Google Analytics (GA) has been one of the most popular website tracking tools since its release in 2005. Two significant updates later, the platform has become a staple for many website owners, from independent bloggers or small e-commerce stores to significant publishers and ecommerce giants.

There is no mistaking the value GA brings to the table; given its pedigree, it was always destined to become the benchmark for other tracking tools. Essentially, a website traffic tracker is probably the most loved tool of digital marketers since it allows them to measure performance, track experiments, and pull data for key performance indicators (KPIs). But if GA is your base for decision-making and budget allocation, having to look at different tracking methods might throw you off.

Enter Google Analytics 4 (GA4), which replaces the soon-to-be decommissioned GA3 and revamps its tracking system.

The stakes are high. Those who choose not to adapt to GA4 (or implement it correctly) may find themselves with dirty data or smaller samples, leading to poor interpretation and, thus, poor implementation. This will, in turn, lead to poor resource allocation, wasting of budgets and — in tight margin niches — could put some companies out of business.

That may sound histrionic, but such is the nature of business. If someone has a competitive advantage, they will erode your market share.

Why the move to GA4?

GA3 was launched assuming that page load would be the best way to track everything. For website owners, this used to be true. When a call is made to the server to load a page, GA3 will load alongside it, tracking the page view and any requested markups, such as form completes or button clicks.

But page load isn’t the norm anymore, and a brand’s digital assets now consist of different real estate types. In addition, websites no longer run only on page load models.

For example, today’s brands might have a website, iOS and Android apps, a progressive web app, iFrames and AMP websites; none work on a page load model. Furthermore, many modern websites have moved to front-end renderings via angular frameworks like React. Net-net: they need fewer page loads to activate specific tasks.

You can now see how that page load starts to leave gaps in the user tracking, experience, and flow. Under GA3, marketers like myself would have to review the site tracking shortcomings and add custom tracking such as virtual page views or create event markups to help keep track of each site. This can be an arduous process and can be broken and implemented incorrectly. If not centrally managed by one business owner, data becomes a mess, and year-over-year comparisons are essentially rendered meaningless.  

How did GA4 deal with these issues?

Google’s engineers took notice of these shortcomings. So, instead of having page view as the base and event tracking above it as a second layer, GA4 refactors tracking from the ground up and move to a 100% event-based model. This means that page view is now treated as an event instead of a separate metric on which all other metrics are applied.

Now that page view is seen as an event, it can be easily compared to events such as screen changes in the app, iFrame renderings, impressions from search, ad campaigns, and website ads, as well as page loads on third-party domains. This allows you to build better funnels across all your digital assets — both those hosted by you and third-party platforms you might be using.

Should you migrate to GA4?

The short answer is: “yes.” Not because it’s a better tracking methodology but because Google is not giving you a choice. By mid-2023, GA3 support will disappear.

Therefore, your best option is to set up a GA4 profile and run it concurrently with your current GA3 implementation. I would recommend comparing data, moving over event tracking, and getting used to how data is presented and how data is manipulated within the new platform. By doing so, you can prepare yourself for the switch. For example, you can inform and train any stakeholders relying on Google Analytics data for their KPIs or reporting needs.

One caveat: in its current iteration, GA4 lacks some of the tools and reports in GA3, but there will be several updates to GA4 before switching over, so don’t panic. Be patient if you can’t find a particular report or cannot create annotations for specific events.

Easy peasy?

Thankfully, Google has made it pretty easy to migrate to GA4, and the entire marketing community continues to post helpful guides, discussions, tips, and tricks on migrating your data, preserving old data, and keeping your YoY comparisons running post-switch smoothly. Running a simple YouTube search should do the trick.

GA4 is also fully interoperable with other Google products, including ad manager, Firebase, Data Studios, Merchant Center, and Big Cloud. All of these will now feed into one place from which you can draw your data to create far more robust cross-functional, gross device reports and ensure that every piece of digital real estate you own is performing as desired.

Those who overlook GA4’s current shortcomings and embrace the new way of tracking will reap the benefits of this new data analytics method and build more granular and comprehensive strategies using a much cleaner data set. That being said, GA4 remains a tool, meaning that the operator is the better part of its utility. If you don’t set it up correctly and take the time to learn how to use it properly, you will misfire, so be sure to comb through it and take your time. No one wants to miss their goals, do they?