Data is an essential driver of your business—the collection and analysis of your website and app data helps you segment your customers, make marketing modifications, and track your metrics. If you aren’t properly set up for Google Analytics 4 (GA4), you’re missing out on extensive website tracking and losing valuable data that can be used to further drive your business.

On July 1, 2023, Universal Analytics (the previous Google Analytics software) stopped processing new website data, and on July 1, 2024, all users will lose access to the Universal Analytics interface and API. That’s why it’s crucial to get logged in to GA4 for continued success.

Are You Prepared for the Upcoming GA4 Deadline?

What Is GA4?

GA4, or Google Analytics 4, is the next generation of the web and app analytics platform offered by Google. It replaces the previous Universal Analytics platform and offers enhanced reporting, predictive insights, and more. Some of the key features of GA4 include:

• Event-based measurement: Unlike Universal Analytics that relied on session-based data, GA4 tracks visitor interactions as events, providing a more granular understanding of the customer journey.
• Cross-platform tracking: GA4 seamlessly integrates website and app data, giving you a unified view of user behavior across different platforms.
• Better privacy: Built with privacy regulations in mind, GA4 offers features like cookieless measurement and data modeling to help you comply with evolving privacy standards.
• Predictive insights: GA4 uses machine learning to predict future trends, identify churn risk, and offer automated insights, helping you make more informed marketing decisions.
• Direct integrations: GA4 integrates directly with various Google marketing platforms, streamlining your campaign management and analysis.

GA4 offers actionable insights to auto dealerships, giving you a deeper understanding of your customers’ online behaviors and engagement across different touchpoints for smarter, data-driven strategies.

GA4 vs. Universal Analytics: What’s the Difference?

While switching over to a new system can be a hassle, this one is worth the upgrade for the flexible, customizable reports and machine-learning insights that help you optimize website SEO—and profitability. Here’s how GA4 compares to Universal Analytics, or UA:

• Data modeling: UA is session-based, focusing on page views and user journeys within sessions; GA4 is event-based, tracking individual user interactions like page views, clicks, and more, providing a more granular view.
• Platform tracking: UA requires additional setup for cross-platform tracking, but GA4 tracks both website and app data within the same property, offering a unified view of visitor behavior across platforms.
• Privacy: UA relies heavily on cookies, making it less compliant, while GA4 offers cookieless measurement and data modeling to comply with stricter privacy standards.
• Insights and analysis: UA offers standard reports and custom reports with limited predictive capabilities; GA4 leverages machine learning to provide predictive insights into future customer behavior.

GA4 offers a more flexible, privacy-focused, and insightful approach to understanding user behavior compared to Universal Analytics, helping your dealership stay ahead of the ever-changing online landscape.

How to Migrate Your Data to GA4

Google offers a GA4 Setup Assistant, which can guide you through the process. You’ll want to create a new GA4 property, add your data streams, and implement the GA4 tracking tags.

While your historical UA conversion data won’t transfer, you can use the “Goals migration tool” to import existing goals as conversion events in GA4. Be sure to recreate important custom events from UA in GA4 to track specific user interactions, and set up audience segments in GA4 based on user attributes and behavior.

You’ll notice that the new GA4 dashboard is more streamlined, but many of your usual reports and settings have been renamed, moved, or deleted. However, the GA4 dashboard is completely customizable, enabling you to view the metrics that matter most to your store.

Let Our Experts Help With Your GA4 Setup

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the upcoming GA4 deadline, we get it. Designing and maintaining an effective dealership website can be daunting, in addition to gathering and analyzing the most important metrics. Our industry experts are here to audit and optimize your GA4 migration process, ensuring that you continue to collect the most critical data insights and have access to all the benefits of Google Analytics 4.

Contact us today if you have questions about GA4 or want assistance with your GA4 migration before you lose access to UA on July 1, 2024.