Change is coming - Google Analytics 4 is on the horizon and Universal Analytics is on its way out, and soon you’ll need to migrate your website over to the new platform. What does this update mean for you and your veterinary practice? Will you be at risk of losing any data? Will there be a learning curve? Below, we provide a basic breakdown of what to expect from the change and why it’ll be a good thing for your business.
But first. What is Google Analytics 4, exactly?
About Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
GA4 is the fourth and newest version of Google Analytics. This update is “the next generation of Analytics…which collects event-based data from both websites and apps.” It’s the latest property designed for measuring your website’s performance, and it includes a few nifty new features and a higher level of customizability for your business.
What Will It Do?
GA4 will do a lot of what you’ve come to expect from Universal Analytics (UA), but better.
It will have:
Improved cross-device tracking of website visitors, regardless of the device they’re using to explore your site
The ability to track user behavior across all kinds of sessions and devices, even if there are cookie-tracking limitations (this does not violate user privacy)
Improved event and conversion tracking; where once they were regarded as separate entities, now every scroll, click, pageview, and other measurement counts as an event (when it wasn’t under UA)
You can track up to 300 events and up to 30 conversions (as opposed to just 20 conversions with UA) in just one data stream
Predictive conversion modeling to guess whether or not a visitor to your website converted
How GA4 Can Benefit Your Practice
GA4 will provide your practice with more data to explore, so you can develop an even better understanding of how your website works and how pet owners are using it. It will help you build a more comprehensive and nuanced profile about the customer journey taking place on your website. The insight you’ll get from these improvements can help you make more impactful decisions in your marketing, increase your website’s performance, and grow your practice in clientele and revenue.
Another benefit of GA4 is that it is more customizable than its UA predecessor. This means you can customize your dashboard to select and track the things that are most relevant to your practice.
GA4’s updated metrics include engaged sessions, engagement rate, and engagement time, so you can see how much time people are spending engaged on your website. This goes beyond mere pageviews, which used to be considered the most important metric of all.
GA4’s predictive metrics are also a benefit, as they can help you make more data-driven decisions on a bigger scale. These metrics include revenue prediction and purchase probability.
With cross-platform tracking, you can see the entire customer journey including acquisition, engagement, and retention. In other words, you can track the user experience on your website from start to finish across multiple platforms.
We’ll Help You Migrate to GA4
UA will officially switch over to GA4 on July 1st of 2023. You will not lose any data when your website is shifted over to the new platform, and if you’re already a client of InTouch, our team will manage the migration for you, so you can continue to focus on serving your patients and clients. Migrating to GA4 is not an easy task for any business to take on by itself, so we’re happy to do the heavy lifting for you.
While GA4 does have its differences from UA, you and your practice should not notice any dramatic changes in your reporting. Tracking events will be easier than ever, but the metrics we report on will basically remain the same.
If you have any further unanswered questions about GA4 and the move to the new platform, get InTouch by calling (800) 493-9003.