Google Analytics – What Is It?
You might have already heard about Google Analytics but don’t completely understand what it is and how it can add value to your company. The internet is filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of articles regarding this topic. However, most of them intimidate, overwhelm, and scare people away. We believe that is one of the primary reasons why many businesses around the UK aren’t fully using this transformative tool yet. The good news is that we have created an easy and condensed guide that only requires a few minutes of your time and effort to understand.
In essence, Google Analytics is simply a modern tool that allows businesses to get a quantitative measurement of how potential clients become actual paying customers. By gathering this data, all-around entrepreneurs and marketing managers will have a better idea of what kind of campaigns need to be implemented in order to generate profitable results.
The Latest in Google Analytics: Shift from UA to GA4
Great! You’ve made it this far and we promise that this is not as daunting as it may seem.
Universal Analytics or UA is a version of Google Analytics that was introduced back in 2012. Now that it’s been over a decade since its launch, Google has made the necessary updates and improvements to make it even more useful to businesses today. On the other hand, Google Analytics 4 or GA4 is the newest version of this technology. The main difference between the two of them is how they measure activity.
Universal Analytics was made to solely look at page views on websites. GA4 is built to look at far more events, which refers to a wider range of activities by users, such as page views, clicks, and form submissions, encompassing not just website traffic but also app usage.
This shift brings many positive implications. First, GA4 can help you collect more data than UA. Next, GA4 gives you more valuable insights into how people are interacting with your app or website. Lastly, GA4 enables you to track way more activities beyond web traffic.
However, there’s more to GA4 than just the updated data model. Let’s learn about some of its other important highlights.
Accurate Prediction of Actual Paying Customers
All you need is GA4 technology to get a sneak peek into the future!
One of the many exciting features that can help your business gain more profit is GA4’s ability to predict what users end up doing after learning about your products or services. First, it calculates how likely a person will buy something directly on your app or website. Second, it also measures the probability of a user to stop spending on what your business provides.
This is all thanks to GA4’s machine learning technology that collects behavioural data on each individual user and allows you to configure predictive audiences. Marketing managers or entrepreneurs can use all of this information to identify and curate highly effective marketing efforts that bring more profit to the company. You will also spend less money trying to figure out which promotions work and which ones don’t. Plus, the more you use the tool, the more accurate and valuable it will become.
Smart Cross-Platform Tracking
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it your nosy neighbour? Is it a jealous spouse? No, it’s Google Analytics 4.
GA4 has the ability to track users across different platforms and devices. In other words, you get a complete picture of how your users interact with the company. Find out whether they’re using your mobile app, scrolling your website, or doing both. With this, it will also be easier for you to track conversions since you get an overview of the user’s entire journey from start to finish. This is also one of the many reasons why coding the installation is a hundred times better than just adding old-school website plug-ins.
It’s all because of a GA4 technology that shows different characteristics of your data by choosing certain criteria. For example, you can create a stream for all app users or a stream of web traffic from specific areas in the UK.
These are just a few of GA4’s features. If you’re ready to get those neurons working, you can get a more in-depth and technical explanation of the system by reading everything Google published regarding this topic, from introduction to training and support.
Why Does Your Company Need GA4?
Whether you have a marketing team that needs support or your business is fairly new and needs to be directed on the right path, using Google Analytics 4 will be a game changer. This transition will not only help you keep up with modern technology but will also enable the business to conduct more cost-efficient marketing efforts that generate results you can see and measure.
Catch Up with Google
Although the beta version of GA4 was introduced back in 2019, Google is now going full force in migrating from Universal Analytics to GA4. UA will be completely discontinued come July 2023. The sooner you set up your streams and tracking, the sooner you can start gathering data. So if you haven’t already, you need to have Google Analytics 4 installed ASAP. In doing so, you will have ample time to build up data for key metrics, use historical data for reference, and transition everything else more smoothly.