Google will retire it’s most popular analytics instance, Universal Analytics, and replace it with their new system, Google Analytics 4, on July 1, 2023. All standard Universal Analytics properties will stop processing data on this date, and if you have not created a property by then, Google will create a generic property for you.
If your website is CSU web team-managed, and if you have not yet switched to Google Analytics 4, you can request it using this form.
Since the deadline is approaching, I wanted to check in and share some of the steps we took as we moved to the new version.
Audit of existing analytics setup
This involved checking:
- Whether the tracking code is present and what data was being collected
- What events were setup
- What data filters were in place
- Identifying users who have access
Change Data Retention settings
With a focus on user data privacy, Google Analytics Data Retention controls give you the ability to set the amount of time before user-level and event-level data stored by Google Analytics is automatically deleted from their servers. The maximum you can set this to is 14 months, so make sure you change the default (2 months) setting to 14 months. You can change this by navigating to Admin > Property > Data Settings > Data Retention.
Turn on Google Signals
Google Signals launched in 2018 as a new way to collect data on individuals who are both signed into one of their Google accounts and have turned on ad personalization for their account. With Google Signals you should be able to:
- Observe cross-device user behavior
- Audience age, gender and interests
- Create ad re-marketing lists
Although Google Signals uses aggregated data to ensure there is no personally-identifiable data available to those collecting it, there are still privacy considerations to be aware of when collecting data using Google Signals.
Prior to activating Google Signals, you enter an agreement with Google that states you have any necessary privacy disclosures on your web properties so that users are aware of and have consented to their data being collected, stored, and advertised to.
You can activate Google Signals by going to Admin -> Property -> Data Settings -> Data Collection.
Migrating Users
Follow this guide if you’d like to migrate existing Universal Analytics users to your Google Analytics 4 property.
Migrating Events
In Universal Analytics, an event that was to be tracked needed to be hard-coded, triggered and information passed on to your Google Analytics property using variables such as Category, Action, Label and Value. But, since Google Analytics 4 treats all interactions as events – there are a large number of system-defined events as well as those that you can customize. Unlike Universal Analytics, some events are automatically collected in GA4. There is another set of events called Enhanced Measurement that you can activate while setting up your GA4 property for the first time. You can check whether you have set up Enhanced Measurement by navigating to Admin -> Property -> Data Streams -> Enhanced Measurement.
By setting up Enhanced Measurement, you are able to measure interactions such as scrolls, outbound clicks, site search, interactions on embedded videos and file downloads on your website or app without having to add any code.
Exporting historical data from Universal Analytics
GA4 uses a different data model compared to the previous Universal Analytics, so your historical data from Universal Analytics will not be migrated into GA4. However, you should definitely back up valuable historical data from Universal Analytics. Here is a video link that I found useful for this purpose:
All of the above steps are covered in detail in Google’s GA4 migration guide for beginners.
Set up reporting in Google/Looker Data Studio
Google has drastically cut the number of pre-built reports available in Universal Analytics. However, you can set up robust reports within the ‘Explore’ section in GA4 or connect your GA4 property to Looker Data Studio for more comprehensive reports. This video explains how you can connect and set up Looker Studio reports for GA4:
GA4 still feels like a work-in-progress with many features yet to be introduced. The learning curve appears to be steep, but I would encourage you to go through the resources available from Google or from the analytics community on the internet.
If you have any questions or comments please feel free to email them at arnesh.koul@colostate.edu.