You are currently viewing Google Analytics 4 Complete Guide (2022 Update): Beginners to Advanced level

Google Analytics 4 Complete Guide (2022 Update): Beginners to Advanced level

If you’ve ever glanced at Google Analytics, you’ve probably wondered, “What the heck is going on here?” “I’m not sure where to begin.”

Even if you’ve only given it a cursory glance, this analytics and tracking behemoth can be intimidating. And, with the release of Google Analytics 4 in October 2020, it received a complete overhaul, with new concepts and a completely different (and more effective) approach. Google Analytics 4 is a powerful marketing tool that can assist you in making better marketing decisions.

Don’t worry, we’ll show you everything you need to know about Google Analytics 4 in this beginner’s guide. You’ll learn about the basic concept of Google Analytics, how it differs from Universal Analytics, why you should use it, how to get started, and, finally, answers to frequently asked questions that every GA4 newbie wants to know.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a web analytics service that provides statistics and basic analytical tools for search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing purposes. 

Google Analytics is used to track website performance and collect visitor insights. It can help organizations determine top sources of user traffic, gauge the success of their marketing activities and campaigns, track goal completions (such as purchases and adding products to carts), discover patterns and trends in user engagement, and obtain other visitor’s information such as demographics. 

How does Google Analytics work?

Google Analytics acquires user data from each website visitor through the use of page tags. Each page has a JavaScript page tag inserted into the code. This tag collects data from each visitor’s web browser and sends it to one of Google’s data collection servers.

The number of users, bounce rates, average session lengths, sessions by channel, page views, goal completions, and other metrics may all be tracked and visualized using Google Analytics reports.

Google Analytics provides tools to help users identify patterns and trends in how visitors interact with their websites. Data gathering, visualization, reporting, analysis, monitoring, and integration with other applications are all possible with the features.

These features include:

  • Data visualisation and monitoring tools include dashboards, scorecards, and motion charts that show how data changes over time.
  • APIs (application programme interfaces) for data collecting
  • Anomaly detection, predictive analytics, and intelligence
  • Data filtering, manipulation, and funnelling
  • segmentation for subgroup analysis, such as conversions
  • custom reports for advertising, acquisition, audience behaviour and conversion;
  • email-based sharing and communication; and
  • Google Ads, Google Data Studio, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Google AdSense, Google Optimize 360, Google Search Ads 360, Google Display & Video 360, Google Ad Manager, and Google Search Console are among the tools that can be integrated.

Users can save profiles for many websites in the Google Analytics dashboard and view details for default categories or choose custom metrics to display for each site.

A content summary, keywords, referring sites, visitor overview, map overlay, and traffic sources overview are among the tracking categories available.

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What is GA4?

Google Analytics 4 is the rebuilt, rebranded, and expanded version of the App + Web property rolled out by Google in October 2020. With cross-platform tracking, AI-driven data, and a privacy-centric design, it looks to be the future of analytics.

Its features and capabilities are designed to assist you in not only understanding your consumers better but also predicting their behaviour in order to optimize the user experience. GA4 is an advanced property that will benefit a lot of websites and apps.

Google Analytics 4 Vs. Google Analytics (Universal Analytics)

The most noticeable distinction between Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics is that GA4 is a property that allows you to report on websites and apps.

Only website analytics is supported by Universal Analytics. In addition, the measurement model differs between the two.

When Google announced the release of GA4, they stated:

“The new Google Analytics will give you the essential insights you need to be ready for what’s next.”

The big changes are designed to help you “get ready for what’s next”, as opposed to solely reacting to what’s already happened.

Google Analytics 4 uses a new model that measures events and parameters. Universal Analytics uses a model based on sessions and pageviews.

That’s not all, however. GA4 has an array of new metrics. These include engagement metrics such as:

  • engaged sessions
  • engagement rate
  • engagement time

Are you curious about the other new features in Google Analytics 4? Here’s a quick rundown of GA4’s features:

  • Defining audiences based on IDs you’ve created for signed-in users
  • Customer lifetime value analysis
  • Path analysis
  • Funnel analysis
  • BigQuery Export
  • Measurement of journeys per individual. No more duplicate users.
  • Insight into both website and app data on one platform
  • Made for websites, apps, or both
  • A seamless combination of data streams that clearly show all the touchpoints your customers interacted with
  • Automation by machine learning

The emphasis has shifted away from click metrics and toward engagement metrics. The new Google Analytics reflects the recent shift in search algorithms towards putting users first.

