Many things have changed on the new Google Analytics 4 platform, including navigation. Google has added new features and removed several reports that you are already familiar with. And that means we will need to relearn the platform.
In this guide, Google Analytics 4 vs Universal Analytics we will detail the differences between and (UA) so you are prepared to make the change.
If you haven’t moved to Google Analytics 4 yet, we have an easy step-by-step guide that you can follow: How to set up Google Analytics 4 in WordPress.
What’s new only in Google Analytics 4?
In this section, we will detail the GA4 news that are not present in Universal Analytics. A little later, we will delve into all the changes you need to know.
- Creation and editing of events: GA4 brings a revolutionary change in the way of tracking events. You can create a custom event and modify events directly on your GA4 property. This is not possible with Universal Analytics unless you write a code to create a custom event.
- Conversion events: Conversion goals are being replaced by conversion events. You can simply mark or uncheck an event to start tracking it as a conversion. There is an easy toggle key to do that. GA4 even allows you to create conversion events in advance, before the event occurs.
- Data Flows: The UA allows you to connect your site URL to a view. These views allow you to filter the data. For example, uk phone number data you can create a filter in an AU view to exclude certain IP addresses from reports. GA4 uses data streams instead of views.
- Data filters: You can now add data filters to include or delete internal traffic and developer traffic from your GA4 reports.
- Google Analytics Intelligence: You can exclude search queries from your search history to adjust your recommendations.
- Explorations and templates: There is a new item Explore in the menu that takes you to the Explorations page and the template gallery. The farms give you a deeper understanding of your data. And there are report templates that you can use.
- Debugging Visualization: There is an integrated visual debugging tool that is great news for developers and business owners. With this mode, you can have a real-time view of the events displayed in a vertical timeline chart. You can see the events of the last 30 minutes and the last 60 seconds.
- BigQuery Binding: You can now link your GA4 account to your BigQuery account. This will allow you to perform business intelligence tasks in your analytics property using BigQuery tools.
Although this is exclusive to GA4, there are much more changes beyond these. But first, let’s take a look at what disappeared from the Universal Analytics platform we all know.
Now that you know what’s new and what’s missing in GA4, we’ll take a detailed tour of the new GA4 platform.
Universal Analytics
Next, shortcuts make our lives more pleasant we will address the main differences between GA4 and AU. We have created this index so that you can easily navigate through the comparison guide:
Feel free to use the quick links to skip to the section that interests you most.
New mobile analysis
A big difference between GA4 and AU is that the new GA4 platform will also support mobile app analytics.
In fact, it was originally called “Mobile + Web.”
The AU only tracked web analytics, so it was difficult for businesses with apps to get an accurate view of their performance and digital marketing efforts.
Now, with the GA4 data model, b2b phone list you will be able to crawl the site and the application. You can set up a data stream for Android and iOS.
There’s also the additional functionality of creating custom campaigns to collect information about which media/references are sending the most traffic. This will show you where your campaigns get the most traction so you can optimize your strategies in the future.
Easy tracking user ID
Enabling user ID tracking in the AU was quite a task. But all of this has been simplified in GA4 with the new measurement model. You just need to navigate to Admin “ Property Settings” Report Identity Guide.
You can choose between the Combined and Observed modes. Select the desired mode and save your changes. There you go.
New navigation menu
In GA4, the reporting interface is still familiar and the navigation menu is still on the left! This keeps things familiar, but there are some menu items that have been changed.
First, there are only 4 high level menu items at the moment. Google may add more items as the platform is developed.
Then each menu item has a collected view. You can expand each item by clicking on it.
Now, when you click on the items in the submenu, it will expand the menu to reveal more submenus.
The measurement ID vs. Tracking ID
Universal Analytics uses a tracking ID that has a capital UA, a hyphen, a 7-figure tracking code followed by another hyphen and a number. Thus: UA-1234567-1.
The last number is a sequential number starting from 1 that maps to a specific property in your Analytics account. Therefore,Google Analytics 4 vs Universal Analytics if you set up a second Google Analytics property, the new code will be changed to UA-1234567-2.
You can find the tracking ID of a Universal Analytics property in the Admin “ Property column. Navigate to the Property Settings “Tracing ID” tabConfigurações da propriedade ” , where you can see your UA tracking ID.
In GA4, you will see a measurement ID instead of a tracking ID. It begins with a capital G, a hyphen followed by a code of 10 characters.
