Google Analytics 4 (GA4) 2024 Updates: A Comprehensive Guide
Introduction
As we navigate the first half of 2024, Google Analytics 4 (GA 4) continues to evolve with exciting updates designed to empower your data analysis.
This blog post is your one-stop shop for understanding the key updates implemented from January to June 2024 and optimize your GA 4 property to its top capabilities.
So, buckle up and get ready to unlock the full potential of GA4 for the first half of 2024!
Google Universal Analytics 360 Final Shutdown – Migrate to GA 4
Mark the Date!!
As we are all headed towards the 2nd half of 2024, 1st of July 2024 is going to be the final day for all the Google Universal Analytics 360 properties.
What will happen on 1st of July 2024:
- No new measurement of conversion under goals and ecommerce transactions linked to advertising accounts in UA 360.
- Audience builder will be only accessible in Google analytics 4.
- Revoked access to UA 360 API request including data deletion and in looker studio
- Access to historical data in Universal Analytics 360 properties till June 30th 2024 through Big Query
- Deletion of Attribution projects in Google Universal Analytics 360.
If you haven’t migrated to Google analytics 4 yet, its high time you do so. Book a consultation with Softcrylic and get expert guidance for your digital experience platforms and migrate to GA 4 property.
Google Analytics 4 Updates
Here we have compiled essential GA 4 updates that happened in the last 2 quarter of year 2024, which can be useful for your business use case:
January Updates
Universal Analytics 360 alternative reports in Google Analytics 4
With deprecation of Universal Analytics 360 features, google released alternative reports in GA 4.
Here is the list of UA 360 features that got deprecated in January 2024 and its alternatives in GA 4.
| Universal Analytics 360 | Google Analytics 4 |
| Realtime reports | GA4 Realtime report |
| Lifetime Value report | GA4 User lifetime exploration |
| Model Explorer | |
| Cohort Analysis | GA4 Cohort exploration |
| iTunes Conversion Tracking | GA4 App conversion tracking |
| Conversion Probability report | GA4 Predictive metrics |
| GDN Impression Beta | Attribution reporting |
Google Analytics 4 Audience builder integration within Google Ads
With the latest Google Analytics 4 update in first half of 2024, Google Ads allows GA 4 users to directly create Audience for remarketing and campaigns with in Google Ads platforms.
Steps to Access Audience Builder in Google Ads platform:
- Go to Google Ads Platform > Tools in left panel
- Access Shared Library > Audience Manager
- Under Audience Manager > Your Data Segment > Click + icon
- Select “+ Google Analytics” in the drop-down menu
- Select the respective Google Analytics 4 property in panel from which we want to use the audience data > Click Continue.
Pre-requisite: Ensure that you have the at least “Marketer” Access to the Google Ads platform within the Google Analytics 4 property from which you want to bring in the Audience data. (Find the User access in the Product Linking in GA 4 Admin settings)
- Once done correctly, the Audience Builder Console similar to GA 4 will appear in the Google Ads platform that you can utilize to build Audience for remarketing or Campaign purpose.
GA 4 In product help for New Users
Google Analytics 4 added an In product help functionality to enhance user experience and provide instant support.
You can access these new options through help button in the top-right corner of top navigation of Google Analytics 4 report.
Type of options available in the updated GA 4 In-product help are:
February Updates
New Manual traffic source dimensions in Google Analytics 4
The Manual report is a pre-made detail report that shows how effective your manually tagged campaigns were at driving traffic to your website or app.
Google analytics 4 added 8 new manual traffic source dimensions that you can utilize across paid & organic traffic analysis with in cross-channel reporting, explorations, segments, and audiences for user behavior and performance analysis.
List of Manual traffic source dimensions:
The session-scoped dimensions are also available in a new Manual report, which you can access by clicking View Manual campaigns in the Acquisition overview report in the Life cycle collection.
Firebase SDK Event parameter character limits in GA 4
In February 2024, Google Analytics 360 received an update specifically for users leveraging the Google Analytics for Firebase SDK for mobile apps. This update increased the character limit for event parameter values collected through the SDK.
Previously, the limit was set at 100 characters, which could restrict the level of detail captured for certain events. With the update, this limit was raised to 500 characters for GA360 users.
Google Analytics 4 Trend detection insight
Google Analytics 4 (GA 4) introduced Trend Change Detection Insights in the first half of 2024 updates. This update identifies significant, and long-term changes in websites or application data.
Benefits of Trend Detection Insights:
Upgraded Advertising Reporting Section
Google Analytics 4 updated the Advertising section to consolidate all the necessary advertisers and publishers related reports into single panel.
The following reports are available in the Advertising section:
March Updates
UA 360 features deprecation – Alternatives in GA 4
First Google analytics platform update for March 2024 was, they deprecated more reports and features for Universal analytics 360 properties.
Here is the list of UA 360 features that got deprecated in March 2024 and its alternatives in GA 4.
