Google Analytics is a tool used by nearly 30 million websites to understand user behavior. In this way, companies can create the best user experience.
A few months ago, the Internet giant announced the launch of Google Analytics 4, the latest version of the analytics tool par excellence, Google Analytics.
Not surprisingly, when Google announced its migration to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), marketers and website owners around the world began to worry about the new way of monitoring their customers’ behavior.
Main differences between GA4 and UA
Data model
One of the main differences between these two web analytics platforms is that Google Analytics 4 focuses on an event and parameter-based model, while Universal Analytics relies on a data model based on sessions and page views.
For those readers who don’t know what a session is, it is a group of user interactions (visits) with a website that take place over a given period of time. A session can contain multiple page views, events and e-commerce transactions.
All data sent to Google Analytics 4 has adopted the Firebase data model in the form of events. Each event is distinguished with the event_name parameter, with additional parameters to describe the event.
It is important to note that Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is not an update to Universal Analytics (UA).
Page Views
Page views in Universal Analytics are converted to page_view events in the Google Analytics 4 properties. When we configure GA4, the page_view event is automatically triggered from the gtag.js code snippet or the Google Analytics 4 configuration code in GTM.
Sessions
GA4 session metrics are derived from the “session_start” event, which is automatically collected when a user uses an application or website.
Session duration is calculated based on the time interval between the first event and the last event of the session.
Events
Google Analytics events are automatically logged from the gtag or gtm configuration.
| Google Analytics 4 | Google Analytics Universal |
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Other changes to note
Privacy consent mode
Due to stricter regulations such as GDPR and CCPA, many organizations have to sacrifice data to respect those who choose not to track.
Google has introduced a consent model that allows you to do some level of tracking while still achieving compliance. It won’t help you locate or identify users, but you can continue to report content, conversions and attribution.
Find out more about “Consent Mode” here.
Changes to data limits
In Universal Analytics, each tracking event is sent to Google’s servers as a separate image beacon.
An e-commerce site that sends all product page views, interactions and display data can place a large load on Google’s servers, which is why Google has historically imposed access restrictions on the free version of Google Analytics.