How to Migrate to Google Analytics 4

Moving your website's analytics over to Google Analytics 4 is no longer optional, but getting started can feel daunting. This guide will walk you through the entire process, step-by-step, from initial setup to recreating your most important reports. We'll simplify the technical jargon and focus on a practical plan to get your new GA4 property tracking data correctly.

Why Is Everyone Talking About GA4?

Universal Analytics (UA), the version of Google Analytics most people have used for the last decade, stopped processing new data in July 2023. This means if you haven't switched to Google Analytics 4, you're no longer collecting information about who is visiting your website. GA4 is now the default, and it represents a completely different way of thinking about and measuring web traffic.

The core difference is the data model:

• Universal Analytics (UA): Was built around sessions and pageviews. It answered questions like, "How many times did someone visit the site, and what pages did they look at during that visit?" Everything was a hit - a pageview, an event, a transaction.
• Google Analytics 4: Is built entirely around events. Everything is an event, from a page_view to an add_to_cart to a form_submission. This event-based model is more flexible and provides a more accurate picture of the user journey, especially as it spans across websites and apps.

Key Advantages of GA4:

• Cross-Device Tracking: It's designed to track users seamlessly between your website and your mobile app, giving you a unified view.
• Privacy-Focused: GA4 was developed with privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA in mind. It's less reliant on cookies and has more granular data privacy controls.
• Machine Learning Insights: It uses Google's AI to provide predictive metrics, like purchase probability and churn probability, helping you anticipate user behavior.
• Enhanced Measurement: Out of the box, GA4 can automatically track actions like scrolls, outbound link clicks, video views, and file downloads without you needing to set up custom event tracking.

Your Pre-Migration Checklist

Before you jump in, a little preparation will make the migration much smoother. Don't just blindly copy your old setup, use this as an opportunity to clean house.

1. Audit Your Current Universal Analytics Account

What are you actually using? Often, accounts are filled with outdated goals and events from past campaigns. Log in to your UA property and ask:

• What goals are truly important? Go to Admin > Conversions > Goals. Which of these are still relevant to your business objectives? You'll need to recreate these as a "conversion event" in GA4.
• What custom events are you tracking? Look under Behavior > Events > Top Events. Are you tracking button clicks, form submissions, or video plays? Make a list of these along with their Category, Action, and Label.
• What audiences and custom dimensions are in use? If you have custom segments or dimensions set up, you'll need to plan for recreating them in GA4.

2. Map Out Your Key Reports

What data do you rely on every week or month? Make a list of the 3-5 reports you or your team cannot live without. This could be things like:

• Traffic Acquisition by Channel
• Top Landing Pages by Conversions
• E-commerce Sales Performance

Having this list helps you stay focused on what matters and gives you a clear goal: successfully recreating these reports in GA4.

3. Check for Permissions

Make sure you have Editor or Administrator role access to your Google Analytics account. You won't be able to create a new property or make administrative changes without it.

A Step-by-Step Guide to the GA4 Migration

The best practice is to run Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 in parallel for a while. This is called "dual tagging." It allows GA4 to collect data and build a historical baseline while you continue to use your familiar UA reports until you're fully comfortable with the new system.

Step 1: Create Your GA4 Property with the Setup Assistant

Google has made this first step incredibly easy. The Setup Assistant will create a new GA4 property connected to your existing UA property without affecting your UA data collection.

1. In your Universal Analytics account, click Admin (the gear icon in the bottom-left).
2. In the Property column, you'll see an option for GA4 Setup Assistant. Click it.
3. A wizard will appear. Under "I want to create a new Google Analytics 4 property," click Get Started.
4. A pop-up will explain what the wizard will do. For now, leave the "Enable data collection using your existing tags" checked and click Create Property.

That's it! You now have a GA4 property. However, it's not collecting any data yet. The next step is to install the tracking tag on your website.

Step 2: Install the GA4 Tracking Tag

This is the most crucial step. To get data flowing, you need to add the new GA4 measurement tag to your website. The best way to do this is with Google Tag Manager (GTM). If you're not using GTM, you can add it directly to your website's code.

Method 1: Using Google Tag Manager (Recommended)

1. In your new GA4 property, navigate to Admin > Data Streams. Click on your website's data stream.
2. Your Measurement ID will be at the top right (it looks like G-XXXXXXXXXX). Copy this.
3. Go to your Google Tag Manager container. Click Tags > New.
4. Name your tag something clear, like "GA4 - Configuration Tag".
5. For Tag Configuration, choose Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration.
6. Paste your Measurement ID into the appropriate field. Leave "Send a page view event when this configuration loads" checked.
7. Under Triggering, select All Pages.
8. Save the tag. Use the Preview mode to test that the tag is firing correctly on your site, then press Submit to publish the changes.

Method 2: Directly on Your Website (e.g., WordPress)

1. In your GA4 property, go to Admin > Data Streams and click your data stream.
2. Under "View tag instructions," find the Global Site Tag (gtag.js) section and copy the entire code snippet.
3. Paste this code immediately after the <head> tag on every page of your website. If you're using a CMS like WordPress, you can use a plugin like "Insert Headers and Footers" to easily add this code without having to edit your theme files directly.

Step 3: Configure Key Settings in GA4

Once you've confirmed data is flowing into your reports (you can check the Realtime report), there are a few settings to adjust right away.

• Extend Data Retention: By default, GA4 only holds user-level data for 2 months. You should immediately change this. Go to Admin > Data Settings > Data Retention and change "Event data retention" to 14 months.
• Define Internal Traffic: To stop your own team's visits from skewing your data, you need to filter them out. Go to Admin > Data Streams > [Your Stream] > Configure tag settings > Show all > Define internal traffic. Here you can enter your office's IP address(es) to exclude them from reporting.
• Set Up Cross-Domain Tracking: If your user journey spans across multiple domains (e.g., yoursite.com to a third-party checkout checkout.com), you need to set this up under Admin > Data Streams > [Your Stream] > Configure tag settings > Configure your domains.

Step 4: Recreate Conversions and Events

This is where your initial audit pays off. You'll need to replicate your key UA goals and events in GA4. The concept is a bit different but more flexible.

Enhanced Measurement Events

First, check what events are being tracked automatically. In your Data Stream settings, check that Enhanced Measurement is turned on. It tracks page views, scrolls to 90%, outbound clicks, site search, and video engagement without any extra setup.

Setting up Conversions

In GA4, any event can be turned into a conversion. A "conversion" is simply a very important event.

Some actions, like a purchase, are automatically marked as conversions. For others, like a form submission, you first have to tell GA4 how to track the event itself and then mark it as a conversion.

Let's map a common UA goal: a "Contact Us" form submission.

1. Let's assume our Contact Us form redirects to a "thank-you" page.
2. In GA4, go to Admin > Events and click Create event.
3. Click Create. Name your new event something descriptive like generate_lead or contact_form_submit.
4. Under Matching Conditions, set the parameter to page_location, the operator to contains, and the value to the unique part of your thank-you page URL (e.g., /thank-you).
5. Save the new event. After 24 hours, you'll see this new event appear in your list of existing events.
6. Once it appears, simply toggle the switch next to it in the "Mark as conversion" column. Your goal is now set up!

For more complex events that don't have a unique thank-you page, like a button click, you'll set up a Google Analytics: GA4 Event tag in Google Tag Manager to fire when the click occurs.

What Happens to my Old Universal Analytics Data?

This is the most-asked question, and the answer is important: your historical data from UA will not be transferred into GA4. The data models are too different. Your GA4 property starts fresh from the day you install the tag.

That's why migrating as soon as possible is critical, but it also means you must export your historical data from Universal Analytics if you want to keep it for year-over-year comparisons.

Here are your options:

• Manual Exports: Go into your key reports in UA and export the data as a CSV or Google Sheet. This is good for saving snapshots but can be time-consuming.
• Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio): Connect your Universal Analytics property as a data source in Looker Studio and build historical "archive" dashboards. The data will remain accessible there, even after the UA APIs are fully turned off.
• BigQuery Export: For advanced users, if you have a GA360 account, you can export your raw data to BigQuery.

For most businesses, building a few key historical reports in Looker Studio is the most practical way to preserve critical trends.

Final Thoughts

Migrating to GA4 is an investment in setting up a modern, future-proof analytics foundation for your business. By taking a methodical approach - auditing your old account, installing the tag properly, and carefully recreating your key conversions - you can ensure a smooth transition and begin to leverage the powerful new features GA4 has to offer.

With a brand new interface to learn and dozens of custom reports to rebuild, the move to GA4 can feel like starting over. But it doesn't have to be a manual grind. At Graphed (target="_blank" rel="noopener"), we've automated this process. Instead of struggling to find metrics or rebuild your familiar dashboards in the GA4 or Looker Studio interface, you simply connect your account and describe what you need in plain English. Now you can get insights by asking questions like, “Show me my top 10 landing pages by conversions this month” and get a live, real-time report in seconds, not hours.