Universal Analytics will be replaced by Google Analytics 4 on July 1, 2023. How does that affect you though? In a nutshell, you’ll need to make the switch before the cutoff date in order to continue tracking data. Whether you’ve already made the switch or not, continue reading to learn more about why switching over to Google Analytics 4 is so important.

Universal Analytics vs. Google Analytics 4

Universal Analytics was originally Google’s way of tracking user data through metadata and cookies. And we’re not talking about grandma’s chocolate chip cookies here. In this case, cookies are files that are used by websites to save browsing information.

Ultimately, they are used to improve the user experience by, for example, remembering your site preferences or keeping you signed in. However, in order to do this, cookies store your data, which has led to some privacy concerns.

Google Analytics 4 was designed with user privacy at the core of its development. Its aim is to provide a better user experience by collecting data of consenting users and using data anonymization to safely store their information. This means that Google will not store user IP addresses and cannot track them.

Additionally, Google Analytics 4 enables a more advanced cross-device tracking system. This allows you to more accurately track a user’s journey across multiple devices. It even allows you to see how far a user scrolled down a page before they exited the site. In short, this will allow businesses to improve their website’s by updating areas that seem to lose traffic.

Lastly, while there are many other changes coming with Google Analytics 4, another important change is that “Goals” will now by tracked as “Conversion Events.” This allows you to track a wider range of actions to get better insights on how users interact with your website. You can even create custom conversion events to track specific actions that are important to your business. Ultimately, this will help you to better understand the user journey and optimize for it.

Why Make The Switch?

You might be thinking to yourself, “Well, I’ve been using Universal Analytics for years and it hasn’t let me down. Why would I switch?” In short, you don’t have a choice.

Google has announced that Universal Analytics will officially stop tracking data on July 1, 2023. By this date, if you don’t already have a Google Analytics 4 account, Google will create one for you. This process of converting your account will begin in April of 2023.

But if you want to continue tracking data after July 1, 2023 there are still some steps that must be taken. The best thing to do is make the switch now. Switching sooner rather than later will allow your Google Analytics 4 account to maximize the historical data made available to you. Switching now will also allow you more time to get comfortable with the new interface so you can hit the ground running after the switch.

We’re Here To Help

Here at InsideOut Solutions, we would be happy to help you make the switch over to Google Analytics 4. Just reach out to us to schedule your update and we’ll get you in our queue. The process will only take about 30 minutes to an hour to complete. After that, you’ll be able to start building up historical data from now until the switch on July 1, 2023.

Please don’t hesitate. While July 1, 2023 seems far away, if you wait too long, we may not be able to get you updated before the switch.

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If you have any additional questions about making the switch to Google Analytics 4, please reach out. We’re here to help.