The change has been well received by professionals and was already expected, but it requires brands to start moving so that there is no loss of historical data
A new measurement system should affect the experience of brands and agencies in the relationship with consumers. Launched in 2019 with the version that unifies web and app data, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) will become the default model. According to the company, it is more prepared for a world without cookies, with GDPR and where users increasingly demand privacy and responsibility over their data.
The solution will replace Universal Analytics (UA) – which was born in another context, dominated by desktop navigation -, as of July 1, 2023, the date stipulated by Google for the extinction of the tool. Universal Analytics 360, which is the paid version and used by major brands, will stop capturing hits on October 1 of the same year. After this period, accounts will only have 6 months to access your property’s historical data.
The change has been well received by professionals and was already expected, but it requires brands to start moving so that no one loses out – or without historical data. “GA4 will require new configurations to be made, such as the creation of new tags”, explains Rafaela Queiroz, vice president of media and BI at DPZ&T. A process that, depending on the advertiser, will take a long time so that no data is lost.
“The ideal is to organize yourself so as not to be surprised when Google makes the definitive change, since 2023 is right around the corner and, as I have already mentioned, no one wants to be surprised or run the risk of losing some kind of follow-up”, he adds. . The specialist believes that the greatest impact will be on medium and small advertisers and, mainly, on micro-entrepreneurs, who have less time to change.
For Otávio Ferraz, partner and manager of adtech and analytics at Macfor, despite the UA extinction date being in mid-2023, the ideal would be for companies to migrate by July this year. Thus, they would not lose the year-on-year comparative data. “It is essential that brands and agencies start migrating to GA4 immediately, because it will be much more work to compare data, as the inputs extracted by the UA and GA4 interfaces are different,” he explains.
He adds that, today, the GA4, which still needs to be improved over time, allows for less customization in the administrative interface, which requires better planning at the time of implementation. This applies both when choosing the taxonomies that will be used and when monitoring the platform’s own parameters. “In UA, for example, if these definitions were not made, it was enough to create a filter to correct it later (not retroactive). Now in GA4 this has to be done directly in the tagging,” he says.
Luiz Fernando Ruocco, partner and director of operations at Rocky.Monks, says that he has already carried out the migration for some clients. “Learning is mainly for those who have multiplatform because they have the ability to integrate all the data in one place and be able to understand this omnichannel within the GA”, he guarantees.
Denis Lobo, BI manager at Leo Burnett Tailor Made, says that the agency’s main focus has been in the educational area, working with both internal and client performance and media teams, mainly in IT-related areas.
“Some adjustments need to be made in GA Universal’s tagging for this adequacy and also in relation to the available metrics, where we can think of new KPI’s for brands and media campaigns, much more assertive with the planning objectives”, he says. It was this process, according to him, that allowed the agency to make the transition of some clients.
Unified day
In addition to adapting to new times and privacy policies, one of the great benefits, according to professionals, is that GA4 allows for a unified monitoring of users’ journey, an old desire of the market to have and offer more transparency in relation to the models of attribution.
“It is an extremely important gain for the area of communication and data analysis, because from this application it is possible to identify user preferences. In addition, the central objective of unification between devices is to understand how the user is behaving, which paths he takes between both platforms – apps and web”, explains Guilherme Lima, business intelligence manager at REF+.
According to the professional, it is a path that favors more accurate deliveries to users, based on machine learning.
Rafaela, from DPZ&T, says that it is currently noticeable that some distributions of funds are impacted by the data presented by Universal, which does not offer a high level of detail and ends up concentrating information on the “last click”.
“With this cross-platform look, we will be able to better understand the role of each platform and assign the corresponding weight to the strategies. This look will help a lot in the use of data to build a more balanced strategy when we think about proportionality in relation to this consumer’s journey”, he adds.
Metrics
And strategies go through metrics. These metrics, as recalled by Leonardo Lourenço Crespilho, tracking tech lead at Raccoon.Monks, have also changed over time. “The most emblematic example would be the bounce rating, as well as engagement”, he says.
Regarding the major changes that Google is announcing, such as privacy and machine learning, the executive says that browsers are increasingly trying to limit data collection “So this new focus on privacy means that companies will have to focus on what is being collected, rethink tracking plans, and stop collecting data that is not being used”, concludes
