You’ve probably already heard about the new Google Analytics 4. And while you know you have no choice but to move to GA4 (after all, Universal Analytics is sunsetting), you’re not really in a hurry.
We’re here to tell you that you definitely need to move to GA4 sooner rather than later. The big question is: why should you do that, right?
Well, for one, GA4 will be the default for all your analytics when UA sunsets. But GA4 uses machine learning which means it has to be fed real data first to model from. So, if you move your tracking now, you’ll have a year of historical data by 2023. With that, you also won’t panic because you already had a head start in learning the platform.
GA4 is also the most advanced analytics there is. It gives marketers more data and insights paired with better tracking. In a nutshell, GA4 helps marketers to understand customers on a deeper level, increase customer lifetime value, maximize marketing ROI and improve the metrics that matter (engagement, conversions, revenue).
4 things that GA4 will help you with
1. Understanding your customers on a deeper level with granular customer insights
GA4 makes understanding your customers on a deeper level very easy with its granular insights. They help predict customers’ future behaviors—churn and purchase probability, what steps they take when converting, etc.
GA4 facilitates this with predictive metric and audiences, funnel exploration technique, demographic insights as well as improved user journey exploration. Aside from that, GA4 also uses Google Signal and User ID to unify browsing sessions. This means marketers easily can do cross-device reporting, re-marketing, and conversion exports to ads.
GA4 also has user journey path exploration features so marketers can access pages and events that highly contribute to key conversions. Not only that, marketers can also apply segments to compare different user types to understand unique customer behaviors.
2. Increasing customer lifetime value
Increasing customer lifetime value is easier when you understand your best customers better—how they behave and how it differs from the average customers, which campaigns drive this type, etc. Moreover, you can also know how your users behave during their lifetime as a customer of your website or app. You can access insights such as:
- source/medium/campaign that drove users with highest lifetime revenue compared to revenue for a selected month
- which active campaigns are acquiring users who are most likely to have higher lifetime value and lower churn probability
- unique user behavior insights (ex. when your monthly active users last purchased)
3. Maximizing your marketing ROI
Finding out what roles your referral, search, and ads as well as the length of time passed between initial interest and purchase or just the common paths leading to conversions are very useful if you’re trying to maximize ROI.
GA4 also allows marketers to import and house almost all their data: cost data, item data, user data, offline events.
4. Marketing optimization on the metrics that matter (engagement, conversions, revenue)
Devoting time to improve the metrics that matter (engagement, conversions and revenue) is very essential in staying ahead of the game. GA4 understands this very well. That’s why it equips marketers with automated insights based on trends, changes, or issues over time.
YouTube’s video views can also influence conversions. To maximize the result, GA4 allows marketers to create unique event types specific to the platform and build unique audiences. Marketers can even run ads for the unique audiences look-alike customers.
To improve engagement, marketers can also create custom audiences based on business needs so it’s easier to dive deeper into the customers behaviors. Aside from that, marketers can also find out what pages are most and least engaging to their target audiences. An unengaged session can only mean that the audience, ad and landing page are not aligned.
Read this article to learn more about GA4 in detail.
Why now is the best time to move to GA4
GA4 uses a new data model and implementation—the event-based model—which needs some getting used to. Marketers need to shift their mindset, and doing the move now means a head start in thinking differently about how you log and access your analytics insights. Also, it takes time to implement GA4 properly and access all the new features. Migrating now will help marketers to rethink the data collection and remove all the unused legacy tracking.
Besides, delaying GA4 migration also means creating gaps in any meaningful year-over-year data comparison after the sunset date. This will impact your company’s ability to make cost-effective and revenue-based data decisions.
Wrap up: Moving to GA4 will save you a lot of headache in the future
Migrating to GA4 as soon as now is the best decision you could ever make for your business. More data and insights lets you understand your customers’ behaviors better, which in turn help you plan a better user journey. And now that GA4 offers a detailed user journey path exploration, it’s much easier to tailor everything according to your best customers’ preferences for maximum conversion.
Want to migrate to GA4 but scared of losing your data or don’t know where to start? We can help you to migrate smoothly and seamlessly to GA4. Contact us here to know more.
