Google Analytics 4 update

Google Analytics is one of the most widely used methods to track how your website or application is performing. With the latest update, a new property has been added where a few things are different. Let's cover this in this blog post.

There are a number of other parties that are also suitable for tracking your website statistics, we have also covered some of them at our knowledge base. However, Google Analytics is used the most because of its many features and insights. And since almost everyone uses it, it is also the easiest to implement in for example websites made with WordPress. With the latest update the following things have been added and improved compared to the previous versions of Google Analytics.

New Artificial Intelligence insights and prospects

AI insights have been available for a while with previous versions of Google Analytics, a number of additional insights have been added in this update. The insights can be used to quickly create interesting quick reports that can be used to compare and improve data. For example, you can have a quick look up how the bounce rate has changed in the last 7 days and how many visitors from which country have been added. As some examples.

The new insights in Google Analytics 4 can now also be used to automatically mail you a notification when, for example, demand for a product in your webshop increases. This gives you the opportunity to react faster and for example expand your stock a bit. Or simply receive a notification when a product becomes more popular in your webshop. It can also lead to insights that allow you to get a message from a specific target group that converts more than another. This also gives you the opportunity to respond more quickly. And you no longer need to check this manually in your Google Analytics reports.

Deeper integration with Google Ads

With Google Ads advertising there are now more insights and possibilities with Google Analytics 4. And once a visitor or customer has performed the desired action through an ad, it is no longer possible to automatically retarget them. This is to avoid double costs. Something marketers naturally prefer.

Furthermore, there is now an integration with YouTube that makes it possible to see the advertisements there as well. So if you have an advertisement on YouTube for your company you can now also see this within Google Analytics 4.

Reports within Google Analytics 4

The reports within Google Analytics 4 have also been overhauled. The focus is more and more on the Lifecycle of the customer or visitor. You can look more at the journey that a particular visitor takes on your website hosting or webshop hosting.

For example, you can see which steps a customer takes and through which channels he arrives. All this in an easy to view report that is generated within a few clicks. Unique insights can be obtained with minimal effort, including whether a customer sticks around after a purchase or leaves immediately.

The new Analytics experience also provides marketers with a more complete vision of how to view this across channels. This offers a more pleasant experience than before where it took almost a course to get everything out. Google wants to make this more accessible for everyone.

Event tracking without extra code

Previously, additional tracking such as page sweeps and certain events required additional code to be inserted into the Google Analytics tag. This is now no longer necessary as this is automatically added now, and Google Tag manager is also no longer required to achieve the same thing. However, this is a bit slower and is typically not visible until the next day.

GDPR and CCPA

To comply with the data processing laws, there are now also a number of steps taken to make this easier. More explanation and a Consent mode that can be added will ensure that you properly deal with the various European laws. And those from California.Thus, various components can be turned on and off to comply with the various regulations.

Future without Cookies

Third-party cookies will slowly but surely be phased out. Google Analytics is anticipating this by increasingly using Machine Learning to fill in the gaps in the data. The next releases of Google Analytics will also focus more and more on improving this.Will you switch immediately to the new property? Or will you stay with the old one? Please let us know!