As we bid farewell to Google Universal Analytics (UA), we had the opportunity to speak with Steve Ganem, Product Director of Google Analytics, about its successor — Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Our conversation aimed to explore how GA4 meets the needs of digital marketers, its compliance with privacy regulations, and its future enhancements. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
GA4 is a product of necessity born from a rapidly evolving digital landscape. Universal Analytics, released over a decade ago, was designed for a different era. Back in 2012, user interactions with businesses were largely confined to websites, and advertisers could rely on cookies and fully observable user journeys. However, the digital world has undergone significant transformations, altering how content is consumed and raising user expectations for privacy. GA4 addresses these changes head-on. With privacy and artificial intelligence (AI) at its core, GA4 is built to measure customer journeys across various devices and touchpoints without compromising user privacy. It provides a sophisticated response to the complexity of modern user interactions, which span multiple screens and formats. Moreover, GA4 is designed to be resilient to privacy and regulatory changes, handling increasing data sparsity with innovative, privacy-preserving technology.
One of the standout features of GA4 is its powerful and underutilized capabilities. The audience builder, for instance, enables the orchestration of marketing campaigns across multiple channels, including ads, push notifications via Firebase, SMS, and email through the Audience Export API. GA4 also boasts predictive capabilities, assisting advertisers in reaching the right audience at the optimal moment. Despite these advancements, many businesses are not fully leveraging GA4’s reporting features. The platform offers fully customizable reporting, enabling businesses to tailor their experience to meet specific needs. Features like Business Objectives allow customers to set up out-of-the-box, customized reporting aligned with their goals. The Explorations feature, previously exclusive to Google Analytics 360 customers, is now available to all GA4 users. This feature provides deeper, actionable insights, enabling businesses to create segments and audiences, focus on relevant data, and perform ad hoc queries. For 360 customers, GA4 offers the ability to assign distinct reporting experiences to different users within an organization based on their specific goals and needs.
Transitioning from Universal Analytics to GA4 presents challenges for many users accustomed to the older platform’s interface and metrics. Universal Analytics’ long-standing presence has ingrained certain expectations and workflows into users’ routines. However, GA4 was intentionally designed to reflect modern user engagement, which means some use cases are not directly transferable. The Setup Assistant in GA4 aims to ease this transition by helping businesses of all sizes set up the platform and ensure they have the necessary components in place. This tool is not a one-time solution but a resource that users can revisit as they become more familiar with GA4. Additionally, Google is investing in educational materials and AI-based solutions to help users find features and complete tasks more efficiently. Analytics Insights, for instance, leverages machine learning to provide businesses with automated insights, detecting unusual changes or emerging trends and notifying users accordingly. These AI-generated insights are integrated throughout GA4, offering suggested questions and insights to help users understand their data better and determine their next steps.
Looking ahead, the future of GA4 is promising. Google Analytics has always been a vital tool for businesses to understand user engagement and marketing performance. GA4 enhances this capability by providing a more holistic view, integrating web and app data into a seamless experience, and offering cross-channel insights. Google plans to make it easier for businesses to incorporate offline data, providing a comprehensive picture of customer interactions. With AI at its core, GA4 will continue to deliver strategic insights without compromising user privacy. The platform will build on its intelligence features to help businesses identify important trends and capitalize on growth opportunities. As GA4 becomes the sole analytics platform, Google is committed to ongoing innovation, ensuring it remains the most effective, holistic, and durable analytics solution for its customers.
One persistent issue with both UA and GA4 has been conversion reporting discrepancies. However, GA4 addresses this by unifying the concept of Conversions between Google Analytics and Google Ads. This unification resolves the inconsistency in data between the two platforms, providing a more coherent view for advertisers. GA4 distinguishes between Key Events, which are significant customer interactions, and Conversions, driven by marketing efforts. Moving forward, Google plans to invest further in Key Events reporting, enabling product development teams to optimize critical flows in their customer experiences. This focus on precise and relevant metrics will enhance the accuracy and utility of GA4’s reporting capabilities.
In summary, GA4 represents a significant leap forward in digital analytics, tailored to the complexities of modern user behavior and stringent privacy requirements. Its advanced features, customizable reporting, and AI-driven insights offer businesses unparalleled opportunities to understand and engage with their audiences. While transitioning from Universal Analytics may pose challenges, the tools and resources provided by GA4 are designed to facilitate this process, ensuring that businesses can fully leverage its capabilities. With a clear vision for the future, GA4 is poised to remain at the forefront of digital analytics, continually evolving to meet the needs of its users.
