A Marketing Professional’s Lens on Google Analytics 4
I have been a Google Analytics purveyor for years. I have created dashboard-after-metrics report-after-benchmark using a number of key data points–including bounce rate, pages per session, pageviews vs. unique pageviews, and others. Web metrics are always included in an Elevate digital audit, as our subsequent marketing strategies are rooted in data.
Guess what? These analytics (aka Universal Analytics) are going away with the permanent migration to GA4, come July 1, 2023. GA4 is a whole other way of thinking. IMO, if you aren’t a developer or a data analyst on the daily (like me), you might be persuaded to look into another tool or not look at your data at all (I don’t recommend this).
Universal analytics primarily revolves around page views and sessions. You might be wondering:
What are my top 10 most visited pages in any given time period?
How many pages are visitors viewing per session/visit? (The more the better.)
What pages are users hopping onto the site and hopping right back off? (This is your bounce rate and an indicator of engagement and interest.)
On GA4, every touchpoint is considered an event. Pageview analysis is no longer a thing. Primary metrics include:
Engaged session - number of sessions where visitors are on your website for longer than ten seconds AND visit two or more pages
Average engagement time per session - this is NOT the same as duration of visit, it is the average engagement time including the two aforementioned qualifications.
Engagement rate - number of engaged sessions divided by the number of total sessions
Thankfully, traffic source is sticking around, which tells you how visitors get to your site. Sources include:
Direct - user types your URL directly into the toolbar or gets to your site via a bookmark
Organic Search - site click from a Google search result
Paid search - click from a Google ad
Social - visitor comes to your site from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
Email - click from a personal or broadcast email
Referral - user gets to you from a website that is not yours, i.e a news publication, association website, directory, etc.
Device usage also made the cut. The three categories–desktop, mobile, and tablet–tell you what device visitors are using on your site. Pay attention to this metric! Your website should always be responsive, meaning all elements (including photos, videos, etc.) adapt to the device on which it’s being viewed. However, if your traffic is consistently mobile, your site should be designed with a mobile-first mindset. If your traffic is primarily and consistently desktop (or evenly split), a responsive format is sufficient.
There are options to run custom and comparison reports in GA4, however, they aren’t exactly intuitive, they are hard to find, no examples are provided, and when I tried a few out, I was told there is no data available..
I know I’m not selling GA4, moreso the opposite. I don’t want anyone to feel bad when they can’t figure it out, especially a nonprofit professional or small business owner who is just trying to get some information to make marketing decisions. The instructions and support pages are so technical they might as well be written in a foreign language.
While you try to crack the code (if you do, let me know), I’m going to test out a few other tools. Will report back.
