Running an online store or business comes with a lot of responsibilities. One of the main duties is to ensure that your website analytics are updated and accurate. Here is where Google Analytics comes in. It helps track website traffic, measure ad campaign success, and provide meaningful insights.

However, as a busy business owner, you might have missed the big news: Universal Analytics is switching to Google Analytics 4. If you forgot to make this change, don’t worry! This blog post is here to help.

Why Do Businesses Need Google Analytics?

Before we dive into specifics, we should explain why Google Analytics is crucial for your business. With Google Analytics, you can measure your website’s success and shortcomings, study your audience, track your marketing performance, and make decisions based on actual data.

You can gather information about audience behavior from analytics—like the most viewed pages on your website, time spent on a page, and device usage. These details can help you customize your website to improve user experience.

Simply put, Google Analytics help:

• Prevent you from wasting money on promotional campaigns that don’t work;
• Improve your customers’ shopping experience based on data, not anecdotal evidence;
• Run remarketing ad campaigns, which let you set up ads to target people who visited your store;
• And even more!

If you still haven’t set up Google Analytics for your Ecwid store, follow these steps from our Help Center. The instructions help you set up Google Analytics 4 so you’ll have the newest program set up for your Ecwid store.

Why Do You Need to Migrate to GA 4?

Universal Analytics is the previous generation of GA. As such, it will be replaced by Google Analytics 4 starting July 1, 2023. You’ll want to migrate to GA 4 to stay up-to-date with the latest analytical software.

Google Analytics 4 is a tremendous upgrade from Universal Analytics. It includes new features designed to help businesses understand their customers better. With this latest system, you can track user behavior and conversions more effectively.

The newer GA 4 also has more of a focus on user privacy, with an emphasis on data controls for users. While respecting customer privacy, it allows you to collect data from your website and apps, both iOS and Android.

Plus, Google’s machine learning model allows you to estimate future user actions, such as the likelihood of someone making a purchase or stopping their subscription. It can help you predict future revenue!

Moreover, Google has announced that Google Analytics 4 will be the future of their analytics platforms. So, it’s wise to switch to Google Analytics 4 before Universal Analytics is phased out.

What Happens If You Don’t Switch to Google Analytics 4?

Up to July 1, 2023, you can utilize and collect new data using Universal Analytics. However, Universal Analytics will stop processing data on July 1, 2023. So if you want to keep up with your store and ad performance after that, switch to Google Analytics 4. Unless you want to ditch GA… But why would you do that?

Also, beginning on July 1, you will only have six months to retrieve your previously processed data from Universal Analytics. Export your historical reports within this period to keep the valuable data.

How to Migrate to GA 4?

Let’s remember the main Google Analytics terms before diving into all the instructions. It’ll help you with the migration process.

A property is a website or mobile application with a unique tracking ID.

A Google tag is a tag you can add to your website to use Google products and services, such as Google Analytics and Google Ads. It helps you measure the effectiveness of your website and ads; for example, time spent on page, clicks, and purchases.

For simplified tag management, you can use a free tool, Google Tag Manager. If you have an Ecwid store, you can easily connect Google Tag Manager to your Instant Site or another website using the app from our App Market.

Goals measure how well your website fulfills your target objectives. Simply put, a goal is an activity that, when completed, contributes to the success of your business. For an ecommerce website, a goal is usually making a purchase.

Here are the detailed instructions on the migration process. Plus, here’s a video if you prefer video format:

Remember to migrate to GA 4 through a desktop browser, not the Analytics mobile app. Also, try to complete migrating in one session to minimize potential errors.

Wrap Up

Switching from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 is vital, even if you miss the initial migration period. You want to continue analyzing your website traffic and gaining insights about your online store. Though it may seem daunting, the switch will ultimately give you results that benefit both your business and customers. Google Analytics 4 is the future of analytics. It’s never too late to jump aboard!

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• Source: https://www.ecwid.com/blog/migrate-to-google-analytics-4.html