Google Analytics 4 (GA 4) 2024 Complete Review

GA 4 2024 Review

As of today, Google analytics hold the 1^st rank with about 70% market share in analytics platforms used by approx. 47 million users across world. Source.

As 2024 comes to an end, there are mix emotions related to GA 4 platform in the analytics community, where one group is holding a positive view towards the platform, whereas other groups are not so!

The topic users largely concerned about are:

1. Data discrepancy within GA 4 and UA,
2. Inaccuracy in the traffic reports,
3. Issue with GA 4 and Google ads integration
4. Bot traffic impact GA 4 data.

Here are few points we might need to understand towards GA 4.

GA 4 is not a successor of Universal analytics, rather a completely new platform based on different data processing model which focus on events and parameters, rather than utilizing sessions and pageviews. This eliminates the heavy dependency on third party cookies and ensure more accurate results. Thus, this fundamental difference in data model can also lead to data discrepancy between GA 4 and UA.

Not only that, in the era of cookie less tracking GA 4 is making its mark by integrating machine learning and AI capabilities alongside it to bridge the gap in the data acquired from consented vs non consented users, thus offering more robust and detailed reports.

GA 4 is constantly under heavy development, and In 2024, Google released numerous updates related for Google analytics 4, in order to provide more accurate and reliable data to its users.

Softcrylic did a complete review of GA 4 in term of tracking, reporting and user interface capabilities and here is the difference we found between two platforms:

GA 4 Edge over Universal analytics

Web and Mobile tacking in a single property.

GA 4 allows for single property and single data stream for tracking desktop and mobile based applications. Earlier in universal analytics we had to create separate property to track application and website tracking.

This allows marketer to have more robust and detailed data in a single report.

Enhanced User Privacy and Cookie/IP less tracking

Since Universal Analytics used to build reports based on Sessions and pageviews, it relied more on tracking cookies and IPs for accurate data processing, and somewhat ignoring user privacy concerns.

As the digital world is moving towards cookie less tracking era this became a major constraint for Universal analytics model to provide accurate results.

On the other hand, google analytics 4 has event based data model, which has less dependency on Cookies due to its enhanced data privacy controls, predictive modeling and attribution capabilities.

Enhanced Measurement in GA 4

One of the amazing features that GA 4 has delivered to its users are more predefined tracking and enhanced measurement capabilities, which empowers the users to create more detailed and robust reports, with a single code of snippet.

Apparently, this function was not available in universal analytics.

Machine Learning and Data modelling capabilities

As already mentioned, the digital world is moving towards a cookie less tracking era, with strict GDPR laws, and adblockers towards user privacy. Due to this it’s becoming more complex for analytics tools to provide accurate data.

GA 4 with its machine learning capabilities and behavioral data model can help in bridging that gap and provide more enhanced reports.

This can allow to predict and create audiences from users based on behavioral data, who are expected to make a purchase or generate revenue in next 28 days.

Free BigQuery and Google Ads integration with GA 4

Previously BigQuery was only available to Universal analytics 360 users, but with GA 4, even standard users can integrate their GA 4 property with it and enjoy the benefits of multi cloud, and serverless data warehouse, allowing them to perform more in-depth analysis. Only caveat, you need to have knowledge of SQL.

Also, Google Ads integration with GA 4 has become essential, as in order to access attribution and pathing report in Google analytics UI.

Once connected you can access the report from Advertising > Attribution > Attribution Paths and Attribution Models

Advance search capabilities with GA 4 search bar

Search bar feature is not a new thing in GA 4 compared to universal analytics. But in terms of usability, it is way beyond what universal analytics search bar could do.

All of us who had the fortune of working with universal analytics might remember that it delivered only few results in term of reporting, insights searched.

But in term of GA 4, we can directly ask questions in search bar and see insights based on that, for example number of conversions in USA in last week or total number of users who visited the site. Its auto suggest feature also help in provide more relevant results in the panel.

These are just few of the many features that GA 4 is providing to its user compared to universal analytics.

Now let’s look at what another feature we would love to see/expect in 2025 in GA 4 that were prevalent in Universal analytics.

Universal analytics Data filtering options

In universal analytics we had the concept of data views and filters, unlike GA 4 which does not offer us Views, but data streams.

View was sort of container within a property which allowed us to filter the data based on multiple criteria’s namely:

Predefined filters:

1. Exclude/Include only traffic from the ISP domain
2. Exclude/Include only traffic from the IP addresses
3. Exclude/Include only traffic to the subdirectories
4. Exclude/Include only traffic to the hostname

Beside predefined filters, we could create our own custom filter to exclude that data based on our choices using few operates likes exclude, include, lowercase/uppercase, search & replace and advanced.

Currently GA 4 only allows us to utilize IP address to filter out the data within a property.

Difference in the Session Calculation

In Universal Analytics, a session can comprise multiple page views, events, social interactions, and ecommerce transactions. Sessions are typically defined as having ended once there has been a 30-minute period of inactivity or another qualifying reset event has occurred.

Google Analytics 4 session metrics are derived from the “session_start” event, an automatically collected event. The duration of a session is based on the time span between the first and last event in the session. This and other nuances can lead to sessionization differences between your Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 properties.

Collections and Reporting

Google analytics 4 uses the concept of Collections and reporting unlike universal analytics, where collection is a group of multiple reports.

There are few reports in GA 4, which are not predefined and user have to use a much complex path to add them to their Collection and reporting views

Cohort Reports:

Those of us who had worked on Universal analytics might remember using Cohort report. Those were predefined report which were available under “Audience section” as Cohort Analysis

In GA 4 we have Retention reports available, but it does not comprise of Cohort tables.

To access the Cohort table in GA 4, you can access it through Exploration tab, and Cohort exploration.

Funnel Reports:

Funnel Reports are one of the most essential reports which marketers can use to understand the customer journey for a specific stage and utilize it to reduce friction in the process of conversion.

In universal analytics, there were 3 funnel report which we could access under Conversion > Goals > Funnel visualization:

1. Funnel Visualization,
2. Shopping Behavior, and
3. Checkout Behavior.

Under GA 4, we only have access to Funnel visualization. Also accessing this visualization as a report is a daunting task.

The order to use a funnel visualization as a report within GA 4, we first need to configure it with in Exploration tab, then share it with in Library (Need to have access to Library as well), then publish it as a report within a collection.

Not to forget, if you misconfigure anything in the Funnel viz post publishing, you need to update it with in exploration tab again and repeat the process!

Make your data work with GA 4.

Even with its current limitations, google analytics 4 is a great tool which can help you not only analyze, but also improve your digital experience platform, WHEN setup and configured correctly.

Softcrylic is certified partner for Google and Adobe analytics, with an experience of 20+ year in the field of MarTech and has been supporting large and small enterprises in setting up and guiding in accurate data collection model and generate meaningful and goal-oriented insights.