"Hey Google, why the switch?"

The switch!

Change is always happening, and most of the time, we have to adapt to those changes. Google Analytics's Universal Analytics is switching to GA4 (Google Analytics 4)! Universal Analytics has been around since 2005. It has been a long-time stable tool for finding web analytics. Web analytics included measurement and analysis of data that would help better understand user behavior on web pages. GA4 will offer much more advanced features than Universal Analytics, so this new switch is pretty huge!

Google plans to deactivate its Universal Analytics by July 2023. Therefore, it's important to start tracking data early on GA4 because you can't get that data back when Universal Analytics is gone.

What is the reason?

The primary reason for this big switch is third-party cookies, not baked goods but stored pieces of data about a user from a website. GA4 relies on first-party cookies because of new privacy laws. Privacy and data are serious conversations because our data is collected, sold, and tracked by thrid-party-cookies, which is very invasive of our privacy. GA4 ensures that its new features fill in gaps from lost third-party cookies. 

What's the difference?

Besides cookies having a huge differential impact on this switch, there are many good changes with GA4. Universal Analytics and GA4 measurement systems are very different. GA4 offers an event-based model rather than Universal Analytics measurement is a session-based model. Universal Analytics' hit-type expresses as an event in GA4. GA4 organizes those events into automatically collected, enhanced measurement, recommended, and custom categories. This change occurred to help get a better picture of what engagement appeared on websites. 

GA4 has made tracking user IDs much easier than the Universal Analytics method of monitoring user IDs. One of Universal Analytics's challenges was accessing user IDs because of its difficult setting. GA4 simplifies the process by clicking a few buttons to find the "save" button to track user IDs. That switch was made not only for simplicity reasons but to analyze and understand user experience, accurate user count, and a better understanding of the behavior of users on a range of different devices. 

Conclusion

GA4 is the future of data collection and analysis! GA4 offers many new features, such as consent mode, which is respectful towards privacy concerns. Most young professionals have not had much experience analyzing data using the Universal Analytics system. So professionals from Generation Z do have the advantage of learning a new system before digging too deep into Universal Analytics and never needing to know about it again. The adaptability should not be complex from Universal Analytics to GA4. It's just to start now before Universal Analytics disappears in July 2023. Act fast! Time flies by in a blink of an eye!

For more understanding of GA4, Universal Analytics, and web analytics, please check out the sources I have read: