What is google analytics 4
Google Analytics 4 is the latest version of one the main Google free tools. With a lot of updates and changes, the tool has nothing to do with the former version “Universal Analytics”. One of its main features is that it enables users to measure different engagement metrics within mobile and landing pages.
Google sent a notice recently that from July 1, 2023 Universal Analytics will no longer be an active tool, so we better start understanding the new version ASAP.
With a totally different dashboard, for this reason, in this post we will have a walk through its integration, conversions, engagement and more.
Google Analytics 4 Integration
With an easy integration, GA4 follows the same steps as Universal analytics.
- Firstly Step One: Log in to Google account and go to https://analytics.google.com/analytics/
- Secondly Step two: Click on “Start Measuring” Button.
- Then Step three: Give the name of your account or company name
- After Step four: Give a Property name and select Reporting Time Zone and Currency.
- Next Step five: To make a Universal Analytics Property along with GA4 analytics property click on the “Show Advanced Options” as shown in the image below.
- Step six: Switch from Off to On.
- Step seven: Details about your company such as industry category and how you pretend to use GA4.
- Finally Step eight: Check Data Processing Terms
Google Analytics 4 Benefits
1. Explorations
A big difference between Universal Analytics and GA4. Explorations allow you to create complex custom reports, data and get better insights. We can find different methods of exploration:
- Free form exploration
- Funnel exploration
- Path exploration
2. Data Driven attribution
Data-driven is the default option for GA4 attribution model. An attribution that administers the credit of different conversions based on each conversion event. The big benefit here is that some traffic sources get more credit and are considered as part of any conversion or engagement.
3. Improved version of path analysis
An unfinished business by Universal Analytics, this was a must feature to be improved by GA4. This is why, now you can set different metrics like bounce rate or transactions at the end of the path and go backward to check what the user was doing before getting there.
4. DebugView
Google Analytics 4 improved debugging. We no longer have to wait for ours for the reports to be updated. Now we can do that within seconds. Thanks to the new version of the DebugView, we can see events, parameters, values, etc.
5. Event segment
With Universal Analytics we had only two segments, users and Sessions. Now with the event segment we can configure them according to the data or insight we want to get.
6. App and website data is stored in the same property
One of the main updates of this version. Actually the name of GA4 was Google Analytics App+ Web, so you can guess that this feature was one of the top ones that Google wanted to take into account.
Engagement rate google analytics 4, what is it?
A great improvement that we no longer have to do by ourselves. it’s all handled automatically with Google Analytics 4. But what is an engaged session in GA4? An engaged session is a session where the user did any one of the following:
- Viewed more than 1 page
- Stayed on the page for more than 10 seconds
- Triggered a conversion event.
Google Analytics 4 Conversions
A conversion is any action or activity the user did on your website. This will help us to know more about the user experience and track the engagement the user has in any page. GA4 made a big change compared to Universal Analytics where conversions were marked when the goal was completed and had a maximum of 20 goals per property.
With GA4 you can set up as many conversions as you want. Apart from the default ones like first_visit, scroll, page_view etc. You can create more thanks to Google Tag Manager, for example, users that send an email clicking to your email address. Or maybe users that send a contact form.
To set up a Conversion on GA4 you need to create an account on Google Tag Manager, thanks to this tool you can create any event you find interesting for your reports and it will appear on your events dashboard.
Bounce Rate in Google Analytics 4
Did you know that there is no bounce rate in GA4? But don´t panic! There are other ways to check this important metric. Here GA4 simply compares engagement rate with bounce rate, which means that any session with no engagement is considered a bounce. A different way of measuring it compared to Universal Analytics, but very valid anyway.
For those who want to calculate the bounce rate, just need to subtract it from the engagement rate.
Example: Engagement Rate = 80%. Bounce Rate will be 100% – 80% = 20%
Do you need a marketing agency to improve your online performance in financial markets?
In FinancialMarkets.media we care about your success and goals. Our professionals in data analysis will track and report every detail in order to take actions that will help your company to improve different KPIs such as engagement, bounce rate, new users and more. Controlling this data and knowing what to do if it is not optimal is an essential task for the success of your financial brand.
