{"id":15445,"date":"2023-06-07T16:54:54","date_gmt":"2023-06-07T15:54:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cornerstonedm.co.uk\/?post_type=cs_blogs&p=15445"},"modified":"2023-12-07T16:55:08","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T16:55:08","slug":"google-analytics-4-guide","status":"publish","type":"cs_blogs","link":"https:\/\/cornerstonedm.co.uk\/blog\/google-analytics-4-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything you need to know about Google Analytics 4"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In 2020, Google Analytics announced its biggest change since it launched Universal Analytics in 2012: the introduction of Google Analytics 4 (GA4). In 2023, Universal Analytics officially stopped collecting data and GA4 took the wheel.<\/strong><\/p>\n

GA4 holds a lot of trepidation for marketers, but after working with the platform for the last couple of years, our Cornerstone Analytics experts are here to de-mystify the platform and empower you to make the most of GA4\u2026<\/p>\n

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  1. What do we use GA for?<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Why has Google introduced GA4?<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. UA vs GA4: The Key Differences<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Our GA-4 top tips<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
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    What do we use GA for?<\/h3><\/h3>\n <\/div>\n
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    At its most basic level, Google Analytics gives you free tools to understand your customers\u2019 online journey in order to make informed decisions to improve your ROI.<\/p>\n

    The data Google Analytics gives us allows us to understand how customers are finding us online, how they\u2019re engaging with your brand online, what they\u2019re most engaged with, what they\u2019re least engaged with and who they are.<\/p>\n

    From the collected data, we can report on and optimise our digital presence, measuring conversion rates, traffic patterns, and identify opportunities to generate new ideas.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
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    A custom Cornerstone client GA4 report<\/p>\n<\/small>\n

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    Why has Google introduced GA4?<\/h3><\/h3>\n <\/div>\n
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    As we move into a world free of cookies, GA4 has been introduced with privacy at the forefront. Because GA4 operates across all digital platforms, web and app, it doesn\u2019t rely exclusively on cookies. It uses event-based data modelling for its measurement.<\/p>\n

    Under GDPR, websites require users to consent to cookies to track website performance but GA4 will start reducing this reliance on cookies to record certain events across web and app by using machine learning to \u2018fill in the gaps\u2019 where user consent is not given for tracking, making it more stable to industry changes and preventing future gaps in your data.<\/p>\n

    GA4 is built with the future in mind, so scalability and growth have been factored into the new design, along with a wider focus on tracking the complete user journey, as opposed to splitting user interaction into sessions, devices or platforms like Universal Analytics.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
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    UA vs GA4: The Key Differences<\/h3><\/h3>\n <\/div>\n
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    The most anticipated change from Universal Analytics (UA, or GA3) is the tracking potential on apps, and housing this in the same property as your web data.<\/p>\n

    GA4 leverages the same measurement model as Google Analytics Firebase (which the majority of app marketers use for tracking at the moment) where all interactions are captured as events. This new unified data schema between a website and a mobile app means that it will be much easier to combine data across them.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
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    Another significant difference between UA and GA4 is how interactions are captured. In UA, interactions were captured in many different hit types such as page views, transactions, and social interactions. In GA4, every interaction is captured as an event.<\/p>\n

    In UA, a session is typically defined as having ended once there has been\u00a0a 30-minute period of inactivity or another qualifying reset event has occurred.\u00a0By contrast in GA4, the\u00a0session_start\u00a0event generates a session ID with which all subsequent events during the session are associated. The duration of a session is based on the time span between the first and last event in the session. In short, GA4 gives a more robust view of a user\u2019s session.<\/p>\n

    There are some key metrics that have depreciated in the move to GA4 too\u2026 Bounce rate and average session duration are no more. Google has chosen to take a more \u201cpositive\u201d approach by reporting in relation to \u2018engagement\u2019; engaged sessions, engagement rate and engagement time. The focus is now more on events and analysing how users are actively engaging with the site or app.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
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    Google Tag Manager (GTM) is also now more important than ever. Tag Manager acts as a conduit between your website and Analytics account, giving the power to the marketer to setup custom events for tracking at an incredibly granular level.<\/p>\n

    In UA, you were able to setup events and conversions without GTM, for instance, creating conversion based on destination pages. This functionality is not available in GA4. All goals are event-based, thanks to the event-based modelling, so it is more important than ever to know your way around GTM to get your custom events setup in a way that works for you.<\/p>\n

    A few further differences can be seen below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
    \nUniversal Analytics (UA)<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n\nGoogle Analytics 4 (GA4)<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    User-specific way of measuring data \u2013 who user is and where they\u2019ve come from<\/td>\nFocuses on what the user does rather than who the user is<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    Logs IP addresses<\/td>\nEntirely anonymous<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    Uses a sessions and pageview-based model<\/td>\nEvents-based model \u2013 specific actions over who is performing them<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
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    Our GA-4 top tips<\/h2>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n
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    1.\tSetup Google Signals<\/h3>\n <\/div>\n
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    UA came pre-loaded with a whole plethora of demographics and interest data but, obviously, with privacy front-of-mind, GA4 does not unless\u2026<\/p>\n

    You activate Google Signals!<\/p>\n

    Signals is a Google product that launched in 2018 but it\u2019s now more important than ever.<\/p>\n

    Signals feeds data from users who have turned on Google\u2019s Ads Personalization feature directly into your GA4 property. This association of data with these signed-in users is used to enable cross-device reporting, cross-device remarketing, and cross-device conversion monitoring.1<\/sup><\/p>\n

    It\u2019s more robust than traditional BigQuery due to its ability to measure users across devices which gives your funnel analysis the edge as you can optimise user journeys at every stage. You can also focus on areas of the journey that are most valuable to the user by understanding behaviours based on the device combinations that they\u2019re using.<\/p>\n

    While Google Signals gives us great insight, it does also have its limitations including:<\/p>\n