I migrated to GA4, now what?
July 1, 2023 will be here sooner than you think. Learn what this date means, and find out the steps you can take to ensure you are ready.
If you have GA4 up and running on your website(s)
Congratulations. Here are three things that need to be done as soon as possible::
- Under Data Settings in your GA4 property(-ies) Admin section:
- Set data retention to 14 months — GA4 automatically collects your data for only 2 months unless you change it to 14 months
- Enable Google Signals data collection — Google Signals data collection allows tracking across devices using Google data, giving you a better understanding of your user’s path across your website
- Develop an actionable measurement plan
- Review current reporting - Most of us inherited a cobbled together tracking plan based on UA’s user-based tracking method. GA4 is completely different from Google’s previous analytics platform. Because GA4 is event-based tracking, a new measurement plan has to be created, giving us a chance to bring the tracking plan back on track. Consider what metrics you are currently reporting on:
- How do they align with your unit’s business goals?
- How do they align with your unit’s website goals?
- Do you use GTM tags to gather specific information?
- Do you use audiences to filter users?
- Are goals/targets identified for your metrics?
- Start exploring Google Looker Studio (previously Google Data Studio)
- Use it to replace Views in Universal Analytics
- GA4 does not have the extensive report selection that UA had and working with GA4’s report explorations is not that intuitive, it is easy to build your reports in Google Looker Studio
- Review current reporting - Most of us inherited a cobbled together tracking plan based on UA’s user-based tracking method. GA4 is completely different from Google’s previous analytics platform. Because GA4 is event-based tracking, a new measurement plan has to be created, giving us a chance to bring the tracking plan back on track. Consider what metrics you are currently reporting on:
- Start thinking about what events you want to track. Remember, GA4 is an event-based tracking method and the following events are automatically tracked by GA4
- file_download
- form_start
- form_submit
- page_view
- scroll_depth (only when 90% of the page is viewed)
- session_start
- user_engagement
- video_complete
- video-progress (10%, 25%, 50%, 75% complete)
- video_start
- view_search_results
If you are not running GA4 (Google Analytics 4) on your website(s) yet
You have fewer than 8 months to figure out how to use GA4 metrics to analyze your data. Start with a couple of steps:
- Learn how to add GA4 tracking to your website in our “4 Reasons to Upgrade to GA4” blog post.
- Opt to collect both GA4 and Universal Analytics (UA) concurrently through the use of Google Tag Manager (GTM).
Watch for future blog posts about Google Looker Studio usage highlights and Google Tag Manager naming conventions for GA4 tags.