Switching to Google Analytics 4
Google Analytics (GA) 4 is a powerful business tool that is increasingly geared towards marketing professionals and data analysts. Google wants to give you as much control as possible over the data you collect, and they want you to be in charge of your own decisions about what data is important. That means they have retired some of the pre-configured tools that were familiar in the “old” Google Analytics, and replaced them with more customizable interfaces that you can use to set up your own data analysis.
If you want to make the most out of GA4, you’ll have to familiarize yourself with the new ways of working.
Reference materials for GA4
Reporting in Google Analytics 4 vs Universal Analytics - Google has tried to make the transition to the new GA a bit easier by explaining some of the biggest changes on this one page.
Comparing metrics: Google Analytics 4 vs Universal Analytics - Once you learn to use GA4, you’ll still have to adjust to slightly different ways in which the data is stored and measured, explained on this page.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) Essential Training - If videos are more your speed, check out this 2-hour training on LinkedIn Learning to get the basics.
Don’t have time to learn a whole new Google Analytics?
If you’re not a full-time marketer and numbers whiz, Google Analytics 4 can feel more than a little bit overwhelming. If you’re like most people in AGNR, you just want to get a simple answer to a simple question:
“How many visits are my pages getting?”
You can still get that information in GA4. To help, we’ve constructed a simple guide that will help you compile this most commonly requested report: