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What's the difference between GA4 and UA to sell online?
In Google's tools suite We often see minor updates that modestly change the features of Google Analytics or their functionality. The change between Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 is a top-to-bottom service change. These two services are vastly different, particularly with regards to their data model.
- Global Analytics: UA data is generated by specific "hit kinds." If a visitor "hits" your website (such for example, a page view, clicking on social media, or an e-commerce transactions), Google Analytics collects the relevant data from the event and classifies it according to the hit type.
- Google Analytics 4: GA4 data is event-driven. If an event occurs in GA4 it will collect, store, and process the data without consideration for labels, categories, or any other action.
The brand new GA4 data model, in addition, offers an evolution away from the conventional data funnel. Universal Analytics was designed to analyze and quantify the effectiveness of online sales through the number of new customers or conversions you acquire. In reality, 70% of an organization's revenues come from customers who have already purchased as per the data taken from Review 42.
With the new data collection model in Google Analytics 4, e-commerce companies can gain a better understanding of a customer's journey using data streams. Apart from your effort to attract new customers This platform can also aid in evaluating your progress towards increasing repeat business as well as your overall revenue.
Pros of GA4 for E-Commerce
Data Security + accurate tracking
Social media laws are changing, as well as new law. regulations, and tech manufacturers are moving to protect the privacy of data. Through Universal Analytics, accurate tracking could have been detrimental to user privacy (and in reverse). However, GA4 is the best of both worlds--providing more accurate and granular information, with enhanced protection of privacy for the users.
Monetization as opposed to. Conversions
Enhances User Experience and Data Accuracy
It is likely to take some time to figure out the ropes and warm up to GA4 (especially in this early phase of development). Yet, GA4 is expected to outperform Universal Analytics in the long run. GA4's new design is expected to make GA4 easier for companies to use, better for customers (with the added privacy controls and security) and also more reliable and granular with the information it provides.
Pros and Cons of GA4 for E-Commerce
Certain groundwork is required
The data model fundamentally differs from GA4 Users must be able to move their own data collection to the new system. For users who are just getting the hang of Universal Analytics or have already completed the necessary research for their UA property, adjusting to an entirely new system could seem like a daunting task. However, Google provides a variety of tools that can help you along the route.
Presently, Google encourages e-commerce sites to have both UA and GA4 tracking in place. While building and implementing your Google Analytics 4 property, you must not change the Universal Analytics property and implementation in place (for time being).
To get started, log into your account (analytics.google.com) and follow Google's on-screen guidance to create a GA4 property. In order to track sales using GA4 it is necessary to set up and create duplicate events using the new GA4 events and their parameters. Find Google's guidance to migrating e-commerce data collection to GA4 here.
The Unpredictable Future of E-Commerce Tracking The Features
The features for tracking e-commerce on Universal Analytics have been continuously growing over the past 10 years. The latest enhanced tracking collects more information than ever before and allows users to look at this information through different lenses using multi-faceted reporting choices.
While UA4's tracking tools and capabilities are still in the development phase. It leaves plenty of unanswered questions for business owners, such as:
- What e-commerce features are expected to be part of GA4?
- When will GA4 e-commerce functions be implemented?
- How difficult will it be to master and use these new e-commerce tracking capabilities?
It is likely that Google will either have features comparable with those offered by UA fully operational prior to the cut-off time or even extend the cut-off time. But, there's no possibility of knowing with any the certainty of how this is going to unfold. Our experts will keep watching Google's launch of GA4 E-commerce capabilities and will keep our community posted.