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As Universal Analytics (UA) approaches its deprecation date (July 1, 2023), it's essential to move away from Universal Analytics and set up your reports with the next-generation Google Analytics 4 (GA4) platform. Otherwise, the UA-configured widgets in your reports would appear empty once the system stops receiving data from Universal Analytics. This guide will walk you through the process of seamlessly transitioning your reports from UA to GA4.
Understand the requirement of a new setup
Considering the significant changes made to the Analytics reporting in GA4, the Optmyzr Reporting tool has implemented a separate set of widgets to work with the new GA4 properties (events). This means that your existing UA (Universal Analytics) widgets cannot be used to analyze GA4 data.
This article by Google will give you an in-depth comparison between UA and GA4, however, for the sake of ease, here are a few major causes for the requirement of a new setup using GA4:
Data Compatibility: UA and GA4 have different data models and tracking methodologies. By using separate widgets, you can ensure that the data extracted from each Analytics platform aligns correctly with the respective data model. This helps to maintain data integrity and accuracy in your reporting.
Event vs Pageview: In GA4, you can easily add custom tags to track specific events triggered by customers on your website, such as monitoring external links clicked within your domain. On the other hand, UA primarily relies on "Page Views" to track the number of page views and associated data for each visited page. With GA4 events, you gain more detailed reporting capabilities and increased flexibility. The new GA4 widgets are designed to accurately capture data for each event, including conversion events that have replaced UA goals.
Reporting flexibility and custom configurations: There are different ways to make use of the new advanced features in Analytics, for example, attribution to study conversion areas which can help you understand the impact and effectiveness of different marketing efforts in driving conversions. Having separate widgets provide the flexibility to customize and configure the visualizations, metrics, and dimensions specific to each analytics platform. This also helps avoid confusion with deprecated features.
Now, let’s get started with the transition process.
1. Connect GA4 property to Optmyzr
The first step towards a smooth transition would be to go ahead and link your GA4 property to Optmyzr, if not done already.
Go to the ‘Manage linked accounts’ page and proceed to add a new Google Analytics login with a GA4 property associated. You can then click on the desired property name present under the “GA4 Properties” section and link a Google Ads profile with it. Feel free to check out this help article if you need any additional help with the process.
2. Remove UA widgets from reports
Every report that includes UA widgets now has an interactive process to help you remove them before they're deprecated. This utility will remain available until all UA widgets have been successfully removed from a report. Additionally, it will provide you with information, indicating the exact number of UA widgets contained within that report.
To facilitate the process, please follow the steps outlined below:
Click on ‘Get started’ and it will take you one by one to each existing UA widget.
Review the data being reported in each widget and take it into consideration it when incorporating the new GA4 widgets.
Remove each widget by clicking the ‘Delete’ icon present on the top right side of the widget.
Once all the deprecated widgets are removed, you’re ready to make use of the new GA4 widgets!
3. Add GA4 property to Reports
To get started with GA4, make sure to add the required GA4 property that replaces your existing UA property. You can read more about the various widgets available for GA4 from here.
For Single Account reports: If you have associated a GA4 property with the selected account, the data for that property will automatically show up when you add the GA4 widgets.
For Multi-Account reports: Go to the ‘Accounts/Date Ranges’ section to add one or more GA4 properties.
4. Start using the GA4 tables and charts
Explore the potential of GA4 by using our extensive set of performance tables and charts. Our Reporting tool offers widgets that can be customized to meet your specific requirements. Additionally, we provide pre-configured tables and charts for common data sets. These pre-configured options are designed for specific purposes like acquiring users or analyzing event engagement. They utilize carefully selected combinations of dimensions and metrics to provide valuable insights for your analytics requirements.
Start making changes now in our reporting tool.