Analytics fundamentally help you gain insight into your audiences based on how users interact with your website or apps. This first-party data can be used to generate important metrics for search engine optimizations (SEO) and marketing. Google’s goal is to give you the tools you need to better understand your customers and how they interact with your business. GA4 is designed to use an events-based measurement model, with more focus on a user’s activity.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) will help companies address 3 key data areas:
- Google’s machine learning and predictive capabilities
- More robust cross-channel tracking and reporting
- Companies navigating complex regulatory environments
Machine Learning Technology
GA4 produces unique user reports that can be personalized to your organization, team, and role to help you save time. The new “Home” page showcases what GA4 is learning from your data.
The new GA4 uses advanced modeling techniques to give you a more complete picture of a user’s behavior. It looks for trends and insights in the data it gathers. When it spots one, it will immediately bring that insight onto your Home page, drawing your attention to questions that have not been asked yet.
How to Turn Insights into Actions
If you use GA4 for marketing campaign performance, there may be important metrics that you have not previously considered, and if there is a sudden change in performance, it will catch the activity and inform you of a behavior change. The new Home surfaces automated insights and can prepare you for sudden decreases in conversions along with a reason why.
Having this type of insight early, helps companies be more aware and responsive to changes in their business. The main objective of this insight is to help businesses respond and anticipate change quickly while assisting them in predicting future customer behavior.
Predictive Insights
Another feature of GA4 is its ability to predict if a customer will churn, make a purchase, or generate significant revenue for your business over time. These predictive insights help you investigate your products more deeply. With this idea in mind, GA4 has added a new template titled “Predict Top Spenders” in the explorer workspace.
Using these same insights, your company also has access to “Predictive Audiences.” You can create audiences such as ‘likely seven-day purchasers’ or churning users, creating lots of opportunities for companies to explore first-party data.
Use Your Analytics Data Across Google
GA4 focuses on making it possible to use analytics data across all Google platforms. The integration process is simple and easy to use. For instance, Predictive Audiences used together with Google Ads and the Google Marketing Platform have become powerful tools for reaching new customers.
If a company uses the Predictive Audiences tool and exports this audience into Google Ads, they are more likely to increase revenue, improve ROI, reduce cost per action, and reach more customers.
Change for Product Links
Through GA4 people can link more products than ever before. Companies of all sizes use the Google Marketing Platform, a unified advertising and analytics platform for marketers. Now, all GA4 customers – not just paid 360 customers – can link to Display 360 as well as Video 360 and Search Ad 360 accounts. By linking these platforms together, analytics become virtually alive.
With all the possibilities Google has created for businesses there is a higher opportunity for positive performance results. You can even optimize bidding by using GA4’s enhanced attribution modeling, including data-driven attribution.
Data-Driven Attribution is Default
Data-driven attribution is now the default in GA4 and Google Ads, giving the benefit of multi-touch attribution regardless of traffic volume. Using the data-driven attribution in GA4 gives a more complete overview of the marketing efforts because it considers both paid and organic traffic.
By exporting GA4 conversions with Google Ads and the Google Marketing Platform, you get better performance by evaluating all points that contribute to a given conversion.
Merchant Center Integration
Google recently introduced something called Merchant Center Integration, enabling retailers using Merchant Center that sell products globally to see attributions of conversions from their free product listing clicks inside of Analytics. This helps measure the direct impact of their Merchant Center product listing.
The numerous integrations in GA4 from Google Play to Search Console, to AdMob, to Firebase, and beyond, are built to allow the use of data wherever they find it most helpful. Each company differs on which metrics, data, or analytics will lead to conversions, and GA4 will help you learn which will work best for your business.
Analytics 360
If you are a large enterprise, growing at scale can bring challenges but also opportunities when it comes to utilizing data. The new Analytics 360 will aid companies in reaching these goals, building on the GA4 properties. There are increased limits for conversion types, audiences, and custom dimensions.
Now you can answer more user-defined questions and be intentional about where and how your data gets used. Large companies are complex and tend to operate in different countries with multiple product lines. The new Analytics 360 acknowledges this and customizes the structure of properties to meet the data governance needs.
Universal Analytics and GA4
You can add GA4 to an existing Universal Analytics (UA) account through dual tagging. This will allow you to continue using UA to make performance-driven decisions, while data builds in the new GA4 property. UA will only process data until July 1, 2023, at which point data will only flow into a GA4 account.
Who Uses GA4
GA4 is ready to help even the most challenging business needs. Whether you are a big company or just beginning, analytics are important to collect and GA4 is available to help businesses get the most out of their data.
If your company is ready to utilize the new GA4, Rise Marketing Group is here to assist you. We know the Google platforms and can help you get set up to collect the best data to increase your revenue. Contact us today at (413) 626-5122 or our CEO Ben Lund at ben@risemkg.com. Don’t wait, let’s set up your GA4 today!
