Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics:

The End of an Era and What It Means for Your Business

If you’re a marketer or business owner, then you’ve probably heard about what awaits Universal Analytics in 2023. Yep, starting from July 1st, 2023, all Universal Analytics (UA) properties will no longer process any new hits. But what does that mean for your business? In this blog post, we’ll go over everything you need to know about the upcoming end of Universal Analytics and how to prepare your business for it. Keep reading to learn more!

• What is Universal Analytics?
• What does the End of Universal Analytics mean for Your Business?
• What Are the Principal Changes Coming with Google Analytics 4?
• Steps to take now to prepare for the End of Universal Analytics
• How to migrate Your Tracking from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4

What is Universal Analytics? 

Universal Analytics is the Google Analytics platform version 3, which was launched by Google in 2012. Universal Analytics allows you to collect and analyze data from your website. It provides you with insights into your traffic, audience, and conversions. Universal Analytics also provides enhanced features such as custom dimensions and custom metrics and allows you to connect your Web tracking to other Google products, such as Google Ads, Google Search Console or Google Data Studio, which all give you more insights into your users’ behavior. As a result, Universal Analytics can help you better understand your customers and make more informed decisions about your marketing and product development efforts.  

Since its release, Universal Analytics has become a dominant platform in web analytics, with most people relying on Google’s tracking platform. However, as Google continues to innovate and offer new features, they often make their new products the default option. In this case, they came up with a tool that has been around since July 2019 (Web + App) and rebranded into Google Analytics 4 in October 2020. Google announced that it will be phasing out Universal Analytics over the next few years in favor of its new GA4 analytics platform. GA4 is designed to be more flexible and user-friendly, with improved data collection, storage and analysis features. Google also stated that GA4 would eventually replace Universal Analytics entirely.  

What Does the End of Universal Analytics Mean for Your Business?

So, what does this mean for you? UA will still work after July 1st, 2023, but Google will no longer provide updates or security patches for the platform. This could pose a security risk for your data and lead to data loss, as well as limit your ability to take advantage of new features and integrations. Hence, if you’re currently using Universal Analytics, you’ll want to start making the switch to GA4 as soon as possible. This will ensure that you have access to the most up-to-date features and security measures. It is recommended to implement and run GA4 simultaneously with UA. This will give you more time to discover and learn the new GA4 platform, and you can compare it with UA in real time, while it is still running. Also, consider that if you want to do year by year comparisons, you need to have at least a basic GA4 tracking in place by the end of June 2022, to capture a full year in GA4.

What Are the Principal Changes Coming with Google Analytics 4?

With the launch of GA4, Google is giving organizations a new way to measure their websites and apps activity. GA4 offers several advantages over the previous Universal Analytics approach, including improved data collection and analysis, more predictive insights, better cross-platform compatibility, increased privacy controls, as well as integration of up-to-date AI and machine learning models in the platform. But what are the main changes that make Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 differ to the point that the latter will surpass the former?

1. The main difference between the two platforms is the new data model. To be more precise, it is the measurement models used by Universal Analytics and GA4 that are different. Universal Analytics uses a measurement model based on sessions and pageviews. In contrast, Google Analytics 4 uses a measurement model based on events and parameters, which are grouped into 4 categories (automatically collected events, enhanced measurement events, recommended events, and custom events). The principle here is that any interaction can be captured as an event, which means all Universal Analytics hit types translate to these events in GA4.

   An event in UA has a category, action, and label and its own hit type. In GA4 now, every hit would be considered an “event”, and there is no category, action, or label. You can (but don’t necessarily have to) use parameters when creating events. The new event parameters in GA4 allow you to tailor your messaging even more. GA4 now offers up to 25 different customizations with a single event all user defined.

2. Removal of monthly hit limits. The removal of monthly hit limits is a significant difference between Universal Analytics and GA4. The free version of UA had 10m hits per month, but that’s no longer an issue with the GA4 platform. Instead, GA4 applied a limit on how many different events can be captured (500).
3. The last big difference between GA4 and UA is that GA4 offers free access to BigQuery, which was previously only available for GA360 customers. BigQuery enables very large and complex data sets to be queried fast, without the issues of sampling.

All in all, the principal difference in the data model makes the data between Universal Analytics and GA4 incomparable since their processing and collection methods differ so greatly.

Steps to Take Now to Prepare for the End of Universal Analytics

With these changes in mind, there are a few steps you can take now to prepare for the end of Universal Analytics to avoid any disruptions.

• First, make sure you have and keep a current backup of all your Universal Analytics data. This data includes information on your website’s traffic, conversions, and other important metrics. Without it, you could lose valuable insights into your website’s performance.
• Second, migrate your tracking and conversion goals to Google’s new analytics platform. It’s important to do it before Universal Analytics is not supported anymore so you can create a smooth transition.
• Finally, update any plugins or other tools that use Universal Analytics. However, it’s essential to do it now so that you can continue using these tools after UA is not supported.

Here, it’s reasonable to add more about the migration process as it seems to scare those considering the switch. Indeed, transferring your tracking from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 is not a two-minute task because GA4 is a completely different platform. So start early, which is also the official recommendation by Google. Google even provided a helpful migration guide to make the transition as smooth as possible.

How to Migrate Your Tracking from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4

• First, you’ll need to create a new GA4 property.
• Second, you’ll need to install the GA4 tracking code on your website or mobile app.
• Once that’s done, you can start sending data to your GA4 property.
• Fourth, you’ll want to verify that your data is being collected correctly by cross- and double checking the reports in GA4. And don’t forget to compare the UA and GA4 tracking data to find subtle differences and potential issues.

For more information on this topic specifically, read our coming article
“Google Analytics 4: Switch and Win Out or Get Dropped Out”, where we explain the migration process in detail.

Conclusion

So, the end of the Universal Analytics era is upon us, but that doesn’t mean you have to panic. Businesses are meant to look to the future: they need to embrace the new reality and get the maximum of the ever-changing digital marketing. You can prepare your business for the switch to Google Analytics 4 right now and make sure you don’t lose any data or insights into your website’s performance. If you have any questions about this topic, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. Lean & Sharp can help you with the migration process and answer any questions you may have. Thanks for reading!