You Can Still Catch Up! Upgrade to Ga4 Today So You Don’t Lose Any More Yoy Metrics.
Although Google won’t officially turn off its Universal Analytics (UA) product until 2023, in order to have access to year-over-year comparison metrics at the switch, you have limited time to upgrade to Google Analytics 4.
GA4 Success Depends on Benchmarking
When you upgrade to GA4, you’ll find significant differences in data tracking and measurement, which will impact your existing tags, metrics, KPIs, and reports. Without year-over-year data in your GA4 account, you’ll be starting from scratch.
Why You Need to Start Your Upgrade to Ga4 Now
Because UA and GA4 operate from very different frameworks, an upgrade to GA4 isn’t a quick and easy shift. To get the transition right, we recommend that you start with a comprehensive audit of how your organization currently uses UA, including metrics and comparison data. The critical factor in your upgrade to GA4 is year-over-year metrics, and you only have until July 1, 2022 to start collecting them. When you upgrade to GA4, you’ll notice differences in the type of data collected and the ways key factors are measured. Mapping out the differences over time can help you refine and customize your GA4 instance to help you mitigate or explain discrepancies.
How Long It Will Take to Upgrade to Ga4?
Migrating from UA to GA4 is not a one-for-one shift, so companies should build in plenty of time to customize and compare results between the two solutions prior to losing access to UA. Our basic timeline includes the two key cutoff dates:
- On July 1, 2022, companies need to be collecting data in GA4 to have year-over-year metrics in place before the UA sunset
- On July 1, 2023, UA stops collecting new data
From there, your internal capacity and the complexity of your existing reliance on Google Analytics data can help you frame the rest of your timeline steps.
Not Sure What to Do Next? We Can Help.
Depending on the complexity of your current UA setup and the role analytics plays in your digital strategy, you might need a strategic partner to get that transition right.
Wherever you are in your switch to GA4, you can always get back on track. Our team helps organizations with end-to-end GA4 migrations, but we also step in for more tightly scoped problem-solving like custom integrations, dashboard creation, and training. Let us where you are with your planning, and we can set up a free discovery call to help you work through it.