6 Benefits Of Making The Switch To Google Analytics 4

You’re probably using Google Analytics to collect data from people using your website for various things. Right?!? However, Google has announced that if you’re using Universal Analytics, the previous version of Google Analytics, you will need to transition to Google Analytics 4. This means it’s time to update your implementation and start using the latest version if you want to continue making the most out of the tool.

So apart from ensuring you can keep reporting on the performance of your website, you might be wondering why you should switch to Google Analytics 4. Well, you’re in luck! We’re going to share six benefits of switching:

1. More Customizable Interface

One of the most exciting aspects of Google Analytics 4 is that the tool’s interface is more customizable. This was a problem in the past, and Google has since recognized this issue and fixed the issue.

This means that you can now have a better experience with the tool because you can easily customize the time range of your data reports. This also means that you can easily access the data you need with a glance rather than doing a lot of fiddling with the tool’s interface.

Learn more about customization (Google Analytics Help)

2. More Control Over Custom Reporting

Another great thing about Google Analytics 4 is that it gives you a lot more control over custom reporting. This means that you can now have more control over the data that you wish to analyze.

The limits you might have encountered with Universal Analytics are gone. You can create reports that include custom tables, funnel visualizations, and even layer multiple segments to understand your users.

Learn more about custom reporting (YouTube video)

3. More Detailed Reporting

Google Analytics 4 also allows you to collect more detailed data. This means that you can get more information on the kind of traffic you’ve been receiving over the past few days, weeks, or months.

This is because Google Analytics 4 has introduced an entirely new data model. Everything you track is sent to your reports as events, and you can customize your events in any way you like, so they can be used to report on different actions your users take and any user traits you would like to see in your reports.

Learn more about events and the data model (blog post)

4. Better Real-Time Data

Google Analytics 4 has better real-time reporting than Universal Analytics. You can drill down in the real-time reports to understand more about what users are doing on your website (or in your app), and you can even see what individual users are doing.

You can also test your implementation in real-time using the new DebugView that shows you a stream of test events that you send to Google Analytics.

Learn more about real-time reports (YouTube video)
Learn about the DebugView (YouTube video)

5. New Automatic Tracking

One handy feature in Google Analytics 4 is called ‘Enhanced Measurement’. It will automatically track a number of actions people take on your website, including when people scroll pages, click outbound links, and watch embedded YouTube videos. This means you don’t need to set up custom tracking as you did with Universal Analytics. These actions are automatically tracked for you.

Learn more about automatic tracking (YouTube video)

6. More Effective Data Exporting

The data that you export will also be more effective with Google Analytics 4. That’s because you’ll be provided more granular data, so you’ll be able to get more data that are more relevant to your needs, as well as a lot more data per export. Plus, you can send data to Google BigQuery if you want complete control over the data you collect.

Learn more about exporting data (Google Analytics Help)
Learn more about BigQuery (Google Analytics Help)

Conclusion

These are just some of the reasons why you should switch to Google Analytics 4.

When you’re ready to make a move to the latest version, it’s important to give yourself some extra time to come up to speed on all of the changes. It is an entirely new analytics tool built from scratch, so it can take some time to educate yourself and explore the new reports and features. This will give you a better chance of doing more with Google Analytics 4 by collecting actionable data you will use.

Loves Data are Google Analytics and Google Ads experts, helping brands understand and make the most out of these essential tools. If you are looking for a GA4 course to utilize the tool better, check out the courses we have to offer!