1) What is GA4?

GA4 is the new way of measuring apps and websites together in Google Analytics. We could say GA4 is the new normal. The sooner you get familiar with it, the easier it will be to play the analytics game.

For those not using a 360 version of Analytics, GA4 has added new capabilities, making the following features available for everyone:

• BigQuery Integration (available now)
• GA360 Analysis Tool (allows for user journey analysis and a deep dive into your data) (available now)
• DV360 Integration (Roadmapped for H1/2021)
• SA360 Integration (Roadmapped for H1/2021)
• Salesforce Integration (Roadmapped for 2022)

2) How is GA4 going to help advertisers in a cookieless era?

The new era will rely on machine learning to model results in reports, giving advertisers an overview that’s as close as possible to the truth. Any measurement tool will have to face this. GA4 will improve the limited automation scenario we have experienced with Universal Analytics and will bring in machine learning capabilities to automate events measurements, and custom insights.

3) Could you give us an example of a change introduced by GA4?

In Universal Analytics, you are required to identify, define and implement all interactions that you think are crucial for your measurement – this requires hands on GTM or additional code in your implementation. GA4 introduces a new procedure for this task, by enabling marketers to track crucial actions without implementing any code (thanks to events measurements being automatically collected).

4) What is the best advice you can give to new GA4 users?

The first thing to keep in mind is that we are moving from a session based reporting tool, to an event based reporting tool. Primarily I would suggest working on thoroughly mapping an existing UA implementation with the new data schema (provided by GA4), and then start playing around with the reports.

For more information see our previous blog Exploring GA4: FAQ with our Expert Consultants