Measure What’s Important to You in GA4
• First Migrate to GA4
Have you migrated to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) yet? Since Universal Analytics (UA) data will stop being tracked on July 1, 2023, now is the time to do it. Read about planning your migration here and view this presentation about how to do it.
• Save your Universal Analytics Historic Data
GA4 does not track data the same way as Universal Analytics. Make a plan to archive your existing Universal Analytics data. Your historical data will be deleted before January 1, 2024. So if you refer back to your historical data you will want to back it up. Make a list of the specific reports that you access in UA. Do you look at the reports weekly, monthly or year over year? Google offers a way to download your data here. You can also use the Google Analytics Spreadsheet add-on as an easier way to refer to old data.
• Set Up Conversions in GA4
In Google Analytics 4, goals are now called Conversions and all goals are event-based. If you were tracking any events on your website for example sign ups, downloads, purchases, videos watched, phone numbers or emails clicked as conversions in UA, you need to ensure those things are being tracked in GA4. Some events you may have manually set up in the past, like scroll depth, are now automatically tracked in GA4.
Use the Goals Migration Tool to migrate your UA goals to GA4 if you’re using UA code on your site. Learn more about this tool here. However, if you are using Google Tag Manager to implement UA code on your site, the Goals Migration Tool should not be used. New event tags should be configured in GTM. Learn more about how to do that here.
• Test that Your Analytics Goals are Working
Once you have your goals configured in Google Analytics, you should test to make sure they are recording properly. If you’re using Google Tag Manager, preview the site from GTM and do the actions on the site that would cause a goal to fire. Look at Google Analytics under Reports Realtime to see if events are being recorded. Look under Configure Conversions to see which events are set to be counted as conversions.
Get Started Now
Don’t put off the switch to GA4 any longer. We can help make this process easy, reach out today.
