Last November, Google Analytics released GA4, a new tool that lets you track customers across mobile apps and websites. Unlike Universal Analytics, which tracks users by sessions, GA4 is “event-based.”
What does that mean for you?
Now, instead of creating a new session when users return to your site, GA4 consolidates all the events they complete in a single set of reports—allowing you to perform cross-platform analysis. And with new features such as Enhanced Measurement, you can automatically collect data on scroll depth, outbound clicks, site search, embedded YouTube videos, file downloads, and more.
GA4 makes time measurement more useful, too. Instead of just flat time-on-page-type data, you can measure how long it takes a user to watch a video, fill out a survey, or complete a defined set of steps.
Here are some other things to know about GA4:
- It only collects data from the time of creation and won’t import past data for UA properties.
- This will become the standard, so it’s good to start using it now and collect as much data as possible.
- It doesn’t impact the use of UTM codes.
- When moving from UA to GA4, historical data won’t be lost, but it will live in a separate platform.
- UA and GA4 will live in harmony for a certain period of time, so pixels can coexist on the landing page.
