Even if you don’t have a mobile app, Google still recommends that you create and use the GA4 property and run in parallel with your GA3 property as eventually, Google will discontinue support for GA3 and other older GA versions.
If you don’t have a mobile app, your GA4 property can be used to measure your website performance.
However:
GA4 has not yet become a 100% replacement for your GA3 property. It lacks robust ecommerce reporting and attribution modelling features. So keep your GA3 tracking intact for as long as possible.
The reporting view you create in the GA4 property is called the GA4 reporting view.
Note: You can create only one reporting view in a GA4 property.
The user interface of the GA4 view looks similar to that of Google Analytics for Firebase (because GA4 is built on Firebase analytics).
But it is quite different from any GA3 reporting view.
At first glance, the GA4 view may look intimidating as many of the reports and metrics you have been familiar with are not there.
They have either been removed or replaced.
You will see different sets of reports in your GA4 view, and you will not see many reports.
#1 GA4 property enables more robust cross-device and cross-platform tracking
You can combine website and mobile app usage data into one GA property.
This is more powerful than the roll-up property you may have used in the past to combine web and app data, as both platforms now use the same schema.
Therefore, a GA4 property enables more robust cross-device and cross-platform tracking.
#2 Accurate reporting on unique users across platforms
The reporting view in the GA4 property report on total unique users across platforms. You can not get this insight through any other type of GA property.
#3 Advanced Analysis reports are available to all GA users
The reporting view of the GA4 property comes with a new set of reports called ‘Explorations‘, which lets you do advanced analysis.
Previously these reports were available only to GA 360 users.
Note: The 360 version of GA4 will be available later.
#4 Free connection to BigQuery
GA4 comes with a free connection to BigQuery.
Earlier, this feature was available only to the GA 360 customers.
So now you can access the raw GA data and run SQL queries on it.
#5 No limits on the volume of data you can send
There are no limits on the volume of data you can send to a GA4 property.
However, there are certain limits on the number of unique events you can use.
#6 Automatic tracking for certain types of events
A GA4 property has the ‘enhanced measurement‘ feature that enables automatic tracking for certain types of events (like scroll tracking, video tracking, exit tracking, site search tracking, etc.) without any additional coding/tagging.
#7 Debugging available within the reporting interface
The GA4 reporting view provides the debugView report through which you can validate your analytics configuration for apps.
#8 Robust cross-platform insight
You can measure a customer purchase journey across your website and mobile apps.
Such cross-platform insight can help you:
#1 In improving your understanding of customer purchase journey across platforms and providing a better user experience.
#2 Fixing cross-device attribution issues. For example, you can determine the number of users who started their purchase journey on your mobile app before visiting your website to complete the purchase.
#3 Understanding the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns across devices/platforms. For example, you can determine the marketing channel(s) responsible for acquiring the most customers across different platforms.
#9 New set of engagement metrics for more accurate tracking
GA4 reporting view provides a new set of engagement metrics (Engaged Sessions, Engagement Rate, Engaged Sessions per User, Engagement Time) that can track users’ engagement with your website/app much more accurately.
It is calculated as:Engagement Rate = engaged sessions / sessions
Here,
An Engaged session is a GA session where a user has actively interacted with your website/app for at least ten seconds.
The GA session in which a conversion event or two or more pageviews/screenviews are fired is also reported as an engagement session.
Since the Engagement rate does not rely only on pageviews, it can be easily used across platforms (website and mobile app) for measuring users’ engagement.
This is not the case with the bounce rate metric, which usually fails to measure user engagement on mobile apps and other single-page apps.
Bounce rate also does not work well in certain niches like publishing (news, blogs), where single-page sessions are common.
You can link one or more GA accounts to your organization.
Each GA account comprises one or more properties (called the GA property).
Earlier, a GA property was used to represent either website or mobile app.
Now a GA property can also represent both websites and mobile apps.
