4 min readGoogle launches Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

At the end of 2020, Google officially launched Google Analytics 4, also nicknamed GA4, the newest Google Analytics version.

Obviously, GA4 is powered for fitting the current trend to constantly improve websites and applications’ performance. So, it offers objective, accurate and complete data for marketers to make efficient decisions.

But more precisely, what is in this new version for you and I? What is the added value from Google? Here is an introduction to Google Analytics 4, from where it started to all the new possibilities it offers!

Better insights to help decision-making

If you already tried to create or upgrade a property into GA4, you may have noticed new reports and new data were available. Indeed, Google is using even more machine learning with new algorithms, to collect data and put it into perspective efficiently. With GA4, you will be given a better comprehension of trends in your activity. And then, you will be more confident while anticipating and making decisions regarding your marketing investments.

Google’s vision is still the same: bringing marketers performant tools to understand visitors’ behavior, and where their traffic comes from. With this analysis, they can optimize their marketing actions and significantly improve their ROI.

GA4 properties are specifically designed for Web apps with registered users, with login & password accounts (e-commerce sites, mobile apps, …). These new properties allow a deeper understanding of visitors’ behavior, and help identifying leak points and the most essential touchpoints. Within a GA4 property, things are made clear about what your online or mobile app users are doing. What’s more, Google is also anticipating on a stronger regulation of personal data online. Which means they are bringing up tools which are less and less dependent on cookies.

Besides, GA4 is not that much different from Universal Analytics when it comes to websites and apps whose users are not (yet) registered. For example, marketing and lead gen-focused websites have few interest today in upgrading to GA4. But Google will soon announce some other new possibilities for GA4 properties. For now, they are still in beta version for Google teams. And for sure, you can rely on Google to come up with useful novelties!

A new version still in beta

Although it was officially announced in autumn 2020, GA4 still requires many improvements. As Vidhya Srinivasan, Google’s Measurement, Analytics & Buying Platforms VP stated in October 2020:

We know there are capabilities many marketers need before fully replacing their existing Analytics setup.

Vidhya Srinivasan

Indeed, this new version of Google Analytics includes many concepts and reports diverging from the previous and still most widely used Universal Analytics (UA) version. And Vidhya added the following, regarding Google’s position about starting using GA4 immediately on a website:

So we encourage you to create a new Google Analytics 4 property (previously called an App + Web property) alongside your existing properties.

Vidhya Srinivasan

By putting GA4 directly in the hands of marketers now, Google is probably seeking for identifying which UA features need to be implemented in GA4 as well. For example, custom events are still only available in UA for now, but could also become a must-have in GA4. The reason is marketers are using this feature a lot to analyze their visitors’ behavior and online conversions.

In such context, you need to be cautious while trying the new GA4 properties. It is better you first create GA4 properties alongside with your existing UA properties, so you do not miss any data.

Google Analytics 4 and Dexem Call Tracking

Currently, Dexem Call Tracking only supports Universal Analytics (UA). Our teams are working to make our direct integration compatible with GA4, which is also evolving constantly as a beta.

Until this is done, we encourage you to stick to Google’s recommendations, and create GA4 properties in parallel with your UA properties, not instead. Our integration with Google Analytics is still perfectly working with UA properties. So, your call data can be displayed in your Google Analytics reports, alongside with your other conversions data.

Of course, this integration still allows you to define from which traffic sources you receive the most phone calls. Moreover, you can identify your best-performing Google Ads campaigns and keywords for inbound calls. And you can also find out your visitors’ online journey before they call you (visited pages, multichannel funnels, …).

For more information about this, feel free to visit our help center, or to contact your Account Manager directly.

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Though this new Google Analytics 4 is awaited, it was released at first with no huge communication. But it promises a lot of change in your Google Analytics habits. New reports, new concepts, for sure we will need a bit of time to get used to these new properties. And let’s not forget that Google is already announcing some evolutions for soon!

What about you? Have you already set up some GA4 properties on your website, and started to collect some data? What do you think of it? We will be happy to get your insights on social media.