What the Google Analytics 4 transition means to your business

The transition from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 on July 1 has broad consequences for users of Google’s popular digital tracking platform. As of 2022, Google has the largest market share (30%) of any online data provider.

The consequences of the transition are so broad that not every business will share the same concerns. Here are the basics to know, a few of the most frequent concerns, and what it all means for businesses who previously relied on Google’s Universal Analytics (UA) tool to gather essential customer data.

1. What Happens on July 1

Google has announced that UA will stop processing web analytics on July 1, partly due to new and increasing privacy regulations around the world. Google has offered UA customers an automated transition to its Google Analytics 4 platform.

This will most affect longtime UA users who rely on customized reports designed to track the data most relevant to their business. Anyone who chooses the automated transition will not automatically receive custom events, dimensions, metrics, goals, data filters, or other advanced setups beyond Google’s default tracking and enhanced measurement events.

Imagine you have a form on your website, and UA generated a custom report that measured the number of contact form submissions you received every month. If you rely on Google’s automated transition, you will no longer receive that report, because GA4 won’t have a custom event or report configured. You’ll only have the basic Google Analytics profile, as if your website is brand new. You will need to reconfigure every customization you used previously.

2. The Role of Data Privacy

Google Analytics 4 is a response to recently enacted internet privacy laws. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect across the European Union in 2018. In short, it required businesses to be more transparent about the data they collect from visitors to their websites and apps. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) of 2018 offered similar protections to Californians, and its language has been amended multiple times since it first went into effect.

Without major changes to its platform, UA would not have been compliant with these laws because it collected end-user data without their knowledge. UA was not alone in this regard. Depending on how its tracking capabilities were configured, any organization’s website or app could be collecting more information than is legally permitted without obtaining visitor consent.

Google Analytics 4 will not collect any granular data from users in California or Europe unless specific customizations are made. Out of the box, the new platform will only collect highly anonymized statistics. Businesses who want more actionable data on their online traffic from California and Europe will need to give web users in those regions the opportunity to opt