GA4, the newest version of Google Analytics is a new generation of web analytics tool featuring a lot of exciting possibilities for marketers and businesses. Not just tracking the web traffic, GA4 lets marketers analyze crucially important customer usage metrics more efficiently. Though the thought of switching over to the new upgrade might look hard, the several interesting advantages of the improved analytical platform are highly alluring. GA4 is highly customizable and can provide lot more data with which you can choose to track what matters to you according to TechindiaSoftware. Especially, how GA4 has improved event and conversion tracking can be a very useful update which marketers and businesses are excited about.
GA4 top highlights
Google Analytics 4 is designed to track the entire customer path across different platforms. Leveraging AI and machine learning, this advanced analytical tool provides more detailed insights on how the users interact with your app and website. Among the several differences between Universal Analytics and GA4, the most interesting one is of course its ability to report on activity occurring both on applications and websites. What makes it the future of measurement includes the following:
- Collects both app and website data to throw more light on the customer journey
- Instead of session-based data, GA4 uses event based data
- Features privacy controls like conversion and behavioral modeling and privacy controls like cookieless measurement
- Advanced predictive capabilities are based on simple models
- Can be directly integrated to media platforms to help drive actions on app or website
How GA4 has Improved Event And Conversion Tracking
For quite some time, Cookies have been an inseparable part of the digital environment. Cookies have been helping to identify users when they visit a given website and they fulfill purposes like collecting information, tracking online behavior, and customize the site sessions.
Nevertheless, tensions are escalating around the subject of privacy, which might soon eliminate cookies and give rise to a digital world free of cookies. As per the words of Justin Schuh, Director of Chrome Engineering, from the beginning of 2020, Google has been phasing out third party cookies across their Chrome browser on account of the users “demanding greater privacy – including transparency, choice and control over how their data is used.”
Such changes did not stop with the Chrome browser. Google’s Universal Analytics evolved into Google Analytics 4 (GA4) which has highly improved how the marketers communicate and engage with their customers. The most obvious change that highly interests us is how tracking has highly developed across the two analytics properties namely event tracking and conversion tracking.
Event tracking possibilities stretched
One of the main concerns with Universal Analytics was the limited information the marketers could collect and the limitations seen around reporting. In Universal Analytics, data tracking was intended to capture those actions taken on the pages of a website. For example, to track the number of people downloading the lead magnet from a landing page, it is possible to implement event tracking and use the generated report to track how many downloads was done. ‘Hit’ is the predefined option of every tracked action.
GA4 has replaced hits with events. There are now more options for parameters and improved measurement and conversions. An event is an activity or interaction happening on a webpage that can include the elements that people click on, and the details of transaction that a user collects. Once set up appropriately, event tracking can make sure that you collect more holistic and comprehensive data for your business. One of the most interesting and useful properties of GA4 lets you set up cross-domain measurement. It is possible to monitor multiple websites using GA4, for instance, monitoring a customer website and an independent shopping cart domain.
Conversion tracking possibilities stretched
Conversions such as subscriptions or product purchases need to be identified and incorporated into the analytics process. GA4 has introduced newer ways of data collection and has sophisticated tools to report on consumer behaviors. What Universal Analytics called as goals are now referred to in GA4 as conversions. GA4 provides robust ways to measure and track conversions. Marketers find it easy and highly convenient to set up and use GA4’s conversion tracking.
An existing event in the reports can be enabled as a conversion. For instance, you can track all file downloads as conversions in the reports. You can create new event without modifying the implementation. You have options to use Google Tag Manager to track custom events.
Conclusion
To unlock the exciting capabilities of GA4 and to make the best use of its several useful features for your website, partner with a reliable and skilled web design and marketing company like TechindiaSoftware. GA4 has certainly taken Google’s analytic functions to a new level and the latest developments have opened up new gates to invest in more effective and successful marketing strategies. This can be a sure step to grow your business and generate more profits on the move.