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What Are the Benefits of Google Analytics 4?

Users can benefit from Google Analytics 4 in a variety of ways. Here are a few that stand out when compared to the property’s older generations.

Cross-platform tracking

Google Analytics 4 now combines data from apps and websites for cross-platform tracking.

Before GA4, website and app engagement was always measured separately. You can see why, while still in beta, Google Analytics 4 was dubbed Google Analytics App+Web.

Firebase Analytics data from apps and Google Analytics data from websites are now combined into one property in GA4. This means that getting a complete picture of engagement across all of your platforms doesn’t have to be a time-consuming and manual process.

You can see the entire customer journey, including acquisition, engagement, monetization, and retention, with cross-platform tracking. GA4 can be used to track the user experience from beginning to end, as well as from platform to platform.

Unsampled data

The amount of data that Universal Analytics (UA) can collect per month is restricted to 10 million hits per property. A lot of sampling can happen when processing data—for example, if you use an advanced segment and have more than 500,000 sessions.

Sampling has been removed from GA4 standard reports, and the amount of data that can be collected is now unlimited. It’s essential to have access to data that hasn’t been sampled because it ensures that you’re making decisions based on reliable data. While sampling is useful when working with segments and secondary dimensions, you run the risk of working with incomplete data if you rely on sampled data.

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Every measurement is an event.

Pageviews were the most important metric in Universal Analytics. This, as well as other hit metrics like screen time, events, and transactions, were closely monitored. The issue is that this results in a distorted view of customer interactions.

All measurements in Google Analytics 4 are events. What does this imply for you personally?

Instead of measuring at just the session level, GA4 collects and stores all user interactions as separate events. You can still view session-level reporting, but the ability to break it down by interaction means more in-depth reports and insights. 

Instead of seeing generalized data, you can now gain a fuller understanding of your individual users when it suits your needs.

Engagement metrics

GA4 provides positive data on user engagement rather than the bounce rate, or the percentage of users who leave a page without interacting. When a session lasts at least 10 seconds, has at least one conversion event, or involves at least two page views, it is considered engaged.

Scroll, site search, video engagement, and file downloads are examples of enhanced measurement events that show you how users interact with your site and content. These will give you an idea of whether your blog post or eBook landing page, for example, is engaging enough for your audience to keep reading or sign up for a download. In UA, enabling tracking like this necessitates a significant amount of custom coding.

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AI Insights for Predictive Metrics

While studying past behavior can help you better understand your audience, it does not always allow you to make proactive decisions. You can make data-driven decisions on a large scale with GA4’s powered predictive metrics.

What does this appear to be? Predictive analytics can have a big impact on retargeting campaigns for most businesses. GA4 introduces three predictive metrics that allow you to do just that:

  • Purchase probability – the probability that a user who has been active in the previous 28 days will make a purchase in the next 7 days.
  • Churn probability – the likelihood that a user who was active in the previous seven days will be inactive in the next seven days.
  • Revenue prediction – the expected revenue within the next 28 days from a user who has been active in the past 28 days

You can create audiences based on their predicted behaviours using the metrics listed above. 

For example- users who are likely to make a purchase in the next seven days or users who are likely to spend more than $500 in a single store.

These audiences can then be targeted through active Google Ads campaigns or social media.

These metrics not only help in the success of retargeting campaigns but also in the improvement of website performance. Custom funnels can be created for various audiences based on their behaviours and needs. As more information is gathered, the suggestions will improve.

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Possibilities for additional segmentation

GA4 audiences allow for more targeted marketing campaign segments. You can now create segments based on events, which were previously unavailable in UA, and you can also include the concept of time if desired.

As a result, you can now focus more on users and their interactions rather than wasting time splitting data by device or platform type. You can also do a lot more with your segment if you include the concept of time, such as analyzing the time users spend between steps in your sales funnel.

It’s also worth noting that any audience you publish will be automatically shared with Google Ads. When you run a campaign, the precise audience you want to reach will be right there.

The entire user journey

In GA4, there’s a new section called “Life Cycle,” where you can find reports on acquisition, engagement, monetization, and retention. These categories, as you may have noticed, correspond to the customer journey.

