Ep 54: Intro to Google Analytics 4

analytics ga 4 google analytics marketing in 10 podcast May 05, 2022

Our old friend, Google Analytics is changing. It's time to learn about Google Analytics 4.

Hey everybody. Jim Lastinger here. Welcome to this week's episode of Marketing In 10.

Today, we're going to talk a little bit about Google Analytics, and what's going on in the analytics world. So, Google Analytics has been around absolutely forever, and hasn't changed very much in that time. Honestly, that's really a good thing, because that means it's been reliable, easy to use, and everybody pretty much knows how to use it. But now Google Analytics Version 4 is here, and we're officially seeing the end of the current Google Analytics, which is typically called Universal Analytics.

So, what's happening is, starting on July 1st, 2023, Universal Analytics will stop adding new data, so you'll be forced to use GA4 from that point on. So, that gives you a little bit over a year to you kind of start preparing for this transition, and make sure that you've moved everything over to GA4.

What you want to do is, right now, I think everybody, every site needs to create AG4 property, if you haven't already done that, and start sending data there. You can run your existing analytics and Google Analytics 4 side by side, so there's no reason not to do that. That will give you plenty of time to make sure that you have your configuration correct, and that all of your data is flowing properly. So, GA 4 is installed in pretty much the same way as the current analytics. So, just head over to your admin panel and GA 4 to get the tags and IDs that you'll need to build, install it on your site. I typically recommend people use Google Tag Manager to install the snippet. That works really well. It's simple for me.

What are some of the benefits of GA 4? So far, I've seen that it focuses a bit more on the life-cycle of a customer than old Google Analytics. It's organized around that actually, which is really helpful for us marketers. Everything you need to know about the customer journey is easily accessible.

It has better integrations with Google Ads, AdSense and YouTube, so you'll be able to see more engagement data from those platforms. The big one is, if you have an app, as well as a website, the new GA will seamlessly track data between the two, so you can have a better understanding of you, kind of the overall marketing picture in your, all of your user behavior.

If you have any questions about Google Analytics 4, or how to set it up, just DM me, and I'll help. I'm at JimLast on all the social media networks. So, that's J-I-M L-A-S-T. I will have show notes and a transcript for this episode available at Jimlastinger.com/54.

Please take two minutes to rate and review the show, no matter which platform you're listening to it on. That really helps me grow the show, reach more people, and be able to help more businesses and companies with their marketing.

As a thank you for listening, I've created a free guide that shows you exactly how to manage your Google Ads accounts in 30 minutes a week. This is the exact process that I teach all of my coaching students, and includes everything you need to be able to run a profitable ad account for yourself. You can download this for free at JimLastinger.com/guide.

That's JimLastinger.com/guide. That's all for this week's episode. I'll be back soon with another episode of Marketing In 10. Until then, take care, and have a great day.

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