The UApocalypse is drafting nigh. On July 1st, 9 days from now, Google volition unopen down the modular mentation of Universal Analytics (UA) — the astir wide utilized selling analytics instrumentality successful net history. In its spot is Google Analytics 4 (GA4), a precise antithetic and apt much almighty tool.
Everyone’s acceptable for that, right? We’ve each transitioned to GA4, briefed stakeholders connected the caller metrics and triple-checked however GA4 information interacts with your different technologies, right? Current idiosyncratic stats suggest the reply is no.
Here’s a look astatine those stats, the way from UA to GA4 and the cardinal differences are betwixt the two.
Users
| GA4 | UA | |
| Current full sites using | 11 million+ | 28 million+ |
| Current US sites using | 2,381,976 | 3,364,172 |
| % of the 1 cardinal astir fashionable sites using | 29.9 | 41.9 |
| % of the 100,000 astir fashionable sites using | 38.3 | 52.3 |
| % of the 10,000 astir fashionable sites using | 40.9 | 54.9 |
How we got here
- 2005: Google buys Urchin, a wide utilized postulation analytics program, rebrands it arsenic Urchin from Google, makes it escaped to usage past re-rebrands it arsenic Google Analytics.
- 2007: Google releases Google Analytics Synchronous Code, amended known arsenic the ga.js leafage tag. It gives users the quality to way e-commerce transactions successful a much readable mode and offers much power implicit tracking services.
- 2009: Google releases an Asynchronous Tracking Code snippet making usage of the aforesaid ga.js code. It lets webpages load faster, improves information postulation and accuracy and eliminates errors caused by dependencies.
- 2012: People are utilizing much devices to spell online, truthful Google releases the Analytics Tag (analytics.js) to way them. Universal Analytics has caller website tracking codes for websites and tools providing much in-depth accusation astir idiosyncratic behavior.
- 2017: Google releases Global Site Tag (gtag.js). It fixes the problems created by having antithetic tagging protocols for Google Analytics and Google Ads.
- 2020: Google Analytics 4 is unveiled arsenic UA’s replacement. UA relies connected third-party cookies to ID users and caller privateness regulations, astir notably the European Union’s GDPR, meant nary much cookies.
Differences betwixt GA4 and UA
| GA4 | UA | |
| Measures | Events | Sessions |
| User ID based on | Google Signals and Firebase | Cookies |
| Page presumption definition | aka Views: Total fig of app screens and/or web pages your users saw. | Total fig of pages viewed. Repeated views of a azygous leafage are counted. |
| Bounce rate | Sessions lasting little than 10 seconds with nary conversion events and lone 1 surface view. | Percentage of single-page sessions successful which determination was nary enactment with the page. |
| Reporting | Complete cross-platform and cross-device reporting. | Limited cross-platform and cross-device reporting. |
| Data organization | View successful properties. | Data streams from properties. |
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About the author
Constantine von Hoffman is managing exertion of MarTech. A seasoned journalist, Con has covered business, finance, selling and tech for CBSNews.com, Brandweek, CMO, and Inc. He has been metropolis exertion of the Boston Herald, quality shaper astatine NPR, and has written for Harvard Business Review, Boston Magazine, Sierra, and galore different publications. He has besides been a nonrecreational stand-up comedian, fixed talks astatine anime and gaming conventions connected everything from My Neighbor Totoro to the past of dice and boardgames, and is writer of the magical realist caller John Henry the Revelator. He lives successful Boston with his wife, Jennifer, and either excessively galore oregon excessively fewer dogs.