Zooming in on customer behaviour and gaining insights into where marketers should focus more attention or change their strategy is now easier than ever.

The acquisition and engagement reports may reveal which of your awareness campaigns or paid ads are effective, as well as which types of content your users find most valuable.

The entire user journey
GA4’s user-centric analytics and event-driven data model allow it to piece together the user journey.

For instance, if a user first visits your website on a desktop computer, then browses your products on their smartphone, and finally makes a purchase through your app, GA4 provides the tools to track all of these events in one place, giving you a complete picture of the customer journey. One key benefit of GA4 that marketers can fully exploit is this.

More intelligent tracking

With governments and regulatory organizations enacting new and stricter privacy laws, tracking users through cookies is becoming increasingly difficult. We also know that cookies are still heavily used in current tracking methods. GA4 implements more intelligent tracking that is not reliant on cookies by utilizing AI and machine learning.

Advanced and in-depth analysis

  • A set of tools for performing advanced analysis and creating ad-hoc funnels that were previously only available to GA360 users is now available for free in GA4.
  • You can create very specific funnels with more advanced customization options.
  • The most common paths taken by users can be identified using path analysis (e.g., from reading an article to signing up for the newsletter).
  • Heat maps give your analysis a new dimension.
  • The segment overlap report displays the connections between the segments you’re interested in.
  • The user explorer report allows you to take a closer look at specific user segments that are important to your research.

Better ROI

Now that you have highly insightful analytics reports to work with, you can better plan your campaigns and target the relevant audience within the timeframe that matters.

If you play your cards right, you should be able to create successful marketing campaigns that achieve their objectives, resulting in a higher return on ad spend.

How business can use Google Analytics 4 Effectively? 

The new features in Google Analytics 4 can be used in a variety of effective ways.

  • By grouping users who will either make a purchase or not, you can increase your ability to create specific audiences. This ability stems from GA4’s ability to predict first-party behaviour and gain insight into the likelihood of their decision.
  • Take note of the data trends that Google Analytics 4 indicates. This enables you to act quickly and make decisions when they are most important.
  • Use GA4’s ability to collect data without the use of cookies to prepare your marketing strategy for a future without cookies.
  • Make the most of your ability to combine data from websites and mobile apps.
  • Use GA4’s Analysis Hub and BigQuery export, both of which are now available on the platform. This feature was previously only available to Google Analytics 360 users, but it is now available to you as well!
  • Ability is derived from GA4’s prediction of first-party behaviour, which provides insight into the likelihood of their decision.

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How to start with Google Analytics 4

GA4 is the future of analytics, and now that cookies are being phased out, it’s a good time to start collecting data and learning about its capabilities.

Here’s a step-by-step Google Analytics 4 tutorial that will teach you everything you need to know from beginning to end. You’ll learn how to set up Google Analytics on your website, track your traffic, better understand the various reports, and use the data to help your business grow, among other things.

Conclusion: An In-Depth Guide to Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics is a powerful analytics tool that can provide invaluable insights when used to its full potential. This is why you should upgrade your account as soon as possible. The new property, Google Analytics 4, is the most recent upgrade available to users.

GA4 offers a number of advantages, including cross-platform tracking, increased data control, and AI-driven insights. When you create a new GA4 property, it works in conjunction with your existing Universal Analytics property while also providing you with additional data for future use. While UA will continue to be available indefinitely, moving to GA4 is highly recommended.

Frequently Asked Questions About Google Analytics 4

What is Google Analytics 4?

Google Analytics 4 is a brand-new analytics service from Google. It allows users to analyze data from websites, apps, or a combination of the two.

What is the difference between Google Analytics 4 and the old GA?

The main distinction between Google Analytics 4 and the old GA is what each property type tracks.

Google Analytics 4 can track both website and app analytics, whereas the old GA could only track website analytics.

Is Google Analytics 4 available for free?

Google Analytics 4 is a free property type, similar to Universal Analytics. Using one (or more) GA4 properties on your account comes at no cost to you.

Will the old Google Analytics be removed?

As of this writing, the “old” Google Analytics (Universal Analytics) is still available. This is unlikely to change anytime soon. However, Google is likely to stop developing Universal Analytics at some point in the future in order to focus on GA4.

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