Why You Need to Set Up GA4 Right Now

Harrison Mateika - August 10, 2022

With Google announcing that they will be sunsetting Universal Analytics (GA3) in July of 2023 for the standard version and July of 2024 for the 360, it is now clear that businesses will need to make their migration to GA4 by that date. However, businesses that are not migrating to GA4 in the present are falling behind the pack.  Here are the broad reasons why your business should make this transition as soon as possible.

1. There’s a Learning Curve

There’s less than a year to gain an understanding of GA4 while having the advantage of running your current analytics set up at the same time. Marketers should use this timeframe to learn the ins and outs of the new GA4 platform while you can still scrutinize data with your current Universal Analytics data. You will then have more ability to strategize about the optimal set up of your new GA4 property that benefits you and your team in the long-term. The goal is to avoid hurrying to generate reports and developing a game plan that leaves your organization behind the curve.

2. Historical Data Won’t Carry Over

Google has shared that after by late 2023, that they will be shutting down the platform entirely. The bottom line is that all your historical data from Universal Analytics will no longer be accessible. While you can export the data for, it would be difficult to transform the data in a way that would be usable in GA4. Additionally, it would be challenging to transform much of that data in a way that is useful for your organization. Therefore, it is ideal that your GA4 data collection be established now so that you can have the historical data from the past year available to you.

3. Google’s Machine Learning Technology Plays a Role

GA4 brings an impressive array of new features. This includes the inclusion of predictive metrics, Google’s data-driven attribution models, and Google insights which is where Google shares insights based on certain questions that you pose. This information is based on machine learning, in other words that GA4 needs enough data to validate and test its models before deploying them to your property. This means that the more data you have, the more efficiently the platform will be able to perform to provide the valuable predictive and decision insights.

Transition to the new GA4 platform can be stressful for many organizations, especially in figuring out how to structure their reporting and analytics. If you haven’t already migrated to the new GA4 platform or need help with what you’ve already started, please reach out to  info@morevisibility.com.