Google Analytics 4 (GA4) will replace Google’s current web analytics solution, Universal Analytics, beginning July 1, 2023. What does this mean for you?  You will need to upgrade to GA4 by July 1, 2023 in order to continue receiving analytics data.

Read on to learn how.

Why Change to Google Analytics 4?

As you likely already know, web analytics measure, collect, analyze, and report on the traffic that visits your site. This data is crucial not only for seeing how well your site is doing but also for knowing what changes to make in order to improve that performance. Without web analytics, you’re just shooting in the dark.

Google released Universal Analytics in the fall of 2012 and it has been a dominant web analytics platform ever since. InsideOut Solutions has relied on it as a tool to help design, market, and improve both our client’s and our own websites for the past decade.

When it comes to the change from Universal Analytics to GA4, there really is no choice. If you don’t upgrade, your analytics data will simply stop coming in. Having to upgrade is not a bad thing, however.

Upgrades generally mean better and more expanded services and that’s definitely the case here. Beyond maintaining up-to-date web analytics for your site, GA4 promises to improve data collection across multi-platforms while prioritizing user privacy.

Google Analytics 4 operates across platforms, does not rely exclusively on cookies and uses an event-based data model to deliver user-centric measurement.

And though Universal Analytics offers a variety of privacy controls, Google Analytics 4 is designed with privacy at its core to provide a better experience for both our customers and their users. It helps businesses meet evolving needs and user expectations, with more comprehensive and granular controls for data collection and usage. Importantly, Google Analytics 4 will also no longer store IP addresses. These solutions and controls are especially necessary in today’s international data privacy landscape, where users are increasingly expecting more privacy protections and control over their data.

Preparing for the future with Google Analytics 4

Visit Google’s introduction to GA4 for even more information. Google also offers a Universal Analytics to GA4 migration guide for those with admin access and the technical savvy needed to make the switch.

For everyone else, InsideOut Solutions is here to help!

Let InsideOut Solutions Help

InsideOut Solutions would be more than happy to complete the Google Analytics 4 migration for you, if you need.

Simply reach out to schedule the update and we’ll get you in the queue. The process is not too lengthy, between 30 minutes and an hour, depending on site age and structure, so you won’t be looking at a huge bill, either.

Don’t hesitate, though! The cutoff date, July 1, 2023, may sound far away now but you know how time goes. It’ll be here before you know it. If you wait too long, we may not be able to get to your update before the cut off and nobody wants that.

Contact InsideOut Solutions to schedule your site’s upgrade to Google Analytics 4 today!