With Google’s recent announcement on Google Analytics 4, their next-generation measurement solution replacing Universal Analytics (UA), a multitude of opportunities unfold for businesses to better utilize their existing data and explore unique user journeys and behaviour, across website and app, like never before! With a strong focus on machine learning to predict trends and user behaviour , it’s like time travelling into the future! Well who doesn’t want that!
Goodbye Universal Analytics, Hello Google Analytics 4!
As the market and business landscape evolve, businesses are driven to find new and innovative ways to identify their challenges and pain points, in order to craft best practice solutions for their users.
According to Forrester’s research, “less than half of firms (43%) have unified cross-platform analytics capabilities, where they are measuring customer interactions with their website and app in a single solution”. This is not a new challenge to marketers as data is siloed, challenging the unification of data across sources thus leading to disparate user experiences across platforms.
With Google’s recent announcement on Google Analytics 4, their next-generation measurement solution replacing Universal Analytics (UA), a multitude of opportunities unfold for businesses to better utilize their existing data and explore unique user journeys and behaviour, across website and app, like never before! With a strong focus on machine learning to predict trends and user behaviour , it’s like time travelling into the future! Well who doesn’t want that!
With a shift from hit-measurement to an event-based data model, GA4 allows businesses to be independent and not depend on cookies in order to deliver a user-centric measurement , with a structured and well-consolidated platform that allows for greater and more granular data collection and monitoring.
GA4 - What’s In It For Me?
GA4 brings a never-ending list of new features and benefits that helps businesses in their data tracking. Simply put, GA4, a future-focused and privacy-first platform, allows businesses to achieve their key objectives curated - such as increasing conversions, enhancing customer online engagement and the list goes on!
“The customer is always right” - GA4 puts customers at the heart of the platform by offering businesses more in-depth ways to understand their consumers across the various touchpoints. With the shift towards an event-based measurement model, businesses can now identify and dive deeper into advanced audience segments across their website and mobile devices, leveraging onto first-party data to cater the best user experience. For example, an online e-commerce retailer can now use GA4 in order to measure and monitor users’ experience across their website and mobile apps, allowing them to understand how their customers flow through the purchase funnel. This can allow the business to better promote its products during certain seasons, reduce their drop-off rate, and increase overall conversions.
ROI! ROI! and more ROI! While it’s no doubt ROI remains the main focus for most businesses, GA4 provides data-driven attribution models to allow businesses to understand where to divert their time, effort, and funds into the various channels in order to increase overall conversions. Not just focusing on the last-click a user made but instead the entire journey that a user experienced to reach a conversion provides a more holistic understanding of its user journey.
A peek into the future! With predictive insights on user behaviour via machine learning, businesses can capture greater value from their data as they can predict user behaviour - their likeliness to churn or convert into a loyal customer, in order to curate the relevant marketing strategies to achieve their goals. For example, if a business predicts group A as users who will churn, it can curate re-targeting ads and promotions in order to secure this group of users. It’s like predicting the future!
What do I do with all this data? The answer - Activation! With additional integrations with other Google products, GA4 allows businesses to analyse web and app data across other platforms, enhancing campaign optimization and performance.
With UA being out of the picture, does that mean my data is gone for good..
Do not panic, GA customers can still view and access your previously processed data in UA for at least six months after the deprecation occurs, but do not wait till the last minute! Start making the move towards GA4 to ensure you have sufficient data to derive actionable insights, with dual-tagging as the first step!
It doesn’t end here - Google will be releasing new features and benefits of GA4 in months to come, to allow businesses to maximise the new platform and achieve their business decisions.
Fret not, you’re not alone!
Here at Sparkline, we’ve heard our client’s excitement and even concerns, greatly assisting and providing them assurance during this transition period. With this revolution and shift towards a new measurement model, it is the best time to start taking charge of your data hygiene and tracking. Whether it’s basic tracking, training or exploring advanced features, Sparkline’s partner-first approach ensures we cater the best solutions to meet your needs.
Want to know more about GA4 and what it means for businesses? Join us at our webinar happening on Wednesday, 30th April, 11.30am SGT where our experts will provide a rundown on what businesses need to know and can expect from GA4 & how the platform can take organisations to the next level of data analytics. Registrations are FREE, grab your seat now before it’s too late!
Contact us today for more information on how Sparkline can assist you in the transition towards GA4 and enable you to fully exploit solutions out there and garner significant business-changing insights!
