Browse our GA4-specific content or check out the full, 1-hour GA4 beginner’s tutorial here.
It’s 2023 and there are big changes in the world of digital analytics. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is replacing Universal Analytics (UA or GA3) and will be the only option for Google Analytics users beginning on July 1, 2023. Some of us are excited and some are lamenting the upcoming deprecation of UA, but it will be a major impact for everyone.
So let’s dig in and explore the most important differences of GA4 vs. Universal Analytics.
GA4 reports function quite differently than reports in Universal Analytics. In this guide we’ll explain Standard Reports as well as the more advanced “Explorations.” We’ll also review Advertising Reports and provide tips for creating custom reports. Finally, we’ll touch on the role BigQuery and Looker Studio can play in reporting. Get ready for some serious Google Analytics reporting.
Starting in July of 2023, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) will be the only option for collecting data with Google Analytics. But there are problems with GA4, at least for those of us who used and loved Universal Analytics (UA). In this author’s opinion, the new platform is simply not yet as good as UA. So, let’s review 4 common GA4 problems and explore what options we have.
Did you know you can create custom events in GA4 without using Google Tag Manager? It’s true, you can create GA4 custom events with the event interface. But it’s worth doing this carefully because you can negatively affect your data integrity if you aren’t sure what you’re doing.
GA4 Explorations help to uncover deeper insights in your data. This reporting functionality is built into Google Analytics 4, but it takes some getting used to. We’ll review how it all works in this Explorations guide.
Google Analytics 4 will track scroll activity by default with the ‘scroll’ enhanced measurement event. However, this event will only register an event once a visitor achieves a scroll depth of 90%. What if you want to measure more precise GA4 scroll tracking activity? If you want, for example, to track scroll at 25%, 50%, 75%, and 90% you’ll need more advanced scroll tracking. That’s where this tutorial can help.
GA4 page timer tracking involves both Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager. This guide will walk you through the entire process if you want to track page timing on your site.
GA4 standard reports are arranged quite differently than the standard reports in Universal Analytics. To start, there are fewer of them, and they are also not all a 1:1 match. In this guide we’ll explain standard reports and we’ll provide tutorials on how customize them to build some of the most useful Google Analytics 4 reports.
Google Analytics 4 has a number of drawbacks, especially for those who really liked Universal Analytics. But the linking of GA4 with Google BigQuery is objectively one of the benefits. After all, this was a paid feature with Universal Analytics while the GA4 BigQuery linking is free. Let’s check it out in this blog.
You might be wondering, “where are my GA4 Views?” If that’s what brought you here today, I have bad news and good news. The bad news is that technically there are not Views in GA4. The good news, however, is that we can use report filters to replicate much of the same functionality that we liked about UA views.