The property that collects data from your website is called the ‘web’ property:
The property that collects data from your mobile apps is called the ‘Apps’ property:
The property that collects data from both your mobile apps and website is called the ‘Apps and Web’ property (now known as GA4 property):
Note: The GA4 property currently provides only one reporting view. This view can contain data from one or more data streams.
Introduction to Data Streams
A data stream is a data source.
When the data source is a website, it is called a web data stream.
When the data source is a mobile app, it is called a mobile app data stream.
There are two types of mobile app data stream:
IOS app data stream
Android app data stream
When the data source is an IOS mobile app, it is called an IOS app data stream.
When the data source is an Android mobile app, it is called an Android app data stream.
You can add one or more data streams to your GA4 property:
Note: While you can connect multiple mobile data streams to your GA4 property, you can connect only one web data stream to your GA4 property.
You can view all of the data from multiple streams in your GA4 reports or filter reports to include data only from the specific stream(s).
It is important to remember that the reporting view in the GA4 property can not collect data retroactively. It collects data only from the date you first connected your data stream(s) to the property. That’s why it is important that you set up your GA4 property now and not wait till later.
When you connect a new data stream to your GA4 property, it can take up to 24 hours for new data to appear in your reports.
A web data stream has got: Stream URL, Stream name, Measurement ID and Stream ID:
The new ‘Event + Parameter’ measurement model
The GA4 property uses the ‘Event + Parameter’ measurement model (user-centric) instead of the traditional session+pageviews centric measurement model.
GA4 allows you to track any user activity (including pageviews) as an event.
You can also create your own custom events.
The new event model is more flexible than the traditional event model in terms of its ability to track a wider range of user interactions, from pageviews, app open, outbound clicks, scrolls to video engagement, file downloads, etc.
Google has to make these changes for the following two reasons:
#1 To make it possible to see integrated reporting across mobile apps and websites in a single GA4 reporting view.
#2 Be able to use a single set of metrics and dimensions across mobile apps and websites.
This new feature of automatically measuring certain users’ interactions and content on your website (in addition to standard page view measurement) is called ‘Enhanced measurement‘:
Some caveats to watch out for
#1 The GA4 property is not really ready for commercial consumption. There are many reports (which you have come to rely on) missing in the reporting view of GA4 property. So do not even think of replacing your GA3 property with GA4 property. I would suggest that you create and use the GA4 property in parallel with your GA3 property.
#2 You can collect very limited e-commerce data in the reporting view of your GA4 property. This is one of its biggest drawbacks and why it is still not fit for commercial consumption.
#3 Little to no data on attribution. If you are thinking of carrying out attribution modelling, that is not possible with GA4. Maybe in the future but not for now.
Setting up and deploying analytics and marketing tags are not the same as they used to be in the case of Universal Analytics. So complete migration to GA4 is going to be very time-consuming and difficult.
Other articles related to GA4 (Google Analytics 4)
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest version of Google Analytics. Since it is the 4th version, it is called GA4.
IS GA4 a replacement for the older GA3 version?
GA4 won’t become a 100% replacement for your GA3 property anytime soon. It is still not ready for commercial consumption mainly because of a lack of robust ecommerce reporting and attribution modelling. So I would suggest that you create and use the GA4 property in parallel with your GA3 property.
What are the big advantages of GA4?
#1 GA4 property enables more robust cross-device and cross-platform tracking. #2 Accurate reporting on unique users across platforms. #3 Advanced Analysis reports are available to all GA users rather than just GA360 users. #4 Free connection to BigQuery. #5 No limits on the volume of data you can send. #6 Automatic tracking for certain types of events. #7 Debugging is available within the reporting interface. #8 Robust cross-platform insight. #9 New set of engagement metrics for more accurate tracking.
Is it easy to migrate to GA4?
Setting up and deploying analytics and marketing tags are not the same as they used to be in the case of Universal Analytics. So complete migration to GA4 is going to be very time-consuming and difficult.
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