Is GA4 turning me into a boomer?
The on again, off again switch to Google Analytics 4, and apparent unreadiness of some marketers to make the switch has Andreas Karlsson, head of operations at G Squared, questioning whether he's becoming a grumpy digital marketer.
The official launch of Google Analytics 4 was mid October 2020, however, the beta version was out in July 2019. When it officially hit the market, I suspect many marketers were initially hesitant to make the switch, unless they created a new Google Analytics property and, by mistake, didn’t realise that Google now more or less hides the option to create a Universal Analytics.
Fast forward to late 2022 and most marketers are aware of GA4 and the really savvy ones might now even have two properties for their brands, one for GA4 and one for Universal Analytics.
So far so good, so what’s the problem?
The problem is that, according to Google themselves, on 1 July 2023 they will make the shift to only use GA4. My suspicion is that the majority of marketers and brands are simply not ready for it. Further proof, if it were needed, as I was writing this, Google announced another GA4 launch delay for enterprise customers until 1 July 2024.
Let me explain.
Google Analytics has been around since 2005. According to W3Tech more than 55% of all websites in the world use Google Analytics and it’s fair to say that the majority of those are not currently using Google Analytics 4 at this moment of time.
Google says: “GA4 is designed for the future of measurement.” This sentence is somewhat disturbing to a data-driven marketer like me. Not the sentence itself, but the meaning behind it.
In 2012 Google started to hide 70% of all keyword data and now, with GA4, they will hide pretty much all the things that we take for granted. A lot of data will be hidden, mathematical calculations based on Artificial Intelligence that will eventually present us with hyper-specific insights that we haven’t asked for (neither clients nor marketers). In short, the data, information and insights that marketers had been able to provide will soon be replaced by data not focused on the business outcomes – and there’s not much we can do about it.
Maybe I’m turning into a grumpy digital boomer. The luxuries we’ve all taken for granted over the last 10 to15 years is perhaps comparable to buying a house in the 1960s. The market simply looked different and it may never exist again. If I resist too much, it will just cause me frustration and remind me of better times.
There are of course positives to GA4 including:
Cross-Platform and Cross-Device Tracking – This is something long overdue. Ever since smartphones, we are all well aware that people’s browsing behaviours are far more complex than 15 years ago when everyone used desktop computers.
Enhanced visualisations and reporting – As soon as you go into GA4 you notice that it’s more up to date with the current climate, it’s quick, it’s fresh and visually appealing and much easier to create visualisations.
Anomaly detection – Although you can set up alerts in Universal Analytics, it’s much easier in GA4, and you can see if there’s a big difference in traffic in more ways than you would ever consider.
That said, I’m still finding it very difficult to accept what the shift to GA4 stands for. While colluding data, making things look “pretty” and focusing on metrics that aren’t surrounded around business outcomes, are great, a lot is being left out and will be missed by marketers.
Looking ahead, experience has shown that when big tech companies ignore users a gap in the market opens, and it’s one that is often filled by either some sort of workaround or a new player in the market.
Although it’s easy to take Google for granted, one thing history has shown is that peoples’ behaviours and wants eventually dictate the market.
Change is inevitable, I understand that. But when changes are made, that on face value may negatively impact the very audience they are designed for, then you have to question what’s the point. Maybe I am a grumpy old-school digital marketer.
Andreas Karlsson is head of operations at digital marketing agency GSquared.
Hey! Thanks for your post. I think you may missed one point: I feel like GA4 was also (mostly?) designed to anticipate privacy/GDPR issues thanks to IA and predictions.
Less data but more compliance… What’s your thougt about this?
User ID not verified.
Fair enough, I could’ve specifically mentioned it 🙂
I guess from a bigger perspective though, that was one of my key points – “The luxuries we’ve all taken for granted” which are inevitably gradually disappearing (privacy & GDPR falls under that umbrella)