Google Analytics 4 (How to Migrate UA Goals to GA4 Events)

Google recently announced a new version of Analytics – describing it as the new default version of its famous data collection and web traffic analysis software. 

What is Google Analytics 4?

Google self-describes the motive of the brand new Google Analytics as a next-generation approach to “privacy-first” tracking, x-channel measurement, and AI-based totally predictive statistics abruptly. By making use of Google’s advanced system learning models, the brand new Analytics can fill out information for website traffic and personal behavior without counting on having “hits” come from each web page.

Google Analytics 4 is built on the identical platform for the “App + web” device that they released in 2019. The App + web version of Analytics changed into mainly focused on cross-channel data, which means that it gave marketers a way to track customers through apps, software, and a website.

All because of this its primary purpose is to shift the way data is shown to focus on customers – especially the user journey from the first visit to the final conversion.

Plus GA4 is all about “events.” Those events are the primary way that information is presented inside the new Google Analytics.

Finally, the machine-learning processing in this new Analytics means that it is able to fill in gaps where companies aren’t able to recognize their entire customer base because of users that opt-out of cookie usage and data collection. internet users and even browser corporations are becoming more and more stingy about permitting Analytics to track sessions or return users by using cookies – as an instance, Mozilla Firefox has moved to block Analytics, and a lot of websites are beginning to use visitor consent to outline their Analytics tracking.

Highlights of the new Google Analytics 4:

• It’s built with machine learning as the main form of data measurement, using “modeling” that could extrapolate from existing data and make assumptions about website visitors/consumer behavior. the brand new AI-powered “Insights” feature is supposed to automatically spotlight useful data for entrepreneurs.
• It’s targeted at giving marketers a “greater complete know-how of the customer journey across devices.” And it appears that evidently, it’s more focused on measuring an end-to-end consumer journey, and no longer simply individual metrics throughout devices/pages/segments.
• It’s designed to be “future proof” and work in a world without cookies or identifying data.
• Google Analytics 4 capabilities “data streams” as opposed to the views and segments used by old accepted Analytics properties.
• There is no “view” level section of GA4. whereas traditional universal Analytics famously has three stages (Account, property, and view), GA4 only has Account and property levels.
• While “event tracking” in classic Analytics required modified Analytics code or gtag.js script, Google Analytics 4 claims to enable editing, tracking, and fine-tuning of events within the UI. This means interactions like clicks, page-scroll, and more.

New capabilities of GA4:

• GA4 will allow marketers to edit, correct, and fine-tune the way events are tracked in their analytics without having to edit on-web page code.
• Data Import can now include a wide range of data from non-website resources (like apps for example) all inside one property.
• Cross-domain tracking that does not require code adjustments either, can be done within the UI.
• A “life Cycle report” appears to be one of the biggest modifications in Analytics and focuses on the user journey. Plus “templated reports for eCommerce funnels” provide entrepreneurs a way to show and visualize data – a feature that before was only available in Analytics 360 accounts.

How to migrate existing goals to new GA4 events?

To migrate all existing goals to new events we need to create G4 event tags + associated triggers in Google Tag Manager. So we have to create GTM tags for each of the goals. 

Universal Analytics View Goals vs. GA4 Events

Universal Analytics Goals: (old version)

In the Universal Analytics view, we have Goal options to evaluate our business success. Some of the goals have been created through GTM tagging and there are 4 types of Goals - 

• Event
• Duration
• Destination
• Pages/screens per session

In the Event type Goal, we have 4 conditions - 

• Category
• Action
• Label
• Value

Generally, we create tags/triggers and various events condition in Google Tag Manager and create an Event Type Goal by using the same Event Conditions in Google Analytics (this way we can view our goals as a conversion in GA report)

Vs

GA4 Events: (New GA4 Version)

In GA4 we don’t have any Goals. Instead of goals, we have events. GA4 has 4 types of Events - 

• Automatically collected events
• Enhanced measurement events
• Recommended events
• Custom events

Automatically collected events: Automatically collected events are automatically logged (no code on-page/in-app) as long as you have the base code for Google Analytics 4 property implemented on your site (either via gtag.js or Google Tag Manager). Automatic and enhanced measurement events provide the benefits of being automatically logged. 

Enhanced measurement events: Enhanced measurement events are a special set of events that are automatically logged (no code on page) to the Google Analytics 4 property and can be enabled/disabled via the Google Analytics 4 property user interface. 

Recommended events: Recommended events have predefined names and parameters and are recommended for specific business verticals. Recommended events provide forward-compatibility with future functionality.

Custom events: Custom events are events that you name and implement yourself. 

Now we can use custom events by creating a GA4 Event in Google Tag Manager and report back to GA4 All Events. 

Steps for migrating all Goals to Events are as follows:

1. First Step: Identify all the goals and their events conditions.
2. Second Step: Map-out all the goals and create necessary Tags and Triggers to convert all Goals to events (through GTM’s new GA4 event Tag)
3. Third Step: Use debug mode to test out all new events
4. Extra Step: We can create client preferred custom events with the Goals Migration Project. (After receiving client preferred custom events, we will scope out the hours and prices)

Contact me for a full migration plan mapping and tag implementation.