It’s time now to utilize Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to its fullest potential. With Universal Analytics (UA) being turned off starting in July 2023, you will no longer have access to these reports or the previous history of the reports. There are big action steps that every company needs to take in order to upgrade to GA4. If you are a marketing client with ROI Web Marketing then you have nothing to worry about as we’ve been transitioning all our clients over to GA4 and are just finishing up the final transition which will be completed by month’s end.
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is an indispensable tool in your digital marketing arsenal. For nearly two decades, the service has helped millions of businesses monitor traffic, collect data, and continually improve their marketing efforts across websites and apps. The latest version, GA4, takes things a step further. It harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to overcome new challenges in a privacy-focused world, helping your business generate leads, improve your online presence, and get the most bang for your marketing buck.
As a Small Business Owner, Why Should You Care About Google Analytics GA4?
Google Analytics is getting a facelift with its new version and your previous ad campaign settings and goal tracking you’ve been doing now are no longer going to work moving forward.
To really utilize Google Analytics to its full potential, your advertising agency should be configuring Goals that function as campaign optimization to get better results for your marketing.
What I mean by this is when you configure goals on contact form submissions, calls from your website, emails from your website, etc. these are triggers that let us know when a lead comes to you. We then bid higher on keywords to generate more leads and this is how we can get great results for our clients.
When you turn off the Google Analytics goals, you may not get the best results in your marketing.
Performance can vary based on the goal configuration and depending on your industry. This is often on a case-by-case basis. Although, as a company, we will tell you that for all our clients we configure Google Analytics goal tracking as a standard practice. Some clients can’t track data for goals properly due to the platform they are using or the way a website is coded. Those clients don’t get as good of results as those who are able to track goals.
Why Google Analytics Matters
Google Analytics continues to be one of the best analytics tools available. GA4 and its predecessors offer a treasure trove of data about your website, allowing you to create powerful reports and gain actionable insights. Data is king in online marketing, and Google Analytics is the easiest way to harness it. With this service, you can create detailed reports including information about:
- Web, app, and API traffic
- User demographics and location
- Device usage
- Site performance
- Marketing channel performance
- User behavior
- Page popularity
- Conversion rates
- Bounce rate
- Content performance and sharing
Google Analytics collects that data automatically and presents it in a way that’s easy to digest. With infographics and a customizable dashboard, you can get the precise information you want on your terms.
How Google Analytics Impacts Online Marketing
Every ad campaign and online marketing strategy has a conversion goal. The goals help measure marketing performance, acting as a benchmark for improvement. Whether the goal is to sign up for an email list or make a purchase, Google Analytics equips you with the insights to meet and surpass it!
With the data you collect, you can view user behavior, spot trends, and identify potential weak points that need improvement. For example, you can use the service to see how visitors make it to your site, allowing you to focus on specific marketing channels, work with an SEO consultant to gain more organic traffic, and take steps to generate growth.
Google Analytics can also provide insight into what users think of your sites, apps, and APIs. See how they interact with your content, how your efforts make or break conversions, and what you can do to see improvements across the board.
What’s New With GA4?
GA4 is the next evolution of this groundbreaking service. It launched in 2020 and is poised to replace the previous version, Universal Analytics (UA), entirely when Google shuts its doors on July 1st, 2023. GA4 is a vast improvement focusing on overcoming challenges brought on by the new push for privacy. Some of the most exciting changes include:
- Event tracking – GA4 uses event-based data instead of tracking single browsing sessions.
- Machine learning – GA4 fills data gaps to provide more information about the customer journey even when users opt out of cookies and data tracking. It also provides predictive capabilities.
- Cross-device and cross-platform – Track behavior as users jump between platforms and devices.
ROI Web Marketing: A Digital Marketing Agency That Knows GA4
Whether you’re migrating from UA or are brand-new to Google Analytics, turn to ROI Web Marketing. We’re a digital marketing agency that proudly offers Internet marketing services to businesses throughout Canada. We have over a decade of experience and are experts at Google Analytics tracking. Our team is ready to help you harness the power of data, make the most of the new privacy-focused features of GA4, and take your marketing efforts to the next level.
