How to Convert to Google Analytics 4

If you're still navigating your transition to Google Analytics 4, you're in the right place. Switching from the very familiar Universal Analytics (UA) feels like a major project, but it’s an essential one since UA officially stopped processing new data back in July 2023. This guide will walk you through converting to GA4, step-by-step, making the process as painless as possible.

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Why Is Everyone Using GA4 Now?

The short answer is: you have to. Universal Analytics has ridden off into the sunset. But besides being mandatory, Google Analytics 4 is a powerful upgrade designed for the modern web. The old session-based model from UA was built for a simpler time when users visited a website from a single desktop computer. GA4 uses an event-based model, which is far better at understanding how users interact with your business across different devices and platforms - like your website and mobile app.

Here are a few key advantages:

• Better Cross-Device Tracking: GA4 combines website and app data into a single view for a more holistic understanding of the customer journey.
• Smarter Privacy Features: It’s designed to be more adaptable to a future with fewer cookies and has more granular data privacy controls.
• Free BigQuery Integration: You can now export your raw event data to Google BigQuery for more advanced analysis, a feature that used to cost a fortune in the old Analytics.
• AI-Powered Insights: GA4 uses machine learning to generate predictive metrics, like purchase probability and churn probability, to help you anticipate user behavior.

Think of it less as a forced switch and more as an upgrade to a more intelligent, flexible analytics platform.

Phase 1: Using the GA4 Setup Assistant

Google knew this transition would be a big deal, so they built a handy tool to get you started. The GA4 Setup Assistant guides you through creating a new GA4 property alongside your existing Universal Analytics property. It’s important to know this process does not migrate your historical data. It simply creates a new, empty GA4 property and copies over some of your basic settings. You are starting fresh with data collection from this moment forward.

Here's how to use it:

1. Log into your existing Google Analytics account and select the old Universal Analytics property you want to convert.
2. Click the Admin button (the gear icon) at the bottom left of the screen.
3. In the 'Property' column, you’ll see the first option is GA4 Setup Assistant. Click on it.
4. Under the section "I want to create a new Google Analytics 4 property," click the blue Get started button.
5. A pop-up will appear. As long as your site uses the standard gtag.js script, you should be able to leave the "Enable data collection using your existing tags" box checked. Click Create property.

That's it! The wizard automatically creates your new GA4 property. It copies over basics like your property name, website URL, and time zone. Your Universal Analytics property remains untouched, so don’t worry about breaking anything.

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Phase 2: Verifying Your Data Connection

After creating your property, the next step is to make sure data is actually flowing into it. Your site needs a way to send information to Google's new servers. How you do this depends on how your original tracking code was installed.

Finding Your Measurement ID

First, you need your unique identifier for this new property. It’s called a "Measurement ID" in GA4 (it was a "Tracking ID" that started with "UA-" in the old version).

• In your new GA4 property, go to Admin.
• In the 'Property' column, click on Data Streams.
• Click on the data stream that was created for your website. It’s usually named after your site URL.
• A panel will slide out from the right showing your stream details. In the top right, you'll find your Measurement ID, which starts with "G-". Copy this. You’ll need it.

Option A: Installation with Google Tag Manager (Recommended)

If you're using Google Tag Manager (GTM) to manage marketing scripts, this is by far the cleanest method.

1. In your GTM container, create a new tag and choose the type Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration.
2. In the 'Measurement ID' field, paste your "G-" ID that you just copied.
3. Under 'Triggering', select the trigger named Initialization - All Pages or All Pages. This ensures the tag fires immediately on every page.
4. Save your tag, then use the Preview mode to test that the tag is firing correctly on your website. Once you've confirmed it's working, click Submit to publish your changes.

Option B: Installation with a Website Platform (Shopify, WordPress, etc.)

Many modern website platforms and builders have a built-in field for your Google Analytics ID. The process is generally very simple:

• Shopify: Go to Online Store > Preferences. There is a "Google Analytics" section where you can paste your "G-" Measurement ID.
• WordPress with Plugin: If you use a plugin like MonsterInsights or GA Google Analytics, there will be a settings field where you can paste your "G-" ID. It's often as easy as replacing your old "UA-" ID. Be sure your plugin is updated and supports GA4.

Search your specific platform's help documentation for "Google Analytics 4" if you're unsure where to find this setting.

Option C: Manual Installation (Hard-coding the gtag.js Snippet)

If your website has the analytics code directly embedded in its HTML files, you'll need to update it.

