How to migrate from Google Analytics 3 (Universal Analytics) to Google Analytics 4
As of 16th March 2022 Google marked a departure from Google Analytics 3 (Universal Analytics) to their new platform Google Analytics 4.
On a recent blog post, Google laid out the key dates for your migration journey to Google Analytics 4, and the timelines are not as generous as we all hoped!
Things to note when planning your Google Analytics 4 migration
Google have said the following:
All standard Universal Analytics properties will stop processing new hits on July 1, 2023, and 360 Universal Analytics properties will stop processing new hits on October 1, 2023.
After that, you’ll be able to access your previously processed data in Universal Analytics for at least six months.
What does this mean for Google Analytics 3 (Universal Analytics) data?
Well, if you are using the free version of Google Analytics 3, then your Google Analytics property will not longer collect data after 1st July 2023.
Any reports that you use for Google Analytics 3, whether that’s regular reports in the Google Analytics interface or a Google Data Studio dashboard, will need to be migrated to Google Analytics 4 data.
What do I need to do to migrate to Google Analytics 4?
If you rely on Google Analytics 3 data, then you should take steps in the short term to migrate across to Google Analytics 4. This is particularly important if you often use historical data and look at year on year trends.
If you tend to look at year on year trends, you will need to migrate your tracking and goals over to Google Analytics 4 before the end of June to ensure that you have sufficient data to do year on year comparisons from 1st July 2023, when the data will no longer flow into your Google Analytics 4 property.
Migration steps for Google Analytics 4
We recommend taking the following steps to ensure that you are in the best place possible for the end of Google Analytics 3 and the start of your Google Analytics 4 journey.
Step 1: Review existing Universal Analytics tracking
You’ll probably find that your current tracking setup has some old tracking that you are no longer using, this is a good time to remove any old tracking before you start setting up Google Analytics 4 tracking and tags.
Step 2: Review existing Universal Analytics reporting
If you are the kind of person who hoards reports, this might be a bigger task for you. But it’s worth the time to review all of your reporting and establish what the most essential parts of your reporting are. At present Google Data Studio is not capable of reporting on event tracking for Google Analytics 4 as it does for Google Analytics 3, so in the short term you may find your reports are not as comprehensive using Google Analytics 4 data.
Have a think about what data is essential for your reporting and work backwards from there.
Step 3: Migrate any necessary tracking to Google Analytics 4
Once you’ve established what tracking you might need in Google Analytics 4, it’s time to start migrating that tracking across to the new format. Event tracking in Google Analytics 4 is quite different to Google Analytics 3 so your reporting will change a little.
Step 4: Update any reporting to use Google Analytics 4 data
When you have a clear idea of your essential go to reporting, you can start to build new reports. Google Analytics 4 has some interesting new metrics, and opportunities to learn more about visitors using the new custom exploration reports in Google Analytics 4.
Unfortunately, at this stage Google Data Studio has only limited reporting options for Google Analytics 4, if you only need access to basic reporting then the Google Analytics interface should be enough, but if you are used to complex dashboards with lots of customisation then you will probably need to look at integrating data between Google Analytics 4, Google BigQuery and Looker Studio to get those essential insights and datasets. Bear in mind that this is a more advanced setup, and will require some technical knowledge of SQL.
Step 5: Benchmark data across Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4
Finally, once your reporting and tracking is in place, it’s important to benchmark data between the two platforms. Google Analytics 4 has a completely different data model and a different set of reporting options from Google Analytics 3, so make sure you get a good understanding of the differences between the data that each platform will give you. It’s almost certain that you will get (at least) slightly different answers from Google Analytics 4 compared to Google Analytics 3.
Step 6: Keep up to date with Google Analytics 4 updates and improvements
At this point in time Google Analytics 4 is very much “in development”, this means that there are lots of new features being added regularly which provide new configuration and reporting options.
If you are serious about using Google Analytics 4 then you should keep up to date with the latest Google Analytics 4 announcements, you can find regular update information here.