While it may have been something speculated about since the the announcement of App+Web several years ago, no one was quite sure if Google’s popular Universal Analytics software would continue working once what would go on to become Google Analytics 4 became stable. This week, we found out the answer when Google announced that beginning in July 2023, nearly 60% of the top 1million sites on the internet would need to undertake a migration to GA4, or adopt a different product entirely as Universal Analytics will cease processing hits and end service.
Important Steps to Take
Regardless of a brands ultimate migration plan, a few things need to be understood.
End of Service Dates
Users of the free version of Universal Analytics will cease having their data processed on July 1st 2023. Those whom have a 360 contract get three additional months, allowing them to continue to use Universal Analytics until October 1st 2023. This means, at longest, a brand has 18 months to migrate from Universal Analytics.
Impact to Google Ads
Universal Analytics has the ability to share data to other platforms. Once processing stops for your property, these integrations will cease to function properly. Google has outlined the impact to linked Google Ads as follows:
- bidding on imported Universal Analytics goals or ecommerce transactions
- using a Universal Analytics audience in your campaigns
- importing Universal Analytics site metrics
Will stop working properly once the data transfer from Google Analytics ceases. This may adversely impact your campaigns. You will want to take steps to adjust campaign settings prior to the end of life for your specific property license.
Historical Data
After July 1st, the account becomes read only and data is only assured to be accessible for six months. If the access to the data is critical, steps will need to be undertaken to export it (either via 360s BigQuery integration) or via one of the additional ways Google has identified.
Google states that they will offer more guidance on the data export process as they near the end of service date.
It is important to realize that eventually Google will decommission the servers and the data will be deleted / become inaccessible. If having data presently stored in the Google Analytics UI is critical to your operations, you’ll need to take steps to export it and host it in a different location.
Important Things to Know
GA4 is very different from Universal Analytics in that it is event-centric, instead of page-centric. This is reflected in how it collects data, how it stores data and even what the BigQuery Schema looks like. As such migrations may not in all cases be straight forward, particularly if you were previously leveraging the BigQuery extract for ingestion into other tools such as a on prem Data Warehouse.
GA4 Differences
Google has a list of UA data fields, and what they map to in GA 4 that can be viewed on their support page. They have also published a guide on what migration to GA4 may look like.
So when transitioning to GA4 be aware that how the system counts may diverge from Universal Analytics due to built in data modeling and the multiple ways you can handle user identity. You should expect differences when comparing against UA data.
You should also be aware that GA4 lacks the out of the box reports that were so popular in Universal Analytics. This means that there may be a significant learning curve for some teams to adjust. You’ll want to factor that into the overall migration timeline and plan.
Things to remember for Migration
Due to the fact that migration can be complex and that Universal Analytics exists on the vast majority of sites you may find that outside agencies are likely to become slammed with demand for migration as we near the end of life dates. If you are expecting to employ an agency to help with the migration, I recommend you get the engagements on the books sooner rather than later.
If you instead want to handle the migration on your own, there are a number of good resources out there, including the developer documentation provided by Google. Alternatively, you could seek out a tool such as Apollo to help you automate the transition.
The important thing to remember is the clock is ticking and given that multiple states have data privacy laws beginning in 2023, technical resourcing is likely going to be hard to come by for the foreseeable future. I advise not waiting and seeking to migrate as soon as possible to avoid running the risk of data loss.
One last thing to consider – if you want to do year over year comparisons, you’ll need to have the migration done by July or October of this year (depending on license level). That means for those on the free version, you have just over three months, and time’s ticking…