Google announced last year that Universal Analytics (the version of Google Analytics most businesses have been using since 2012) will be retired on 1 July 2023. From that date, it stops recording new data.

That is eighteen months away. That sounds like plenty of time. It is not.

GA4 builds historical data from the day you set it up. Wait until June 2023 and you have one month of data to compare against. Set it up now and you have eighteen months.

What is the difference between UA and GA4?

Universal Analytics was built when most internet users were on desktop and websites functioned as discrete sessions. GA4 is built for a world of mobile usage, apps, privacy regulation and browser-based tracking that is under pressure.

The biggest differences:

Event-based, not session-based UA counts page views and sessions. GA4 counts events: everything the user does on the page. This provides more flexible and detailed data.

Better across devices GA4 can connect user journeys across desktop, mobile and app. UA did not handle this well.

Privacy-ready GA4 is built for a world without third-party cookies and with stricter privacy legislation. IP addresses are automatically anonymised, for example.

Different interface GA4 takes some time to learn. Reports look different. Some things you are used to finding in UA are in different places in GA4, or named differently.

What should you do now?

Step 1: Create a GA4 property You can run UA and GA4 in parallel. Create a GA4 property in Google Analytics and add the tracking code to your website today. Do not wait.

Step 2: Set up conversion events GA4 does not track conversions automatically in the same way as UA. You need to define which events count as conversions: contact form submitted, phone number clicked, order completed.

Step 3: Familiarise yourself with the interface Use the coming months to learn GA4 while you still have UA as a backup. Explore the reports, set up custom dashboards and understand what the data is telling you.

Step 4: Plan the transition Well before July 2023, you should have a complete GA4 setup that covers what you need. Make a list of the reports you use regularly in UA and verify you can find equivalent reports in GA4.

Do not lose historical data

UA data does not disappear on 1 July 2023: you can still read it. But after that date, no new events are recorded. Export important historical reports and save them so you can compare over time.

An opportunity to clean things up

The GA4 transition is a good occasion to tidy up your tracking setup generally. Many websites have Google Tag Manager with old code, duplicate tags and events nobody uses any more. Set up GA4 correctly from the start rather than copying over a messy setup.

Need help setting up GA4 correctly and making sure you are measuring what actually matters? Get in touch.