Google Analytics 4 : what changes?

A profound change in data collection and analysis

In Quebec, with Bill 64, the provisions regarding personal information are more drastic, notably with the obligation for companies to set up data governance[1]. This is not the only reason, but the general idea is that everywhere in the West, legislation is becoming more restrictive regarding Internet users' data and the use of the famous "cookies" or the recording of IP addresses.

What to do now that Universal Analytics is gone

Google has given us the answer by offering us a new suite of tools. And it is all the more important to migrate to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) as this version is already available. In addition, Google will no longer collect data in UA, as of July 1, 2023.

How to proceed

The easiest way is to ask your web agency if you have one. If not, you can still manage to migrate/parameterize the basic metrics yourself. Indeed Google offers the migration of basic metrics in Universal Analytics.

Regardless of the method you choose, the important thing is to look into the new platform to understand the principles and benefits.

What are the strengths of Google Analytics 4

With this new iteration of the most popular web analytics tool, Google offers a more behavioral and global approach to Internet users. Indeed, the goal is to produce a unified cross-platform behavioral analysis. What matters is what the user does, not on which platform. The focus is on conversions, acquisition, engagement and retention.

Today's Internet (and its uses) has little to do with what it was ten years ago. So this evolution is logical. How does it translate?

AI at your service

It is possible to program the AI included in GA4 to identify trends (rising or falling demand for example). With machine learning, GA4 is supposed to anticipate and make recommendations based on the behaviors of your audience.

Cross-platform tracking

Regardless of whether your users are on computers or smartphones, GA makes collated analyses. If a user started his session on his cell phone and ended it on his laptop, there is no more tracking breakage for the tool.

User-centric

Reports are focused on your customers' lifecycle (engagement, conversion, etc.) so you can identify the best channels to retain or acquire them. The reports make it easy to read the conversion path, the position in the sales tunnel, to improve the attribution of conversions to the right channels, to analyze the sequence of actions for unique users and therefore to better appreciate the cost of acquisition. It is also possible to add user properties (gender, location...) like for a persona.

Automatically measured events

GA4 allows you to measure qualified events and interactions automatically, unlike Universal Analytics, such as: clicks to the external site, page scrolling, file downloads, video viewing...

No more sampling

While in the free version, UA only offered reports on a representative sample of your audience, GA4 is able to produce them on all your users.

Goodbye Bounce Rate, hello Engagement Rate

A user who "just" arrived on a page of your site, read it completely and left ended up in the bounce rate statistics, despite the obvious interest he had in your content. From now on, this behavior will improve the engagement rate, because the tool detects the scroll or any other interaction made on the page... and can therefore make the difference with a user who arrived on the same page and left to do something else by leaving it open... Thus Google changes the bounce rate, a metric perceived as negative, by the engagement rate which is much more positive.

Conclusion

Don't waste time to migrate to GA4, it will allow you to build your history and get up to speed with the new interface, even if your historical data will remain viewable for a while. The new interface is a fresh approach that requires a little practice, but allows for a more qualitative approach to user data, without going through a paid version.

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