Benefits of Google Analytics 4 that Chat GPT won’t tell you about

Oliver Walker • 9 March 2023

Google Analytics 4 has been around in one form or another for a couple of years now and most of the new features are widely known. Here I’ll shine a spotlight on some of the new features which at a more detailed – often they’re more nuanced or just too damn niche for Chat GPT.

Top-level benefits of GA4

Before we dive into those features, it’s worth level-setting on what the new features within GA4 are. They are typically bundled into:

New approach to data collection – basically a shift towards everything being an “event”, which makes the tool more powerful. It’s far easier to collect information on apps and websites in one place now, for example, as well as track more actions on those apps and sites.
Enhanced user privacy – GA4 was born in and during the era of data regulation and cookie restriction so there’s a suite of micro-features and settings that makes it more privacy first than Universal Analytics
Advanced analytics – there’s a few ways in which Google has brought it’s massive advanced analytics capabilities to your GA. Most obviously is anomaly detection and pre-canned predictive metrics
Tighter integrations with native Google marketing Platform tools – previously, links to certain platforms were only available on the paid-for, or 360, version of GA but with GA4 free you get the lot.

So what are the less-well known benefits?

Enhanced measurement out of the box

A simple toggle button that you can switch on in the Admin section, this will collect information on user interactions like:

scroll tracking
outbound link clicks
internal site search
video engagement – actions like plays, percentage viewed and video completions
file downloads
form actions

Yes, there are always caveats but this is a great leap forward in accelerating your understanding of what happens on your website, without needing a developer. And for when you do – hey you know some friends that can help you out in a flash.

Recognising users in a more effective way

Previously GA connected users based on a cookie ID, tied to a browser or device, plus you could configure your own User ID if your website visitors made themselves known, i.e. by giving you an email address or phone number as part of a sign-up, purchase or log-in.

Google has added a third option to GA4 - leveraging its huge device graph and connecting via Google Signals. i.e., Google will know start to connect users it knows to be the same person, based on the log-information Google holds. Enabling Google Signals will mean a tweak to your privacy policy but it’s a nice offering that Google are offering to everyone.

Audience-triggered events

You can now create events when a user fulfils certain conditions - and measure this over time.If you're interested in users taking a certain set of actions on your website or app, then this is the feature for you.

Examples for when you might utilise audience triggers include when users:

view a certain number of articles being read
meet a given revenue threshold
consume a certain amount of video content

This allows you to create an audience trigger to fire an event when your threshold is reached.

Why is this useful? Well! Now you can start to see the channels that sent those users your way. Or start to identify articles, products or videos that might lead to more engaged behaviour.

At the bottom line, it should help you to understand what’s causing more of the things you want to to happen, to happen.

GA4 isn’t perfect but it’s got some promise

I know the GA4 isn't perfect (and I'll address those in another post!) but it does come with a suite of powerful features. And seeing as everyone will have to move over anyway, why not take use of them. We’re migrating clients like crazy and training teams across the country so if you need support, give us a shout.

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