1. In your GA4 property, navigate back to Admin > Data Streams and click your web stream.
2. Under "Tagging Instructions" at the bottom, click View tag instructions.
3. Go to the "Install manually" tab. Here you will see a snippet of JavaScript code.
4. Copy this complete snippet and paste it immediately after the <head> tag on every single page of your website. Ideally, this would be in a common header template file. Make sure to remove your old Universal Analytics analytics.js script to avoid sending data to two places and slowing down your site.

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Phase 3: Configuring Essential Settings

Your data is flowing, which is great! Now let's tune a few settings to make sure that data is useful and aligns with what you were used to in Universal Analytics.

Check the Real-Time Report

Before you do anything else, check that your connection works. Go to your GA4 property and click on Reports > Real-time in the left-hand navigation. Open your website in a new tab and start clicking around. You should see yourself appear as a user on the map within a minute. This is the simplest way to confirm everything is connected properly.

Set Up Event Conversions

In Universal Analytics, you created "Goals" to track conversions. In GA4, this is much simpler. Any event you send to GA4 can be turned into a conversion with the flip of a switch.

For example, if you want to track when users submit a contact form, you first need to set up an event that fires upon a successful submission (this is typically done in Google Tag Manager). Once GA4 has seen that new event at least once, simply go to Admin > Conversions in the 'Property' column. Click New conversion event, type the exact name of the event you are tracking (e.g., form_submit), and save. Now GA4 will officially count that event as a conversion.

Adjust Data Retention Settings

This is an important one! By default, GA4 only stores user-level and event-level data used in custom Explorations for 2 months. After that, it's deleted. For most businesses, this is far too short.

To fix this, go to Admin > Data Settings > Data Retention. Change the "Event data retention" dropdown from 2 months to the maximum of 14 months and click Save. This ensures you can run year-over-year comparisons in your custom reports.

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Exclude Your Internal and Unwanted Referral Traffic

Just like in UA, you’ll want to filter out traffic from your own team and exclude referral data from payment gateways like Stripe or PayPal, so they don’t get credit for your sales.

• Defining internal traffic: In GA4, go to Admin > Data Streams > Your Web Stream. Then click Configure tag settings. You'll see an option to Define internal traffic. Here, you can create rules to tag traffic from your office's IP addresses. Remember to activate the filter after creating the rule!
• List unwanted referrals: In that same "Configure tag settings" screen, click Show all, then click List unwanted referrals. Add the domains of any self-referrals or payment gateways (e.g., yourdomain.com, paypal.com, stripe.com).

Thinking in GA4: Understanding the New Model

The biggest hurdle in moving to GA4 isn't technical, it's mental. The entire data model is different, so your reports will look different too.

• Focus on Events: In UA, you tracked pageviews, events, and transactions. In GA4, everything is an event. A page_view is an event. An add_to_cart is an event. A purchase is an event. This approach is more flexible and gives you more detailed information about user interactions.
• Metrics have changed: Some famous metrics are gone. Bounce Rate has been replaced by its inverse, Engagement Rate, which measures the percentage of sessions that were engaged. An engaged session is one that lasts longer than 10 seconds, has a conversion event, or has at least 2 pageviews. It's a much more meaningful metric.
• Navigate the New Reports: Finding your standard reports takes a little getting used to. The main reports section is divided into Life cycle (Acquisition, Engagement, Monetization, Retention) and User (Demographics, Tech). Spend some time clicking through the Traffic acquisition and Pages and screens reports to find your familiar data.
• Embrace Explorations: Much of the deep reporting that was available in UA has moved to a dedicated section called Explore. This is where you'll build your funnel explorations, path explorations, and other custom reports. It's incredibly powerful but does have a learning curve.

Final Thoughts

Making the switch to Google Analytics 4 involves creating a new property, ensuring your tracking code is properly installed, and reconfiguring essential settings like conversions and data retention. It's a foundational step for anyone who wants to continue measuring website performance accurately and effectively with Google's tools.

Of course, a proper setup is just the beginning. Actually pulling insights from GA4 and building dashboards to monitor your key metrics can feel like a whole separate challenge. To simplify that final step, we built Graphed. After connecting your new GA4 account, you can create real-time dashboards by describing what you need in plain English - no technical expertise required. Simply ask for things like "a line chart of my users by traffic source for the last 90 days" or "what are my top landing pages by conversion rate?" and get the visualization built for you, keeping you focused on the insights, not on the configuration.