually never been easier. 

Here at Content Hive, producing top quality digital content is exactly what we do best. We have itemised a list of digital content services, and allocated credits next to each of these. This means that each month, you can use your credits with us to produce digital content such as blog articles, social media posts, videos and even animated Instagram stories. By using this model, we believe that it enables us to produce high quality content with faster delivery times.

If you aren’t quite sure where to start on your digital marketing journey and would like to speak to a professional, why not book in a free discovery call with us at Content Hive today to discuss how we can get your brand buzzing online. 

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