Is Google Analytics 4 Still in Beta?
Thinking about Google Analytics 4 might give you a slight sense of déjà vu, wondering if it's still the "new thing" or a fully-fledged platform. Let's clear this up right away: No, Google Analytics 4 is not in beta. It is the official, current, and only version of Google Analytics collecting data for standard properties. This article will explain GA4’s long road to this point, why it felt like a work in progress for so long, and how you can now leverage its powerful, finalized features.
The Official Status of Google Analytics 4
As of July 1, 2023, Google Analytics 4 is the definitive version of the platform. On that date, standard Universal Analytics (UA) properties officially stopped processing any new-hit data. All the traffic, events, and conversions happening on your website since then have been flowing exclusively into GA4 (assuming you completed the migration).
While some Google 360 customers had an extension until July 1, 2024, for the vast majority of website owners, marketers, and analysts, the chapter on Universal Analytics is closed. The beta labels are long gone, the forced migration is complete, and GA4's feature set, while constantly evolving, is considered the complete and official standard for measuring web and app performance.
The transition is over. GA4 is it.
Why Did GA4 Feel Like It Was in Beta for Years?
Even though it's now the standard, the perception that GA4 felt "unfinished" or "in beta" was a common and valid concern for years. This feeling wasn't just a hunch, it stemmed from a few key factors that defined its rollout.
1. An Unfinished Product at Launch
When GA4 launched in October 2020, it was a radical departure from Universal Analytics - in more ways than one. While it introduced a powerful new event-based data model, it also lacked a surprising number of features that UA users relied on daily. Basic elements like annotations, custom channel groupings, and many standard reports were simply not there. This created a jarring experience, leaving many to believe they were being pushed onto a platform that wasn't ready for primetime. It felt less like a polished successor and more like a public beta test.
2. A Fundamental Shift in Thinking
GA4 wasn’t just an update, it was a total rebuild from the ground up. Universal Analytics was built around the concept of sessions and pageviews, a model that neatly reflected how people used desktop websites in the 2000s and 2010s.
GA4, however, is built on an event-based model. Every single user interaction - from a page view to a button click to a video play - is measured as a distinct event. This is a far more flexible and user-centric approach, designed for a world where a customer journey can span a mobile app, a website, and a connected TV. But this dramatic shift meant that every report, every workflow, and every metric analysts had spent a decade mastering suddenly looked different. This paradigm shift was so significant that it made the new platform feel alien and incomplete to longtime users.
3. Slow and Steady Feature Rollouts
For several years after its launch, Google incrementally added missing features to GA4. Important reporting tools, attribution models, and data import options trickled in slowly over time. Here are just a few crucial features that arrived much later in the game:
Bounce rate (reimagined and different from UA's version)
Conversion and revenue attribution modeling
Custom funnels and path exploration reports
Data import functionalities
Report customization controls
This slow drip of essential functionality reinforced the feeling that the platform was constantly under construction. Digital marketing agencies and businesses found it hard to go "all-in" on GA4 when they were still waiting for features critical to their client reporting and internal analysis.
GA4 vs. UA: Understanding the Core Differences
To truly grasp why GA4 is here to stay, it's useful to understand how it fundamentally differs from the Universal Analytics you knew and loved. This isn't just about a new interface, it's a new philosophy of measurement.
Data Model: Sessions vs. Events
This is the most critical difference. Universal Analytics grouped user interactions into "sessions." A session was like a single container for everything a user did during a visit: they viewed a page, then another, then clicked a link, and UA recorded it all as part of that one session.
GA4 throws away the session container. Instead, it captures everything as a standalone event.
page_viewis an event.scrollis an event.add_to_cartis an event.purchaseis an event.
This event-based approach gives you a much more granular and flexible view of user behavior. It’s no longer about how many visits you had, it's about what specific actions your users are taking along their entire journey, regardless of session breaks or device changes.
