For small businesses, understanding how their website is performing and what their customers are looking for is crucial for success. Google Analytics is a common and powerful tool that provides valuable insights into website traffic and user behavior. However, Google has announced that on Jul 1, 2023 Google Analytics will STOP collecting data.
Before you freak out, you still will be able to use Google to track data about your website – you just won’t be able to use the current Universal Analytics version.
Google is transitioning to a new program they are calling Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
So why is this important? As a small business owner you will have to physically go in and make the transition for your website. To do so you will need access to your Google Analytics account. The following is a step by step tutorial on how to make this transition. If you want to watch a tutorial video – click here.
Log in to your Google Analytics account.
You will get a pop-up asking if you want to use the GA4 setup assistant. We have done research and found that you DO NOT want to use this. This will only do the first couple of steps in the setup process and will likely not be able to collect any data. Instead, we are going to make this transition manually.
Create Property
From your Admin section you will want to “Create Property”. This will allow you to create separate properties based on what information you are wanting to track and collect. This is also where you will select your country, time zone, and currency.
Pro Tip: When naming your property, make sure you use a different name than your old Universal Analytics property. This way you can keep track of the correct one.
Business Details
Once you move on from the basics you will be asked to provide your business details. This will include a business category and business size. It is important to be as accurate as possible.
Business Objectives
You will have to specify what information you are looking for GA4 to collect. This will vary depending on what type of business you have and what you are trying to learn with the gathered information.
Example: At The Seasoned Marketer our business objective is “Examine user behavior”, because we want to better understand how people are interacting with our website. While we do have some items available for purchase, that is not an objective we are interested in focusing on.
Start Collecting Data
If you have both a website and an app – this section is where you decide which platform you are looking to collect data from. Once you select the platform, simply input your information.
Install Google Tag
If you have not installed the Google tag on your website then it will now prompt you to do so. This section might be a little confusing – we suggest you watch our video tutorial for this step of the process. You can find the video at the bottom of this page.
Events
The Events section is where you can pick and choose what Google Analytics 4 is tracking. The toggle buttons make it easy to turn on and off which events are being captured.
Once you hit next and move on, you will be informed that it will take 48 hours for Google Analytics 4 to begin collecting data.
Migrating?
The last step – it will ask you if you are migrating a property from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4. Simply select the property and you are good to go.
Pro tip: You don’t HAVE to pick a property. We selected none because we want to start fresh. Just remember that Universal Analytics will no longer be available, and if you do not select a property to migrate with then you might lose previous data.
There are other settings and changes you can make in the new Google Analytics 4. For a deeper dive into settings, a visual of the setup process, and more information, check out the video below.
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Feel free to share your thoughts with me, I can be reached at vivian@theseasonedmarketer.com!
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