Your Google Analytics will stoping working in...
What does this mean for me?
After 10 years “Universal Analytics”, Google has made the decision to retire the current version of Google Analytics in favour of GA4 which was first released two years ago. From the 1st July your Analytics integration will stop working and no new data will be collected. At some point in the future I would expect your account to also be deleted – this is yet to be confirmed by Google.
As a result you will need to move to GA4 if you want to continue using Google Analytics. The good news is there is plenty of time to make the move and you can run both accounts simultaneously.
Why GA4?
- Can work without cookies
- New anonymisation features and data deletion features
- Allows you to track multiple properties, e.g. website and mobile app
- New user interface
- New reporting
- Better e-commerce tracking
- Built in event tracking, to better track behaviour such as scrolls and clicks
What do I need to do?
This will largely depend on what functionality you use, however below is a basic checklist:
Minimum Requirements
Item |
Who/where/what |
Create new GA4 property |
Anyone with access to your existing Analytics account can do this. |
Create data streams |
Anyone with access to your existing Analytics account can do this. This is where you set-up your website and/or app. This will then give you instructions to add to your website. |
Add to your website |
Your CMS |
You might also need…
Item |
Who/where/what |
Migrate Event Tracking |
Your website or app may have event tracking that sends events when users carry our a particular action, such as adding a product to their basket or completing a contact form. This will need updating via your website code or Google Tag Manager account. |
Filter out unwanted users and traffic |
You may want to consider filtering different traffic. This works slightly differently in GA4 where you mark traffic, for example you might want to tag traffic from your office IP as “Internal” and traffic to your test site as “Test site”, then it can easily be filtered out of your reporting. |
Re-link Google Ads (aka Adwords) |
This can easily be done by anyone with access to both accounts |
Add ecommerce measurement |
If you run an ecommerce site, chances are you have transaction data pulling through. This will need to be migrated over by your developer or via Google Tag Manager. |