Should you switch to Google Analytics 4? In this video,
we're gonna answer that question.
Hey there Measure geeks, Julian here back with another video. Today, we
want to answer the question that was frequently asked in the last few past
weeks. Should I switch over to Google Analytics 4?
And to be honest right up front, no. Why would you?
Let me explain this in a little bit more detail. Now,
if you're asking the question, should I switch to Google Analytics 4?
Then you're probably asking the question,
should I switch from Universal Analytics?
That is the older Google Analytics version to Google Analytics 4,
even upgrade to it. If you have been using Google Analytics,
you probably put some time into understanding the reports,
understanding how everything works,
maybe even integrating custom tracking into your system.
And you are generally happy with what Google Analytics delivers.
And you maybe also pulling reports,
sending this on to clients or your stakeholders.
If you have laid eyes on Google Analytics 4 previously,
you probably don't really recognize anything because Google
Analytics 4 is like a new analytics tool that you now would be using.
Which means there's a new data model behind it.
There are different tracking points,
different metrics that you would find in the system. The UI has changed.
So you wouldn't find the reporting as you had in Google Analytics Universal
Analytics. So generally, there's a whole new learning curve,
a whole new thing that you need to get used to and try out.
Especially for those of you who work with Google Analytics professionally.
So you build your reports around this.
You have integrated certain other systems into Google Analytics.
So it tracks custom information for you,
or you have built custom reports of the data that you have
available. We'll have a hard time to now just switch over.
Their data model has changed in a way we only have events available now that you
would need to model your whole data structure on this new data
model and then make it work.
So you have the same data available in the system as well.
Then it will be much harder to find your old reports inside of the new Google
Analytics 4 interface,
but also build custom reports like in Data Studio of that data set.
Just because there are new metrics there, there are also some old metrics there,
but generally the pool of metrics has become much smaller and Google
Analytics 4 is banking model.
You send custom data into the system rather than Google Analytics 4
making all the different decisions of what data should be in the system.
So in general,
there is a much different paradigm around Google Analytics 4,
and this is a whole new way to get used to analytics,
but also you would need to put some time into learning the system.
So I don't really see any reason why it would completely switch over from one
analytics tool to the next.
But I would say there is a case to be made if you want to stay in this Google
ecosystem, of course, that you get used to Google Analytics 4,
and this means you should track in parallel. So instead of switching,
you should send data to your universal analytics property,
but then also to your Google Analytics 4 property.
And once data is coming into your Google Analytics 4 property,
you can check out what metrics do I have available.
Can I re replicate this different report inside of Google Data Studio with
my GA4 property?
Am I able to see certain data points that I was able to see in this report?
And are you able to actually integrate your systems that are most important for
you into this new data model as well.
And then at some point you might get to the case that you are using GA4 much
more than the universe analytics and your reporting is not based on universal
analytics anymore. And then yeah, then it's time maybe to switch.
But I would also predict that at this time we probably have more
information,
more resources out there to actually learn the best practices around Google
Analytics 4,
and we'll be all much smarter and half a year down the line or a year down
the line when Google Analytics 4 is much more built out and all the features are
built in and we are able to really base our
whole web analytics on a system like GA4.
All right, so there you have it, this is my little take on,
should you switch to Google Analytics 4?if you have any kind of opinions around
this, please let me know in the comments down below,
and also let me know how you like this format of this video. If you haven't yet,
then I could recommend to you,
or I would encourage you to subscribe to our channel right over there because we
bring you new videos every week. My name is Julian, till next time.