Learnings and hard lessons

after 1.5 years with GA4

Julius Fedorovicius
analyticsmania.com
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 Let's address
the elephant
in the room
A platform that we got a bit too early

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 Don't get me wrong
It looks promising
Cool features
BUT
It is missing a lot of features too

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 Work with GA4
Sometimes Also sometimes

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Should you be using GA4 now?
…or should you stay with UA?
Your answer is at the end of this presentation

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"I thought GA4 is
now default"
Can I still create Universal
Analytics properties?

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Yes, you can create Universal Analytics properties

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 Anyway…
Back to the main topic

(one of) the best ways to present info is…

MEMES

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Ready?

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Allows combining web and app data
in a single property

No views

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Universal
Analytics
(GA3)

Google No
Analytics 4 views

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Exploration reports

Default reports

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Explorations are a great addition
(not perfect though)

But…
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Most of the default reports suck

• You cannot drill down

• You cannot change the
primary dimension
• Cannot use RegEx in
seach field

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Most of the default reports suck

• No default reports for

automatic events
• No default report for
landing page, site speed,
site search
• Limited
e-commerce reports

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Free BigQuery Integration

Max data retention in GA4:

14 months
(default: 2 months)

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Note: this does not affect standard non-exploration reports
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New metrics: first visits, 30-day paid
active users, 7-day active users, etc.

Missing metrics: Page views,

conversion rate, calculated metrics

No product-scoped custom dims (yet)

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 DebugView

With bugs
(Sometimes doesn't work at all)

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GA4 tracking code used to send
data to SGTM and then to:
• Google Ads
• GA4, Universal Analytics
• Facebook Pixel

No customTask, no GA4 settings

variable

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 Server

Web
GA4 Client GA4 Tag

FB Tag

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Should you be using GA4 now?
#1. Run basic setup in parallel
#2. Check for deal breakers
#3. Decide whether you need full migration now

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Some of the missing features in Google Analytics 4
• Annotations • Calculated metrics
• Search console integration • Views
• Google Optimize • Conversion rate (metric)
integration • Drill down in reports
• Custom channel groupings • Product-scoped custom
• Comprehensive filters dimensions
• Exclude query parameters

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Looking at the bright side

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 UA: 10M hits/month property
GA4: unlimited

Higher data UA: sampling >500k sessions

GA4: Unsampled standard reports,
collection limits 10M events in Explorations

UA: 20 custom dims and metrics

GA4: 50 custom dims and metrics
25 user-scoped custom dims

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Enhanced Measurement

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Modify events

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Create events

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Audience triggers

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Predictive audiences

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Explorations DebugView

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BigQuery integration

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Data Deletion Requests

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But wait, there's more…
Tips and gotchas

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GA4 anonymizes IP
by default 123.123.123.0
Good bye, anonymizeIp

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 Never compare
GA4 realtime
reports with GA3

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 Automatic scroll
tracking tracks only
the 90% mark

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Currency is a required
parameter in
e-commerce purchase
tracking

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Already using GA3
Enhanced
Ecommerce?

GA4 tags in GTM can

reuse the UA Enhanced
Ecommerce data layer

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With great flexibility
comes great
responsibility

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Conversions in GA4 are
counted once per event
Also, they do not apply for
historic data

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Build your own site
search report

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 See your
landing pages

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 Temporary
"solutions" to views

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 Temporary
"solutions" to views

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Key takeaways
Key takeaways
• GA4 is still beta-ish but it's getting better
• Run GA4 in parallel with UA
• Make a list of missing GA4 features. Monitor it.
• Get ready. It's a steep learning curve.

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Getting started with GA4?
 ,

analyticsmania.com/learn-ga4
 Thank you!
analyticsmania.com/learn-ga4

Julius Fedorovicius
analyticsmania.com