GA4 Setup and Migration Services

Google Analytics is an important part of your overall marketing strategy. Without it, you likely won’t know where you’re achieving success and where you have opportunities to improve your website and the content you’re offering your audience.

However, soon Universal Analytics will sunset, and all Google Analytics users will have to migrate to Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Universal Analytics will only be available until July 2023, so the time to transition is right now. Don’t worry, though — switching to Google Analytics 4 is a breeze with help from our migration experts. Our GA4 Setup and Migration Services pros are here to help you!

What is GA4?

GA4 is the next generation of Google Analytics. It’s a new property that collects website and app data to better understand your customers’ journeys. This property utilizes machine learning to predict purchase probability and churn for each individual who visits your website or app. It uses event-based information rather than session-based data and focuses on Active Users versus Total Users.

What’s the Difference Between GA4 and UA?

Is there a difference between GA4 vs. UA? In fact, there is.

UA utilizes a session-based model, which groups interactions within a specific timeframe. During sessions, UA collects and stores interactions, but a single session can have multiple hits, depending on how someone engages with your website. UA tracks data based on page views. So, when a page is loaded, UA tracks that pageview; however, if the user doesn’t prompt a new page to load, that activity won’t be tracked, so actions like clicking to play videos aren’t measured. To measure these types of events, UA needs the help of Google Tag Manager, which can be extremely time-consuming and complicated to set up and monitor.

GA4 is an event-based model, meaning users’ interactions are collected and stored as events within the property. This means you can see things like pageviews, button clicks, and user actions that more fully specify the actions people are taking to add further context to how people are interacting with your site or app. Although some functionality of GA4 will still need the assistance of Google Tag Manager, many events will be handled automatically through the new platform.

How to Migrate to the New Analytics Platform

This GA4 migration guide will walk you through the steps to migrate to a Google Analytics 4 property.

If you create a new GA property today, you’ll notice that Google already recommends GA4 as the default.

First, head to analytics.google.com and choose the blue “Create Property” option in the Admin area. Now, name your property and choose your reporting time zone and currency.

Once that’s set up, you’ll need to map your UA custom events to GA4, then migrate your UA goals and conversion to GA4. This is where you’re translating your current measurement approach — including pageviews, events, and custom dimensions — into the GA4 schema. Once that’s set up, you’ll need to map your UA custom events to GA4, then migrate your UA goals and conversion to GA4. This is where you’re translating your current measurement approach — including pageviews, events, and custom dimensions — into the GA4 schema.

If you’re unsure how to do this or get stuck, our GA4 services team is happy to help!

GA4 FAQs

As a GA4 consulting firm, many of our clients are asking how to migrate to GA4. A Google Analytics 4 migration can be pretty complicated, particularly for people who aren’t in the system every day. As such, we wanted to offer some direction to questions our Google Analytics Services team is frequently asked.

Contact ZGM for Your GA4 Migration Needs

Since we’re the digital marketing agency that Connecticut trusts, we wanted to tell you that we’re here for you. We know this is a tough time as marketers scramble to learn the future of analytics; that’s why our full-service digital marketing team is here to assist. Reach out to us today to learn how we can help you migrate from UA to GA4 easily!