Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest version of Google Analytics, and it offers a host of new features and benefits that make it a more powerful tool than its predecessor, Universal Analytics (UA). It’s important to understand the differences between the two and make the switch to GA4 as soon as you can. This is because all UA properties will stop processing data on July 1st, 2023. If you don’t make the switch, then you won’t have any data processing after July 1st.

Let's take a look at the top features of Google Analytics 4:

Event-Based Tracking

One of the most significant changes in GA4 is the move to event-based tracking. This means that instead of tracking pageviews and sessions, GA4 focuses on events that users trigger on your website or app. This change is significant because it allows you to easily track more granular user behavior, such as button clicks, form submissions, and video plays.

Cross-Device Tracking

GA4 offers cross-device tracking, which is increasingly important as users interact with businesses across multiple devices and in multiple ways. In one GA4 property, you can track both a website and an app, which was not available with UA. UA was set up to mainly only track websites. With GA4, you can track users across devices, even if they're not logged in, by using machine learning to analyze user behavior and determine when different devices belong to the same user.

Smarter Insights

GA4 uses machine learning to provide smarter insights into user behavior. This means that you can get more detailed and accurate information about how users are interacting with your website or app, and use that information to make more informed decisions about how to improve your user experience.

Privacy Focused

With how critical privacy is in today’s world, GA4 is more privacy focused than UA. GA4 offers more control over data collection, and it uses advanced machine learning techniques to ensure that user data is anonymized and secure. The biggest change is that GA4 will not store IP addresses.

Customizable & Streamlined Reporting

GA4 offers more customization options than UA, which allows you to tailor the platform to your specific needs. For example, you can create custom events, set up custom dimensions and metrics, and create custom reports. With streamlined reporting, this makes it easier to access and analyze the data you need. It includes pre-built reports that cover a range of common use cases.

Overall, Google Analytics 4 is a significant improvement over Universal Analytics. With its focus on event-based tracking, cross-device tracking, smarter insights, privacy, customization, and streamlined reporting, GA4 offers businesses and marketers a more powerful and flexible tool for tracking and analyzing user behavior. 

If you're not already using GA4, now’s the time to make the switch! Setting up a GA4 property is a straightforward process that requires a few simple steps, which you can learn about here.