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What is Google Analytics 4, and What Do I Need To Do?

You’ve probably heard the buzz about Google Analytics 4 (GA4) if you’re involved in digital marketing. With more than 7 million users already signed up, it’s getting some attention. GA4 is the latest version of Google’s web analytics platform. It is designed to provide users with more comprehensive insights into their website traffic, user behavior, and marketing performance. In addition, GA4 offers a range of new features and capabilities to help businesses better understand their customers and optimize their digital marketing efforts. In today’s post, we’ll explain what GA4 is, what it offers, and how you can get started.

What is Google Analytics 4?

The latest version of Google’s web analytics platform was released in October 2020 to replace the previous version, Universal Analytics (UA). The main difference between UA and GA4 is that GA4 uses machine learning to automatically detect user behavior patterns and generate insights about user engagement with your website or app. This means you don’t have to manually set up events or configure custom reports to get valuable insights from your data.

GA4 also provides more detailed reporting on user engagement with your websites and apps, including key data such as page views, session duration, bounce rate, conversions, and more.

What Does GA4 Offer?

GA4 has been intentionally designed to help businesses better understand their customers and optimize their digital marketing efforts. Including:

Enhanced Reporting

GA4 provides more detailed reporting on user engagement with your website or app than UA did, including page views, session duration, bounce rate, conversions, etc. Additionally, it allows you to track user behavior across devices and platforms to understand better how users interact with your content across different channels.

Machine Learning

GA4 uses machine learning algorithms to automatically detect user behavior patterns and generate insights about user engagement with your website or app. This means you don’t have to manually set up events or configure custom reports to get valuable insights from your data.

Automated Insights

With automated insights from GA4, you can quickly identify trends in customer behavior over time so you can make informed decisions about optimizing your digital marketing efforts for maximum impact.

Cross-Platform Tracking

With cross-platform tracking capabilities in GA4, you can track users across multiple devices and platforms to better understand how they interact with your content across different channels.

Custom Dimensions & Metrics

You can create custom dimensions and metrics in GA4, which allow you to gain deeper insights into specific aspects of customer behavior, such as product usage or purchase frequency, so that you can tailor your marketing campaigns accordingly.

What Do I Need To Do To Get Started With GA4?

Getting started with GA4 is relatively straightforward, but a few steps need to be taken before you can use it effectively. First, you’ll need to set up an account on the Google Analytics Platform, which requires creating a property for each website or app that will be tracked by the platform as well as setting up an administrator account for managing access rights for other users who will be accessing the data collected by the platform.

Next, you’ll need to install a tracking code. Once an account has been created on the platform, then a tracking code needs to be installed on each website/app being tracked for data collection to begin taking place; even if you don’t have prior coding experience, instructions are provided.

Then you’ll want to create goals and events. Again, this is used within GA4 for user actions on websites/apps being tracked by the platform (such as making purchases) to be monitored. But, again, this needs to be set up within each property created on the platform before any meaningful analysis of customer behavior/engagement levels, etc., can take place.

Finally, you’ll need to analyze the data. Once all these steps have been completed, the platform can collect data and should start appearing within reports generated within each property created. You should then analyze this data, and conclusions are drawn from it regarding customer behavior/engagement levels, etc. For informed decisions about optimizing digital marketing campaigns to be made.

Google Analytics 4 gives marketers much to get excited about. But if you find the idea of transitioning from UA,or setting up your account a bit daunting, or if you’d like a second set of eyes to help you understand the analytics and plan the next moves for your online marketing strategy, the Dietz Group is here to help. We love to help businesses grow online, and porting over companies from Google UA to GA4 is something we help businesses with, along with a complete marketing strategy. We can also help you with PPC Ads and your SEO strategy. Contact us today to get started.

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