In case you missed the news, GA4, became the new analytics standard on July 1, 2023. Being the most significant update to Google Analytics (GA) in over a decade, GA4 affects SEO specialists and virtually every content creator and copywriter working today.
Why?
Since October 2020, websites had the option to upgrade to GA4, or continue using the tried-and-true GA3 reporting metrics. Unfortunately, that option disappeared when GA4 became the new standard, and GA3 was permanently shut down. As a result, your (or your client’s) dashboard won’t show any data beyond June 30 until you update to GA4.
Secondly, the metrics, terminology, and data locations within the dashboard have changed dramatically, compared to GA3. To effectively communicate with marketers, agencies, and clients moving forward, copywriters need to have a basic understanding of the new analytic concepts.
This GA4 quick-reference guide explains the differences in non-techy terms, their potential benefits, and what working copywriters need to know about the GA4 update today.
Universal Analytics vs. GA4
Google Analytics launched after Google acquired Urchin in 2005. However, most of us have been familiar with the Universal Analytics (UA), or GA3 platform, in place since 2012.
With GA4, Google has moved to an event-based analytics model. As a result, the metrics we’ve grown accustomed to seeing in our GA dashboards for the last dozen years are gone. Metrics like:
- Page views
- Sessions
- Bounce rates
- Visitor demographics
Okay, they’re not entirely gone.
That information is still there, but you’ll need to get familiar with the new layout to find it.
After logging in to your GA dashboard, you must switch from UA to GA4 using the Set-Up Wizard to migrate your data.
Once completed, click the report icon in the left-hand navigation pane. If you have multiple websites, choose either All Accounts or select a website from the drop-down list.
You’ll see a new Reports snapshot screen that gives you the
- Total users
- New users
- Average engagement time
- Total revenue
These metric changes aim to provide better insights into customer journeys for companies that rely on e-commerce to drive sales and profits.
With GA4, every user interaction gets logged as an event; every page load, clicked link, completed form, submitted comment, uploaded image, downloaded info, or video viewing now counts as separate, individual events. You can add “events” for tracking purposes to individual pages, depending on your business needs.
To see the “old metrics,” click the Acquisition tab in the left-hand navigation. From there, select either User or Traffic Acquisition to see whether the visitor came from:
Direct traffic — the user entered your URL into the query box or browser.
Organic search — the user found your website through a search engine query.
Organic social — the user found your website through a social media platform.
Referral — the visitor followed your link from another website.
And then to find your other “old” metrics:
Under Engagement, click on:
Events to see the event name and counts over time.
Conversions will display the date, time, and type of each conversion.
Landing page to see where each visitor entered the website and how long they stayed.
Pages and screens provide a breakdown of page views, users, and views per user.
Next, under the Monetization tab:
E-commerce purchases will display any product or service purchases.
User purchase journey displays your visitor’s journey from session start, products viewed, items added to cart, begin checkout, and purchases.
In-app purchases display the quantities by product ID over time and impressions by ad units.
Publisher ads data will display here if you use your website’s Google Ads, AdSense, AdMob, Google for Retail, or YouTube content.
Promotions will display the items viewed in a promotion and the things clicked during that promotion.
Retention shows the new and returning visitors by count and provides a lifetime value estimate.
And finally, under the User tab:
Demographic details display the number of visitors from each country, the number of engaged sessions, the engagement rate, and the average length of engagement.
Audiences show your audience numbers broken down into the usual categories, including total users, new users, sessions, views per session, average session length, and total revenue.
Tech provides a breakdown of events based on the browser used by each visitor.
Important Caveat: Google has set the default time frame to include only the last two months of data. You can and should change that to the 14-month option if you plan to do seasonal or annual reviews of your customer data.
New GA4 Features
In addition to changing how customer data is collected and stored, Google has added several new features.
Analysis Hubs represent a significant update from GA3 custom reports. You can individually customize the pre-made templates for every business to assemble the data vital to you or your client.
Machine learning models emphasize predictive models using first party and conversion data to build attribution models and new metrics that drive ROI for your business. These new metrics include:
- Purchase Probability— The probability that an active user in the past 28 days will log a specific conversion in the next seven days.
- Churn Probability — The probability that a user who was active in the app or on-site in the past seven days will not be engaged in the next seven days.
- Predicted Revenue — Includes the expected revenue from all purchase conversions within the next 28 days from an active user within the last 28 days.
- Conversion Modeling — New data modeling aims to bridge user journeys by using machine learning to address gaps in conversion touchpoints. Modeled conversions can be included when there is high confidence in the data and enough traffic to inform the model. This option becomes more critical as platforms restrict third-party tracking data to businesses.
- Predictive Audiences —These audiences are automatically generated (similar to look-alike audiences) and score the probability that a user will either make a purchase or churn. You can add predictive audiences to reporting to gauge impact and be shared with Google Ad accounts to test search traffic.
As a copywriter or content creator, the suite of GA4 tools should simplify the process of determining what is or isn’t working on a web page. Simply check the on-page events to determine if the problem lies within the links, buttons, videos, or some other on-page component.
Improved Privacy
In the U.S., GA3 captured your IP address by default and used that info for retargeted ad campaigns from third-party platforms and advertisers. With the passage of the 2016 GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) Act in the European Union, an individual’s IP address is now considered Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and cannot be captured by default.
If your U.S.-based website will serve customers in the European Union, you must have a GDPR cookie-consent device in place. This device allows visitors to view all personal data collected and the option to edit or delete any data as they see fit, including.
- Name
- Address
- Phone and email
- SSN (Social Security Number)
- Location data
- IP addresses
- Online cookies
- Images
- Biometric or health data
- Religious and political associations
- Appearance
- Account information
- And any other content generated by the individual.
Getting Started with GA4 Analytics
If you don’t have a Google Analytics account yet, go here to sign up for free. Then, follow the set-up instructions to add your unique tracking code to your website.
If you already have a GA account and are using UA, you will see the option to activate the new GA tracking that Google created for you after logging in. Follow the steps given by the Setup Wizard, and you’ll see your new GA4 results on your dashboard within a few minutes to overnight.
If you’re not a Google fan, several other analytics options are available in the marketplace. Search Engine Land recently assembled a list of 15 free and low-cost alternatives to GA4 for website owners and marketing teams to consider.
Additionally, many website building platforms, such as SBI, WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace include an analytics and traffic reporting component. Depending on your or your client’s needs, those options and metrics could be a better fit than GA4.
If you’d like to learn more, a quick Google search for “how to do GA4 migration,” will give you a list of how-to-guides from Google, Neil Patel, Search Engine Land, and others.
