How to get ready for the GA4. Google Analytics will retire Universal on 1 July 2023
If you haven’t set up GA4 yet, these are the steps you need to do as soon as possible
- Create GA4 property and configure to measure the relevant data points for your business.
- Connect GA4 to your website, via Google tag manager or global site tag. We recommend GTM.
- Test that your required events are coming through to GA4.
Events that will automatically get set up
Events you need to set up
What will happen to my GA3 data for reporting after 1 July?
From Jul 1, 2023 your UA (GA3) property will no longer be tracking any events or activity on your website. You will still be able to access the data from your UA property but no new data will come in. Google will have automatically set up GA4 on your behalf with the global site tag, however any custom or ecommerce events will not be configured.
Your UA data will be available for a period of 6 months from July 1st as of now. After this the new Sweet dashboard will allow you to store all of your historic UA data and view alongside your new GA4 data.
The importance of UTMs
Your UTM tags need to fit within the new GA4 guidelines for them to be properly reported in GA4. If your UTM tags do not meet the guidelines then you will see traffic being reported as (unassigned).
Here is link to google for default channel groupings
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9756891
Checking and reconciling steps once you have set up GA4
- Ensure to test each event tag is firing using the GTM preview mode
- Place multiple test orders to ensure that you are receiving data for all events
- Ensure to have the data layer implemented on the order confirmation page to avoid loss of conversion reporting
- Cross-check GA4 data with data from your website.
If you need further help?
Yash and the team at Milktub can help you get setup on GA4. We will do the complete setup which includes (Contact details - yash@milktubagency.com):
- GA4 and GTM property creation
- Ecommerce and custom events creation and testing
- GA4 <> GTM <> Shopify integration
- Data layer implementation, testing and validation
We also provide a measurement plan audit which ensures that you are collecting all the data that your business needs and using it correctly to develop insights.