Top 5 FAQs about Google Analytics 4: Explained

There’s a lot to learn about the Google Analytics 4 (GA4) platform, now that Universal Analytics accounts have officially stopped gathering data since July this year.  More questions are being raised as people migrate their website analytics to the new platform. It’s important to note the GA4 platform is still being regularly updated as tweaks and improvements are made.

Here, we aim to address some frequently asked questions to shed light on the new platform.

1. Why is GA4 Important?

We break down why GA4 is important to marketing in a previous blog. On the whole, Google Analytics 4 is important to provide insight into user behaviour on-site. Website analytics are essential to assess and enhance the user experience on-site and measure marketing return on investment.  

If you’re launching a shiny new website, for example, it’s important to have some kind of analytics set up so you know where to improve and can make sure users are finding what they need to! There’s nothing more frustrating for users than navigating a website in search of information. Customers or potential clients want to find an answer to their question quickly or be able to purchase as seamlessly as possible!

2. How does GA4 work?

Website analytics involves the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of website data to understand and optimise the website user experience.  

GA4 works by tracking visitors’ interactions and clicks on both websites and mobile apps. You can track how long users stay on a page, which pages they visit, and where they come to your website from, such as emails, social media, or organic search. GA4 tracks user interactions, clicks, time spent on website pages, total number of page visits and referrals from other websites.

GA4 has a main focus on event-based tracking, allowing for a more flexible and customisable approach to data collection. Events can include anything from page views, clicks, video views and user actions.

3. What are GA4 Explore Reports?

This is essentially where you can create reports from scratch that are completely unique to your needs, and help answer any questions you may have. These essentially let you dig deeper into the data than the standard reports would. For example, you may want to know where someone who completed a contact enquiry initially entered the website from. With GA4, you can trace back their steps to gain an insight into their overall journey which resulted in an enquiry.

4. Is Google Analytics 4 Free?

Google Analytics offers a free version – which is undoubtedly one of the best website analytics tools. There is a paid version, but it only offers larger quantities of the same features as the unpaid version, is more relevant to huge websites which require more storage.

It’s important to note the best bits of GA4 are available for free, and incredibly beneficial for small to medium-sized businesses. We use the free version for our own websites and across all our clients’ websites and find this incredibly insightful.

5. Does GA4 Use Cookies?

A website cookie is a small piece of text sent to your browser by a website that you visit, which then enables the website to remember information about your visit to make the site more useful to you. For example, when a website remembers what you had in your basket (this would be a first-party cookie, more on this later).

GA4 does claim to be cookie-less, however, this doesn’t mean that there is no use of cookies whatsoever. This instead means that Google Analytics does not accept or use third-party cookies. But they do use first-party cookies which are mainly to streamline the user experience on a website.

Third-party cookies are for the purpose of tracking, retargeting, and tailoring advertisements for you. These are also planned to be phased out entirely in the second half of 2024.

GA4 is intended to be a more privacy-focused platform than its predecessor, Universal Analytics. With overall tech regulation and user privacy being at the front of users’ minds due to public scandals such as Facebook’s 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, or the recent TikTok’s EU data privacy fine related to their data processing practices violations.

Google’s commitment to user privacy also includes refraining from logging or storing a user’s IP address, as Universal Analytics once did.

Embracing the future of analytics with GA4

As we unravel the layers of Google Analytics 4, it’s evident that this platform represents more than just an analytics upgrade; it’s a pivotal shift towards a more dynamic, privacy-focused, and user-centric analytics. The end of Universal Analytics in July marked the beginning of a new era, prompting a surge in inquiries and curiosity surrounding GA4.

We can help configure your GA4 to ensure you’re utilising its new and robust features. Get in touch with our team!