Recently, Google modified its universal measurement system, Google Analytics, moving from version 3 to version 4. This implies major changes, not only in the measurement system but also in the data model used. This is important for two reasons:

• The new Google Analytics 4 is the evolution of Google Analytics 3 and Firebase, its measurement system for apps. Therefore, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) will now serve to measure both websites and mobile apps. As a result, we will find new measurement elements that were not previously available in GA3.
• Google Analytics 3 will disappear on July 1, 2023. Although there is still some time, it is worth making the switch now and working with GA3 and GA4 in parallel. This way, GA4 will start receiving information as soon as possible, allowing us to make comparisons and define goals more freely.

What’s new in GA4

The first thing we notice is that the interface is slightly different, more similar to Google Search Console and with significantly fewer menu items, which can simplify things for less experienced users (but complicate them for those who are).

The new Google Analytics 4 is based on an event-based data model, meaning that clicks, scrolling, user interaction, and of course visits, become much more important than in Google Analytics 3 and come built into the system, without the need to use Google Tag Manager as before. It is much easier to implement in this regard.

GA4 focuses more on the user; it is no longer as relevant how many visits a website receives, but how many unique users visit it. This is a great step forward, as achieving good metrics will involve working hard on the user experience.

There are new and better technical functionalities for event filtering (which include history!), event tracking, error debugging… But most importantly, Google Analytics 4 learns “on its own”, collecting information about your website and suggesting goals and new reports that may be useful for your site.

Installing Google Analytics 4 on WordPress

It is not too complicated to install Google Analytics 4 on WordPress; we can use different systems such as plugins, manually embedding the code in the header, or similar methods. However, remember to always respect the new GDPR laws and prevent scripts from loading if the user has not accepted cookies. Everything indicates that this cookie acceptance process makes the work of measurement tools like Google Analytics very difficult, so it seems that in the future, Google will continue to make changes to GA4 so that cookies are eventually not required to measure site interactions, and everything will work through database or session systems. We will still have to wait a while for this to happen, so until then, we recommend complying with GDPR to avoid unnecessary scares.

And you? Do you have Google Analytics 4 installed on your site yet? At Cactus, we have performed hundreds of implementations of this type, so don’t hesitate to contact us if you need help.

Interpreting this data and turning it into decisions is what we work on in our strategy service.