Boosting Performance with Google Analytics 4
Have you logged into your Google Analytics account lately to see this reminder and countdown to GA4 (Google Analytics 4)? Google wants to make sure that everyone has moved over appropriately by 1 July 2023 to the new tracking model. In this article, we are going to explore what this means, why this is important, and of course, the benefits!
Let’s start with the basics—in general, what insights do you get from paying attention to your Google Analytics from your website? First, you see your traffic sources (search engines, social media, referral links, etc.) next, you can track the number of viewers, length of time spent on your site, which pages they visit, and how they navigate your site.
Seeing your user behaviour flow helps identify areas where users may be dropping off or getting stuck. Plus, track your conversion, website speed (loading times), and mobile interaction. With these types of data points, you can enhance the user experience on your website, identify obstacles and make data-driven business decisions.
Is Google Analytics 4, really better?
GA4 captures even more information, especially during the buying journey. This will clue you into reasons for cart abandonment, guide your ad dollar spending based on knowing which traffic converts reliably, and direct other strategies such as email campaign sends and understanding what content resonates most with certain demographics.
The more in-depth tracking across devices (mobile, tablet, and desktop) will help you tailor your marketing campaigns more effectively.
High-level takeaways that everyone should know about Google Analytics 4:
- Built on an event-based tracking model, this translates to all user interactions with your website (or app) being categorised as an event. This grants tracking for a broader range of user behaviours (clicks, views, etc.) with more flexibility and customising.
- Focused on user-centric data instead of previously used, session-based data. This equates to tracking user behaviour across multiple sessions and devices. We benefit from this more inclusive data to define the overall interaction of the buyer/user journey.
- Incorporates machine learning models that yield insights into user behaviour and predictive analytics. These AI-powered insights will help pinpoint trends, patterns, and other opportunities for expansion and streamlining.
- Heightened privacy controls are offered to remain in compliance with data privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA. This helps set data retention periods and control data sharing.
GA4 presents a more comprehensive approach to evaluating user behaviours. With any change comes a learning curve, and it will take time to get into the new rhythm of setting, pulling and assessing this new data set with flexible features.
Here are your action steps for moving forward:
- Set up GA4 now while still having access to Universal Analytics (UA) until July 2023.
- Read Palisis’ step-by-step technical support article on configuring Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics to seamlessly transition to GA4.
Lastly, as always, our Customer Success Team is here to walk you through all of these changes and ready you for this transition, gathering even more customer-journey-rich data from your website.
Read the next in our Google Analytics 4 for Tour Operators series where we dig into GA4 eCommerce tracking, how to optimise sales funnels and reduce cart abandonment