What Is GA4: A Marketer’s Guide to Google Analytics 4

Did you know Universal Analytics has been replaced by Google Analytics 4 since July 1, 2023? This means that if you want to track your website activity, Google Analytics 4 property will be the only go-to tool you can use. Reportedly, changes in customer behavior and online policies have driven this change.

Want to learn how to use GA4 to track and improve your marketing performance? In this guide, we will cover all aspects of Google Analytics and how it works. Let's get going!

What Is Google Analytics 4?

Let's begin by understanding what GA4 is.

Google defines GA4 (previously known as App + Web) as the 'next-gen' of analytics. Its primary aim is to empower you with valuable data stemming from the lifecycle of a customer journey. Some of the most important customer data points you can get include levels of engagement, retention, and monetisation.

Pro tip: Note that all this data is available only after the customer has been acquired.

Google Analytics Features

Google Analytics 4 aims to provide a more complete, 360-degree view of the customer from across platforms and devices. Here's a snapshot of its key features to help achieve this:

• Cross-platform data. Collects data from both website and app to better understand the customer journey
• Event-based data. Leverages event-based data (as opposed to session-based). So, instead of traditional pageviews, it tracks specific user interactions or events, such as:

• • Clicks
  • Page scrolls
  • Video views
  • Custom events

As you can imagine, this shift allows for a more granular understanding of user behavior.

• Predictive analytics. Offers predictive capabilities that are intuitive and simple
• Privacy controls. Includes critical privacy controls (think: measurement, cookieless and behavioral and conversion modeling)
• Integrations. Provides direct integrations with media tools to drive informed actions on website/app

If you’re using GA4, remember to apply the necessary steps to protect your customer data. This improves their trust and confidence when making transactions to your business.

The Many Benefits of Google Analytics 4

The Google Analytics 4 property constantly gets updated with new power-packed features that offer a range of benefits, such as:

Checkout journey report

This feature demonstrates the number and % (percentage) of users who initiate checkout on an eCommerce website or app and complete the subsequent steps in the checkout funnel. This kind of monetization data is extremely useful for ecommerce websites and apps.

User data export in BigQuery

The user data export is available with the BigQuery connector. This functionality helps you to enable tables, each representing a unique user and specific user characteristics, such as:

• Current user base
• Predictive scores for churn and buying probabilities
• Lifetime value (LTV)
• User properties
• Device and geographic information

Deeper Google Ads integration

Marketers understand the importance of tracking and analyzing the performance of Google Ads campaigns. The Google Ads integration helps you to:

• View in-app as well as web conversions for YouTube Ads, other non-Google paid channels (think: Facebook), organic channels such as social, search, and email
• Measure the impact of your marketing investments using mobile app data at the forefront

Audiences report

Google Analytics 4's new Audiences report empowers marketers to identify the most engaged and profitable audiences.

Custom reports builder

This feature now has a vast variety of ecommerce dimensions and metrics, so you can create your own ecommerce reports from scratch or edit the existing ones. Some of the most useful ecommerce dimensions included are:

• Item affiliation
• Item brand
• Item category
• Item ID
• Item variant
• Shipping tier, and more.

Reorganized reporting

Tracking a customer throughout the marketing funnel and gaining more visibility are now simplified, thanks to an addition called 'Life Cycle.' This offers reports for Acquisition, Engagement, Monetization, and Retention.

Moreover, the 'Analysis' section offers ready-made templates for analyzing user journey, conversion funnels, cohort analysis, and so on.

Want to boost your marketing efforts? Aside from monitoring customer data and activity, leverage business directory listings and optimise your website for search engines. With these online marketing methods, it won’t be long until you see organic growth for your business soon!

What Is Google Analytics 4 Used For?

Want automatic alerts for data trends (think: increased demand for a product for instance)? Do you want to predict customer actions with accurate churn probability? Wish to use more predictive metrics (read: revenue estimates from user base) to drive growth?

Google Analytics can be used in all these scenarios and more. Here's a quick run-through of all the real-world applications of using Google Analytics 4:

• Ecommerce Websites can track product views, add-to-cart actions, and purchase conversions to optimize product offerings and sales funnels.
• Content Publishers can identify popular content and create more of what resonates with the audience.
• Mobile App Developers can identify drop-off points in user journeys and improve app navigation. They can also optimize in-app advertisements based on user behavior.
• Lead Generation Websites can use predictive analytics to forecast lead generation trends. Plus, they can track form submissions and lead generation goals to assess the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns.
• B2B Websites can measure lead generation, form submissions, and demo requests. In addition, they can track user engagement with resources, such as whitepapers and case studies.
• Healthcare and Wellness Websites can analyze user demographics and health interests to create hyper-personalized content.
• Educational Websites and Apps can track course enrollment, video views, and quiz completion rates for determining the levels of user engagement.

Unearth Valuable Customer Data with GA4

Leveraging a machine learning-based approach, Google Analytics 4 empowers users with cross-platform customer insights. When it comes to the design, it values privacy above all else.

This makes GA4 a reliable and risk-proof tool, even if there are gaps in your data due to cookie restrictions.

If you haven't already, create a new GA4 property and use insights as your primary ammo to get ahead of the curve!