Photo by Stephen Phillips – Hostreviews.co.uk on Unsplash
If you manage a website, you’ll have heard of Google Analytics, the most popular analytics tool to monitor your website’s traffic and visitors. It’s estimated that almost 30 million sites worldwide use it.
While Google Analytics has evolved over the years, one of the most significant updates, since the product was launched, is now with us, and that’s G4. The release of G4 includes some powerful features to enable you to make smarter marketing decisions.
What is Google Analytics 4 all about?
Rolled out earlier in 2021, Google Analytics 4 (G4) is currently running alongside the existing platform, and will eventually replace it. Existing Google Analytics users can set up the new platform and run it alongside their existing setup while they’re getting used to it. If you’re an SEO agency or running your site yourself, it will be a game changer.
New Features In G4
Data controls
Data is crucial to making decisions based, which is why G4 lets you drill further down into the data than ever before.
In particular, the traffic and user acquisitions tab is now a lot easier to get a visual overview of where you stand.
You can now also use custom comparisons across your data channels. Overall, you’ll be able to see changes from week to week.
Google Ads Integration
Keep track of your advertising budgets by fully integrating your Google Ads PPC campaigns. When linked you can track audiences and conversion sites. You’ll be able to use the data to improve your conversions.
Customer focus
As a marketer, you need to know as much about your audience as possible. You can set up your dashboard depending on how your customer engages with the content on your site. Get a holistic view of how your customer is moving about your site. Rather than piecing the information together from different sources.
Improved smart insights
Previous smart insights in Google have been pretty hit and miss. Improved options for customisation can produce insights that actually mean something to you.
Learning G4’s new features
The new platform has been designed to be more intuitive to use and gain a more granular understanding of your traffic, and ads. The new interface should make it easier for you to spot trends and adapt your strategy accordingly when it comes to your SEO.
At present, both analytics platforms can be run alongside each other, and Google recommends you do this for a period of time before switching to G4 permanently. It will give you time to get used to new features and interface so that you aren’t losing out on any insights while you’re getting up to speed.
Takeaways
Google has put a lot of thought into the latest version of analytics. G4 represents a major step forward. It’s new interface lets you see a holistic overview of your data while also giving you the ability to drill down into the data to see a granular view. Having accurate and detailed data will put you in the very best position to make important decisions about your marketing and your website.
