Better Safe Than Sorry: How to prepare for the end of the Google Universal Analytics Era
If you’re using Google Analytics or Google Ads for your web properties, this message is for you!
One Quick Self-Assessment
On July 1, 2023 Google Universal Analytics (GUA) will stop working and you need to be prepared. The first step you need to take is to assess if you will be affected and to what extent.
You can do a quick 3-minute audit of your site using this free tool: BuiltWith.com. You will get a list of the distinct technologies that power up your site. Search for Analytics to see if you have GUA, Google Analytics 4 (GA4), or both. GA4 won’t stop working any time soon, so if you have it you can move on to check if you have Google Tag Management (GTM) as well!
If you have GUA (and you are not using another Analytics tool) then you need to take note as you will need to take action to assure you will be tracking your properties past June 30th, 2023.
Why is this important?
Your web or app analytics monitor the vital signs of your website. They let you know how many users visit your site, what they do when they visit, and if they carry out the most valuable actions your business needs: maybe joining your mailing list or making a purchase. By monitoring this data against your intended target, you can know how well you are doing and where there is room for improvement. For those properties only relying on GUA, all this value will be lost by summer 2023 if no action is taken.
Don’t lose the compass for your Google Ads campaigns
There is an indirect impact that this sunset of GUA could have on your Google Ads campaigns. Usually, these two Google products are linked together sharing information from Analytics to Google Ads and vice-versa. You need to verify these links and assure they are updated to your GA4 property. By being linked, they will continue to provide Google Ads with valuable insights that let you know if your buys are working as intended or not. You may end up losing money on sub-optimized campaigns if you fail to do so.
Tag Management 2021 and beyond
Now that you are taking this time to think and act on the well-being of your web analytics solutions, it is important to make sure that your property is using a Tag Management tool as well. The evolution of web and app analytics is, sadly, not distinguished by its friendliness and simplicity. With many vendors and technologies coexisting in most sites, there are diverse data needs that require distinct tags to feed them valuable information. To help developers and marketers carry out these everyday more complex tasks, Google Tag Management (GTM) solutions have gained popularity in the last five years. More than 2 million companies use GTM worldwide, positioning it as the industry leader. Given GA4’s event-based model, the political climate around digital privacy, and the move to server-side tagging as an alternative to digital marketing, Tag Management has become a must-have and this transition to GA4 should be seen as an opportunity to update your data analytics stack for the present and future.
Some Final Thoughts
Maybe you already have GA4 installed on your website or app but, if you’ve read up to this point, there’s a chance you don’t feel it is providing enough value to your brand or that you’re not even using it. When all is said and done, using an Analytics tool is not just about software, it is about a way of thinking and relying on data-driven decision-making processes for your organization. That’s what guides us in our implementations, both for our clients and ourselves, and that’s the most important part: Data as Insight for Intelligent Decision-Making. This transition to GA4 is a fresh opportunity for brands worldwide to bring their analytics to a whole new level of value.
We are eager to help you face these and any other challenges your valuable data properties may face. To find out how we can assist you, please contact us.
