Google recently announced that Universal Analytics (UA) would be sunset and UA properties will stop processing hits on July 1, 2023.
What exactly is Google Analytics, and why is it important?
Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic, currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand. It makes it easy for websites to see how much traffic is coming to the site, where the traffic is coming from and more.
What does this mean for me?
First and foremost this isn’t out of left field, however, Google finally provided an end date to work towards. Google Analytics 4 (formerly called “App + Web”) has been available for well over a year and is the recommended solution to move towards for all UA accounts. While July 2023 seems like a lifetime away, websites should get moved over to GA4 as quickly as possible because GA4 data will not bring in past data, but will only track data from the day it is implemented on the website.
To ensure continued website measurement, if you don’t create a Google Analytics 4 property with basic settings by early 2023, Google will create a new Google Analytics 4 property for you. This new Google Analytics 4 property will be connected with the corresponding Universal Analytics property and will also have equivalent basic features such as goals and Google Ads links.
If you don’t want to have a Google Analytics 4 property created and configured based on your Universal Analytics property and existing tags, you can opt out.
What are my next steps?
- Implement GA4 on your website
- Once GA4 is up and running on your new website, download your legacy UA data so you have it for reference
- Work through GA4 to better understand the new platform and how to read the new data
- If you need help with any of the above items, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us directly and let us make this transition pain-free.