Google Analytics 4.0

Written by Charlotte Brodie, Account Director on the Web Team 

Google has launched a new generation of analytics tracking for the last quarter of 2020: Google Analytics 4. We share our favourite features the revamped platform has to offer. 

New improved layout and structure 

The user interface is more intuitive and is segmented into a more logical structure. As you can see, key insights are broken down into Acquisition, Engagement, Monetisation and Retention which essentially gives you a better understanding and overview of the full customer lifecycle. At each step of the journey you can see what actions users are taking and how to better engage with them as a way to support conversion. 

Ecommerce 

This feature has been revamped and renamed to Monetisation which includes 4 reports:

1. Revenue
2. Total buyers
3. Average purchase revenue per user
4. Ecommerce data – advanced tracking and data on how many times a particular item has been viewed, how many adds to carts, cart to view, item revenue and so on. 

This more in depth data allows us to gain more insight into online consumer behaviour in order to help shape future strategies and target audiences more efficiently. This enables data to be shaped into easier reports going beyond the ecommerce report which focused on core actions.

New feature: ‘Retention’

There is an entirely new section dedicated to ‘Retention’ which gives us more data to evaluate and provides us with the insight to be able to highlight opportunities to increase customer retention. This has been a key focus for us with our clients, so we’re over the moon with this one. 

We’ve long advocated for the ‘Care’ stage of the consumer journey process, placing high value on creating lifetime value & recreating that in-store luxury experience that keeps customers coming back to their favourite brands, over a constant churn of new customer acquisitions.

Mobile Reporting 

The current analytics is very much set up to focus on desktop reporting. With an average of over 70% of users using mobile when browsing online, GA4 allows you to create a fully custom desktop vs mobile report across your own business KPI’s. Win.

Deeper & smarter analysis 

71% of people watch more video than they did a year ago (HubSpot) and with video marketing showing a steep incline for 2020, GA-4 has incorporated reporting on YouTube engagement so brands can monitor the success of their video marketing campaigns. The deeper Google Ads integration allows marketers to gain a better understanding; for example, new audiences to target. Watch this space.

Codeless event tracking 

A favourite feature; this means goals and event tracking from page scrolls, to video views and to user interactions can be done on Google interface without the needs for custom code or GTM (Google Tag Manager)

Engagement Tracking

The new acquisition reporting includes a detailed view of engagement on the site from page scrolls,  clicks, file downloads, video plays etc per users and how this translates to conversions and revenue. On a page view basis, the data drills down into unique users, user scrolls, event triggers and average engagement time and how that might translate into revenue. 

All in all; we’re very pleased. Google Analytics 4 is providing us with more data which means we can understand on a deeper level who our consumer is, how they are engaging and where the opportunities lie to build a smarter digital marketing program for our clients. 

Are you interested in upgrading? 

Fortunately, Google has made the process relatively straightforward by adding an ‘upgrade to GA4’ link in the your account admin and adding the new code onto the site which creates  NEW property and doesn’t have any impact on your existing property. 

We recommend keeping the existing GA code so you have historical data to compare with until you are happy to remove the old data. Our preference is to have both old and new accounts running simultaneously initially. Furthermore, the upgrade does not migrate any custom tags so be mindful of this before pressing ‘Go’!  Do get in touch if you’d like to speak with an expert about this. 

We do offer Google Analytics set up to ensure all is being tracked correctly and to help on board a team member to use the platform effectively.

Get in touch to ask about this.