Conversions in GA 4 renamed as “Key Events”
In an effort to unify terminology across Google Analytics (GA4) and Google Ads platforms, Google renamed “Conversions” to “Key Events” within GA4. This change ensures consistent use of the term across both platforms, minimizing confusion for users who leverage both tools.
Now all the important events are marked as “Key events”, which further can be imported into advertising platforms and any of the “key events” imported into advertising platforms are marked as “conversions”.
These conversions are then reflected in the Conversion Performance report in Advertising Reporting Section.
April Updates
Get Tailored Recommendations in GA 4
GA 4 ensures that you are utilizing all the capabilities of the platforms and at full capacity. Thus, they will provide you tailored recommendations from time to time in form to score card under insights.
Google may show you one or more of the following recommendations to help you get more out of Google Analytics:
Types of recommendations
Integrate Salesforce with Google Analytics 4
GA4 now allows you to import offline sales data directly from Salesforce, a popular Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform.
This bridges the gap between online website/app behavior tracked in GA4 and offline sales activities managed in Salesforce.
To import offline Salesforce data on Leads and Opportunities using Data Import, complete the following steps:
- Click Admin, then under Data collection and modification, click Data import.
- Click Create data source and Name your data source.
- Enter a name for your data source.
- Select Offline events data as the data type.
- Click Review terms if prompted and accept the User Data Collection Acknowledgement. This is a prerequisite for uploading offline events and/or user data.
- Under Upload data for import select Salesforce as the Import source.
- Authenticate with Salesforce in the popup window that appears.
- Select the Import schedule. Note that standard properties support daily import while Analytics 360 customers can select hourly.
- Click Next.
- Choose the Salesforce milestones and fields you want to measure as Analytics events. See Step 7, Step 8, and Step 9, below.
- Click Import. After the initial import the data will be imported as scheduled.
View the official Salesforce and GA 4 integration documentation for setting up Salesforce platform with GA 4.
May Updates
Create and Save Comparisons in GA 4
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) now lets you save comparisons you frequently use. This saves time by eliminating the need to rebuild them each time you want to analyze the same user groups.
How to create Saved comparisons:
- Select Comparisons in the Reports
- Click on Create new with in the Comparison creation panel
- Define Comparison conditions (up to 5) and click Save
Additionally, you can leverage your existing audience lists as conditions within these saved comparisons.
This allows for more sophisticated comparisons based on your most valuable user segments. For instance, you could create a saved comparison that specifically focuses on “high value users” defined within your audience list. Simply create an audience and search for Audience Name with in the condition.
Toggle Visualization for Trend Charts in GA 4
You can view your line chart data by day, week, or month, depending on the level of detail you need.
Overall, the ability to switch between daily, weekly, and monthly trend lines empowers you to gain a comprehensive understanding of your website or app’s performance at different time granularities. This flexibility allows you to identify short-term fluctuations, uncover recurring patterns, and track long-term trends, ultimately providing valuable insights to optimize your marketing strategies.
To switch between day, week, and month:
- Navigate to your desired GA4 report with a line chart.
- Click the drop-down menu in the top right corner of the line chart.
- Choose between day, week, or month.
June Updates
Review the Users Activities in Last 5 minutes
The Realtime report in Google Analytics 4 now includes a more granular view of user activity, showing “Users in the last 5 minutes” with an enhanced bar graph so you can more clearly see how many users are on your site or app per minute.
Benefits of Real Time reporting:
Paid Search attribution Modelling Update
Google analytics 4 worked on to rectify the attribution modelling, which tend to credit the conversion that happened by paid search to organic search, most commonly for Single-page applications.
The main reason for this was ‘gclid’ parameter which did not persist across page views
This update will adjust attribute conversions to ensure campaign information is accurately captured on the first event of each page. If a user leaves the site and returns through a different channel, the attribution will update accordingly.
GA 4 and Meta integration (Beta Update)
Recently Meta introduced a Beta feature (rolled out for few accounts only), enabling users to directly integrate two platforms.
This will allow GA 4 users to quickly connect to Meta account, without following usual UTM parameter method. Also simplifying implementation and mapping conversion events between GA 4 for between tracking.
High Time to Migrate to GA 4
With the Final dead line for UA 360 (July 1st 2024) just around the corner, Google has already advised its users to migrate to GA 4 from Universal Analytics in order to avoid data loss and ensure accurate data processing and reporting.
Though Google has also provided a comprehensive documentation which act as a guide on How to migrate from Universal analytics to GA 4, still it can be a daunting task.
Thus, its highly advisable to seek guidance and support from professional in terms of setting up and implementing analytics tool for your digital platform and online business, as GA 4 is not merely an update of Universal analytics, but a completely different platform as we have already discussed above.
How an analytic tool fetch, process and generate data solely depends upon how it was set up on first hand. And a research identified that inaccurate data has a direct impact on the bottom line of 88% companies, with an average company losing 12% of its revenue.
Softcrylic is a Google Certified partner, with 20+ years of experience 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 from their analytics tools.
Get the best out of your GA 4 platform, talk to our consultant today.
