7 milestones to execute full GA4 implementation – step by step

Monika Maor

#Analytics

#All

Monika Maor

Senior Web Analyst

The Sun has begun to set over the Universal Analytics planet. As of July 1, 2023 the free version of this tool will stop collecting new data from websites. It’s the dawn of a new era in web analytics – the dawn of Google Analytics 4. How can I navigate this change with no losses to my business? The best thing to do would be to follow our checklist of 7 milestones and 72 detailed steps that will help you implement the new system in your organization.

Google Analytics 4 – new tool

Analysts and marketers who are currently implementing GA4 are learning many new mechanisms and ways of measuring, visualization and the possibility of using the collected data. Analytics is making changes to user- and event-based measurement, not sessions. It allows you to integrate data from mobile apps and websites into one coherent source of truth. It basically uses machine learning to generate conclusions and suggestions, but also to complete the missing links of the conversion path based on modeling. Even in its free version, GA4 enables integration with BigQuery for advanced data analysis and provides powerful reporting and visualization tools. Nothing has changed in terms of how it also allows for consistent marketing activities thanks to direct connections with selected tools within the Google Marketing Platform. GA4 will provide your business not only with numbers to enhance your media optimization, but rather with real functionalities that can develop it. However, to make it happen, it is important to combine efforts of both marketing and analytics from the very onset of the implementation process.

Challenges during the implementation

While implementing Google Analytics 4, a new tool for measuring traffic and events on websites, marketers have to face a couple of challenges.The moment has come to rethink your web analytics strategy so that it is tailored to the needs of each department of your company that requires data for their own type of analysis. Therefore, before you kick off your implementation, it’s important to find answers to a few questions: What and why do we measure? How do we utilize segments on advertising platforms? Do we respect user privacy requirements and what mechanisms do we use to ensure that? How do we want to integrate web analytics data with our proprietary data? Above all, how do we implement GA4 to leverage its full potential? Once we understand our business needs, we can focus on the technicalities.

Follow your action plan

Make sure you start the whole process with learning the functionalities of GA4 and the possibilities of the tool based on the materials available on the Google Support pages. You’ll also need to train those marketing teams that have so far followed Universal’s well-known paths.

What you will also need is time to get used to the new look of the panel, which is quite customizable when it comes to setting the view of reports available immediately/off-the-shelf. However, before this happens, it is necessary to implement Google Analytics 4 precisely, tailored to the needs of the business.

In order to handle this process following the best practices and not omit any important functionality, we have prepared for you a free checklist.

>>Download a free checklist of 7 milestones to help you get the full potential out of GA4<<

How can we help you seamlessly implement GA4?

We offer end-to-end assistance in adapting to the new world without cookies. We validate data in GA4 with clients, help implement GA4 properly, and then teach marketing teams how to use it effectively, from the basics to advanced scenarios. Our consulting and training services are there to ensure the smoothness of our clients’ business during these great changes that are affecting the digital marketing industry.

What we offer:

GA4 implementations comes in two packages:

Basic package: covers migration of key data from Universal Analytics to GA4.
Advanced package: you additionally get e‑commerce configuration and tracking of non-standard measures and metrics.

GA4 audit comes in two packages:

Basic package covers the analysis and check of the correctness of the settings in the GA4 panel, and the preparation of relevant documentation.
Advanced package: it’s all the basic package covers + validation of data Layers and tags in Google Tag Manager

Reporting and data visualization

Our offer covers the creation and customization of the reports to the Client’s needs, directly in the GA4 panel and/or the creation of a dashboard relying on data from GA4 in the Looker Studio tool. You’re going to receive tailor-made reports that will facilitate data analysis.