Google has announced an overhauled version of Google Analytics. In one of the major revamps of the platform, in a decade, the new Google Analytics is built on the foundation of App+Web property, whose beta was introduced in 2019. The new Google Analytics has machine learning at its core and allows integration between analytics and Google Ads. The company claims that this would help customers manage their data better and can bear industry disruptions.
Among the most significant changes, the new analytics will alert the user of the significant trends in their data. Further, one can also anticipate actions that customers may take in the future. Other features include the addition of new predictive metrics. The company claims that such insights can help users and business owners achieve high-value customers and improve results by taking steps like analysis of customer expenditure patterns.
Features of Google Analytics 4
Since 2005, Google Analytics has been the industry leader and standard among web analytics tools. Its free standard version is favoured among individuals and small businesses. For larger companies, Google provides a paid product — Google Analytics 360. In addition to the standard functions, Google Analytics 360 provides features such as unsampled reports, BigQuery export, and data-driven attribution. The new Google Analytics is currently in beta with an Analytics 360 version that will provide SLAs and integrations with tools like BigQuery.
This new update is aimed at enhancing the customers’ decision-making abilities and get a better return on investment (ROI).
One of the most exciting features is the availability of AI-powered insights and predictions. Machine learning-powered insights have been a part of Google Analytics for some time now; however, the AI-powered insights will now help business owners automatically be alerted about data trends such as surging demand for their products. It can also be used to predict business outcomes such as potential revenue collection; these predictions can act as a guiding force for businesses to plan their next move.
With Google Analytics 4, marketers can now build and maintain audiences from the website and app visitors. For example, suppose the visitor of the website or app has been converted to an audience because they made a purchase. In that case, analytics will make sure that such users are removed from the list to avoid getting retargeted with the ads.
The way reports are organised in Analytics 4 is one of the most striking features that differentiate it from Universal Analytics. As per the company statement, these detailed reports can reveal even the minutest of the customer engagement, such as what channels are attracting customers, whether or not they are sticking around after conversion, among others. Marketers will now be able to provide customised user ID to gauge users across devices for reporting and targeting. This has been possible due to Google Analytics’ significant move from measurement fragmented by device measurement to a more customer-centric measurement.
Business owners will now be able to track and measure customer actions on their apps and website, without requiring to add code, thanks to the new expanded codeless features. This is a massive update as compared to Universal Analytics which still requires high-latency processing for the purpose.
Other features include relying on machine learning for filling the data gap caused by phasing out of third-party cookies; and the introduction of several new options to help advertisers comply with data regulations.
About Web+App Beta Type
Last year, Google had announced the beta of web+app property, which is now the foundation of the new Google Analytics 4 version. Invented to help customers navigate between both the websites and apps simultaneously, Google had announced a new way to measure apps and website together for the first time for unified reporting and analysis. This would allow business owners to gather data and benefit from the latest innovations while maintaining current implementations. In its new avatar, this feature provides Analytics 4 the capability to offer smarter insights on user behaviour.
