Let’s face it. GA4 isn’t GR8.
Google Analytics 4 is a work in progress to put it kindly.
However, in these final weeks of 2021 you have an opportunity to get GA4 installed and tuned up, giving your future self a full year of data.
If you listen to the chatter on the internet about Google Analytics 4, you may be dissuaded from implementing the new analytics code on your site:
Please don’t read this and panic. While I understand why some marketers are dubious about GA4, the reality is that Google Analytics 4 is the future. Google is implementing GA4 out of necessity (watch below) and it won’t be going anywhere. Setting it up today will give you 2022 as a starting point moving forward in the new system. If used right, you can have a full year of data for 2022 that will allow you to analyze your audience and even predict future behavior on your site. If you choose to migrate to a different analytics package down the road – great! If not, you’ll always have your full 2022 of GA4 data to fall back on.
We had Sarah Burke on Marketing O’Clock last week to talk about why she is bullish on GA4 and what it does differently than the current Universal Analytics (GA3):
As mentioned in the video, here is a list of some features only available in GA4:
- Reports that were only available in GA360 such as
- Custom funnels
- User lifetime reporting
- Data-driven attribution
- Solutions to a “cookie-less” future – conversion and behavioral modeling
- Predictive audiences
- Free Big Query connection
- Automatic event tracking for some of the most common events you’d want to track
- Automatic bot traffic filtering
- Cross-domain tracking without needing additional tags or a custom setup
So, if you are on the fence about GA4, please listen to Sarah and consider implementing it this year. Yes, it is currently worse than Universal Analytics. No, it won’t be in a few years.
Cheers to a full year of 2022 data!
Of course, if you need help getting set up in GA4, feel free to reach out and see how we can help.