Reporting: Canned Reports vs. Custom Explorations
Universal Analytics was known for its vast library of over 100 pre-built "canned" reports. This was great for quick lookups but could be rigid when you needed to answer a specific, nuanced business question.
GA4 streamlines the standard reports and introduces the extremely powerful Explore Hub. This section is where you can build completely custom analyses that were either impossible or incredibly difficult in UA.
These explorations include:
Funnel exploration: Visualize the steps users take to complete a task and see where they drop off.
Path exploration: See the most common paths users take after opening your app or visiting a specific page.
Segment overlap: See how different user segments (e.g., "Mobile Traffic" vs. "Users from the US") intersect.
User explorer: Drill down to see the events triggered by individual anonymized users.
The trade-off is this: GA4 expects you to be more curious. It shifts the burden from passively reading reports to actively building them to find insights.
Cross-Device Tracking: The Connected Customer Journey
UA was born in a desktop-first world and primarily relied on third-party cookies, making it notoriously bad at understanding when the same person visited your site on their laptop and later on their phone. It would often count them as two separate users.
GA4 was built for a multi-device world and is much better at stitching together the user journey. It uses multiple identity signals - including user ID (if you provide it), Google Signals (aggregated and anonymized data from users logged into Google), and device ID - to create a more cohesive, user-centric view rather than a fragmented, device-centric one.
Privacy-Centric by Design
With regulations like GDPR and CCPA and the upcoming demise of third-party cookies, privacy is no longer an afterthought. GA4 was built with this new reality in mind. It includes features like IP anonymization by default, shorter data retention controls, and consent mode to better respect user privacy choices, making it a more future-proof analytics platform.
How to Make the Most of the "Finished" GA4
Since GA4 is no longer in development limbo, it's time to stop comparing it to UA and start mastering its unique strengths.
1. Think in Events, Not Pageviews
Shift your focus from "How many people viewed this page?" to "What are the most valuable actions people take on this page?" Set up custom events for key business interactions: form submissions, video watches, ebook downloads, or clicks on affiliate links. Use Automatically Collected Events and Enhanced Measurement to get started, but then customize them to what matters for your business goals.
2. Master the Explore Hub
Don't just live in the standard "Reports" section. The Explore hub is where the real power of GA4 lies. Start with a simple question and try to answer it using an exploration.
Example Question: Which blog posts lead to the most newsletter signups?
Build a path exploration that starts with the newsletter signup event (let's call it generate_lead) and look at the preceding steps. You’ll be able to see the exact pages users visited right before they converted, giving you direct insight into your best-performing content.
3. Use Comparisons for Quick Audience Insights
The "Add comparison" feature at the top of most standard reports is incredibly powerful for quick segmentation. In just a few clicks, you can compare "Mobile Traffic" versus "Desktop Traffic" or "Traffic from Paid Search" versus "Traffic from Organic Search" on the same report, instantly revealing performance differences.
4. Set Up Your Conversions Properly
In GA4, any event can be marked as a conversion. This is a huge upgrade from UA's rigid Goals system. Go to your Admin panel, find "Events," and toggle the switch for all the events that are important to your business. This will allow you to see conversion data throughout all of your reports and attribute success to specific campaigns and channels.
Final Thoughts
To put it simply, Google Analytics 4 is not in beta. It is the fully realized, official platform for analytics. The awkward transition phase is behind us, and while GA4 requires a different way of thinking than Universal Analytics, it offers a more flexible, smarter, and privacy-conscious way to understand your users.
Even a feature-complete platform like GA4 has a steep learning curve. Figuring out how to build custom reports in the Explore hub, connect disparate data sources for a complete picture, and translate that data into actual insights still takes a lot of time and effort. We believe getting answers from your data shouldn't be that complicated. At Graphed , you simply connect your Google Analytics account and other data sources, then use plain English to ask questions, create reports, and build live dashboards - freeing you to focus on growth, not report building.