Google Analytics 4 is Coming

Universal Analytics is officially shutting down most properties on July 1, 2023, and Google Analytics 4 is taking its place. If you haven't made the switch yet, there’s no time to waste. This guide walks you through why this change is happening, the key differences you need to know, and a clear action plan to get your new GA4 property running today.

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The Final Countdown: Universal Analytics Processing Stops July 1, 2023

Let's be clear about what’s happening. On July 1, 2023, your standard Universal Analytics (UA) properties will stop processing new website hits. Your reports will go flat, and your data collection will end in that platform. While properties in a 360 plan get a slightly longer runway until July 1, 2024, the outcome is the same for everyone: GA4 is the new standard, and the move is mandatory.

Perhaps the most critical detail is this: your historical data from Universal Analytics will not be automatically transferred to Google Analytics 4. They are fundamentally different systems, and you'll be starting with a clean slate in GA4 from the day you install its tracking tag.

Google has stated that you will be able to access your previously processed data in your Universal Analytics property for at least six months following the shutdown. This gives you a window to export your most important historical reports before they become permanently inaccessible. Waiting until June 30th to act is a surefire way to lose valuable data continuity, so the time to dual-tag your site and begin collecting data in GA4 is right now.

Why the Big Switch? From Sessions to Events

This transition might feel forced, but it’s a necessary evolution. Universal Analytics was built for a different internet - one dominated by independent sessions on desktop browsers. Its measurement model, based on sessions and pageviews, struggles to keep up with the modern customer journey, which now spans across websites and mobile apps, often on multiple devices.

GA4 tosses out this rigid, session-based model in favor of a far more flexible "event-based" model. In GA4, every user interaction is captured as an event - a page view is an event, a button click is an event, a scroll is an event, and a purchase is an event. This approach allows for a much more detailed and unified understanding of how users actually engage with your business across all your digital properties.

Here’s why that matters:

• It reflects the modern customer journey. Users no longer just visit your website. They might discover you through an ad on an app, browse your site on their laptop, and complete a purchase on their phone. GA4 is built to consolidate these touchpoints into a single, cohesive user story.
• It’s designed for a privacy-first world. With the phasing out of third-party cookies, an analytics platform can't afford to be solely dependent on them. GA4 is engineered to be less reliant on cookies and includes more robust privacy controls and data modeling to help fill in the gaps left by users who decline analytics tracking.
• It leverages machine learning. GA4 uses Google's AI to deliver predictive analytics, like identifying users who have a high probability of making a purchase or churning. These insights, previously only accessible in enterprise-level tools, are now available to everyone.

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Getting to Know GA4: What's New and Different?

Jumping into GA4 for the first time can be jarring. Familiar reports are gone, the navigation is different, and the terminology has changed. Let’s break down the most significant changes you’ll encounter.

The Event-Based Data Model

This is the most foundational change. Imagine Universal Analytics is like a retail store counting how many people entered and how long they stayed (sessions). GA4, on the other hand, is like having a camera tracking every single item they pick up, every aisle they walk down, and every interaction they have within the store (events).

While UA had predefined hit types like 'pageview', 'event', and 'transaction', GA4 simplifies everything into just 'events'. This uniformity allows you to track literally any user action that matters to your business without being boxed in by UA’s categories. An 'event' can be a page_view, a scroll, a file_download, a form_submit, or add_to_cart. This gives you ultimate flexibility.

A Fresh (and Customizable) Interface

The first thing you’ll notice is how different the GA4 interface looks. Many of the standard, out-of-the-box reports from UA are gone. Instead, GA4 puts the power of customization in your hands through the "Explore" section. This is where you'll build your own funnels, path explorations, and free-form reports to find the specific insights your business needs.

It requires more initial setup than UA, but the tradeoff is that you can build highly specific reports tailored to your business, rather than being stuck with generic reports that might not answer your key questions.

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True Cross-Platform and Cross-Device Tracking

In GA4, you'll hear the term "data stream" used frequently. A data stream is simply a source of data flowing into your GA4 property, like your website or your iOS/Android app. For the first time, you can have streams from your website and mobile apps feeding into the same property. This solves a massive headache from the UA era, allowing you to finally get a unified view of your users as they move between your web and app experiences.

Engagement Metrics Over Bounce Rate

Bounce Rate is officially gone in GA4, and for good reason. In UA, a "bounce" was counted when a user visited one page and then left, which was often a misleading indicator of poor performance. A visitor could spend 10 minutes reading a blog post, find exactly what they needed, and leave - UA would still label this a bounce.

GA4 replaces this with much smarter engagement metrics:

• Engaged sessions: A session that lasts longer than 10 seconds, has a conversion event, or has at least two pageviews.
• Engagement rate: The percentage of sessions that were engaged sessions.
• Engaged sessions per user: The average number of engaged sessions for each user.

These metrics focus on what truly matters: are users finding value in your content and interacting with your site in meaningful ways?

Your Action Plan: Setting Up GA4 Today

The best practice right now is to run GA4 in parallel with your existing Universal Analytics property. This allows GA4 to start collecting data and gives you time to get comfortable with the new platform without disrupting your current reporting workflows. Here’s a simple four-step plan to get started.

1. Use the GA4 Setup Assistant

Google has made this step incredibly easy. Log into your Google Analytics account, navigate to the Admin section of your current UA property, and you'll see a "GA4 Setup Assistant" link right at the top of the middle column. Clicking this will launch a wizard that automatically creates a new GA4 property for you and copies over basic settings like your property name and URL. Importantly, this only creates the new property, it does not migrate any historical data or set up your tracking tag for you.

2. Install Your GA4 Tracking Tag

Once your property is created, you need to add its tracking code to your website. You can find your GA4 Measurement ID (which starts with "G-") in the Data Streams section of your new property. The easiest way to deploy this is via Google Tag Manager (GTM). Simply create a new "Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration" tag in GTM, paste in your Measurement ID, and set it to fire on all pages. If you're not using GTM, you can simply paste the provided gtag.js code snippet directly into the <head> section of your website's code.

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3. Configure Your Key Events as Conversions

GA4's "enhanced measurement" feature automatically tracks events like scrolls, outbound clicks, site searches, and file downloads without any extra setup. But for the events that are most critical to your business - like a form submission or a demo request - you'll need to mark them as conversions. In the GA4 interface, go to Configure > Events. Find your key event in the list (e.g., "generate_lead") and simply flip the switch in the "Mark as conversion" column. It's that easy.

4. Link Other Google Products and Export Old Data

Don’t forget to link your new GA4 property to other services like Google Ads and Google Search Console to share data between them. You can do this under Admin > Product Links.

Finally, start thinking about your UA data export strategy. Identify your most critical UA reports - like monthly traffic trends, landing page performance, or e-commerce conversion rates from previous years - and begin exporting them as Google Sheets, CSV files, or PDFs so you have a historical record.

Final Thoughts

The switch to Google Analytics 4 is a big change, but it’s a strategic move that aligns web analytics with the realities of the modern, multi-platform, privacy-focused internet. By taking the steps outlined above to set up GA4 now, you can get ahead of the curve, start building a new data history, and begin discovering the deeper, user-centric insights the platform was built for.

Of course, learning a new tool while continuing to pull reports from old ones adds just one more task to your plate. To eliminate this friction, we built Graphed to connect all your data sources - including Google Analytics 4, Shopify, Salesforce, and your ad platforms - into one place. Instead of spending hours learning a new interface or manually blending data in spreadsheets, you can just ask questions in simple English to build live dashboards and get instant answers about what’s driving your business growth.