Introduction

When Google Analytics 4 was announced, many people were surprised to see the end of Universal Analytics (UA) and App + Web properties. It’s a big change, but then Google has made some big changes in the past. In fact, Google Analytics has evolved quite a bit since it was first launched in 2005 as Urchin. If you tried GA4 before, you might want to give it another look. The analytics tool has been improved and there are some good reasons for trying it out now.

What is Google Analytics 4?

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest version of Google Analytics and was released in May 2019. It’s the successor to Universal Analytics, which was launched in 2011 as a replacement for Google Webmaster Tools.

Google Analytics 360 Suite (GAS360) was released in 2015, with the intention of providing companies with more information about their customers than just visitor data and purchase history. By combining all three products into one — Google Analytics 360 Suite — GAS360 offered businesses access to data on how people were using their websites by tracking not only page views but also how long visitors stayed on each page, what they did after leaving the site (including purchasing items), and other consumer behaviors such as source channel popularity over time.

In July 2016, GA expanded upon this idea by adding social media tracking capabilities through an extension called Social Media Metrics & Insights Extension for Maximum Social Impact.” The new feature provides marketers with detailed reports about their social media activity – including engagement rate per post; reach across networks; number of posts shared via specific network types – in order to help them better understand what kind of content resonates best with customers online

Plan your migration to GA4

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is now available to all users. If you haven’t seen the announcement, GA4 is the latest version of Google Analytics and replaces Universal Analytics (UA). This means that if you have a valid UA property ID for your site, it will automatically be upgraded to GA4.

If you are using an older version of Universal Analytics, such as version 3 or earlier, then this article won’t apply to you because those versions are no longer supported by Google.

You can use both GA 4 and Universal Analytics at the same time.

You can use both GA4 and Universal Analytics at the same time.

If you do this, your UA data will be retained longer than normal (up to 6 months) as it will still be available in the older version of Google Analytics. That way you can continue to view it without having to worry about your old code breaking when upgrading from GA4 back to UA.

You could also use GA4 for some accounts/websites and Universal Analytics for others. For example, if you have an account with a very high number of sessions per day (over 10m), then using GA4 will make sure that everything runs smoothly and quickly without any issues arising from lack of resources or memory being used up by too many requests coming in at once – something which may happen when running such large websites on Universal Analytics only due to its more complex architecture!

Keep your UA data for longer.

You can keep your data for longer by retaining it in its original format. You can then import it into GA4 when you’re ready to use it.

You’ll find a number of ways to get started with the new version of Analytics, including:

• The GA4 dashboard, which replaces the old Google Analytics interface and offers a streamlined experience that’s easy to navigate.
• The GA4 API (application programming interface), which allows you to use data in your own applications with no need for an account or login credentials. This makes it possible for developers without access to our software engineering resources—or those who are simply more comfortable working outside of our user interface—to integrate their own solutions into their applications without compromising on analytics accuracy or performance standards; this is why many companies prefer using their own dashboards over ours because they don’t want to be restricted by certain design elements like graphs showing up only once every 10 seconds instead of being able to customize them as needed!
• The mobile app lets users access reports from anywhere at anytime; this feature alone has saved countless lives over past years since businesses know how important it is for employees not only manage but also enjoy working remotely so long as there isn’t too much pressure put upon them regarding deadlines etcetera).

You want to be ready for the eventual sunset of UA, so planning now is good.

You need to plan for the eventual sunset of UA. If you are planning on moving to GA4, there are some important things you can do now:

• You can use both GA4 and Universal Analytics at the same time. This means that if you still have legacy sites using UA, and want them in your reports as they are today, they will continue to be tracked in that way.
• Keep your UA data for longer by using the new _setDomainName() function in ga(‘require’, ‘UA-12345678-9’). This function changes how long Google holds onto old data from a site when it switches over to GA4 tracking, which makes it easier for us to transition all our accounts without losing any data.
• Use the GA4 console (https://analyticsportal-eu-west1-prod.googleusercontent.com/)to manage your properties after switching over from UA

Conclusion

Overall, GA4 is a welcome update that will help us better understand and market to our customers. With consumer privacy and data security becoming increasingly important topics for customers and regulators alike, it’s good to see Google take steps towards addressing these concerns.