If you’re a current OneEach website customer, you may have Google Analytics - also called Universal Analytics (UA) - already installed on your website platform. UA is a free tool that Google provides to help you see and understand where your website visitors are coming from and what they are doing on your site. UA collects a variety of data, generates reports on a dashboard to easily see, and lets you track and analyze that data to get key insights. UA has been a great tool for marketing, improving site performance, analytics for leadership decision-making, and more.
But it’s going away.
Why Google Analytics (UA) Is Going Away
“Universal Analytics was built for a generation of online measurement that was anchored in the desktop web, independent sessions and more easily observable data from cookies,” Russell Ketchum, director, product management at Google, said in the announcement. “This measurement methodology is quickly becoming obsolete.”
What you should have on the top of your mind right now is that UA is going away on July 1, 2023. It’s critical that you migrate your UA property settings to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) before July 1, 2023.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) Is Replacing UA
According to Google Support, GA4 is replacing UA. On July 1, 2023, all standard UA properties will stop processing data. It will stop measuring your website traffic and your reports will stop updating. If you want to continue collecting data, you must migrate to GA4.
GA4 is an analytics service that enables you to measure traffic and engagement across your website. GA4 is a new kind of property with different reports than what you’re used to seeing in UA.
GA4 differs from UA in that it operates across platforms, doesn’t rely on cookies, and uses an event-based data model for measurement. It also does not store IP addresses, which can help brands stay on the right side of privacy regulations.
How to Set Up The New GA4
As a OneEach website customer, you have two options to choose from to get your site configured with the new GA4 before the current version expires:
- You can do it, or
- We can do it for you
Configure It Yourself
If you would like to do it yourself, you can follow the step-by-step directions found in our knowledgebase.
Have OneEach Help You with It
If you would prefer to have OneEach Support help you through the steps via a quick zoom meeting/screenshare, you can submit a support ticket on our Support Site using the following template:
Subject: GA4 Update
Message/Details: Can you please help me through the steps to find the new GA4 ID in my Google Analytics account?
United Ways and Database 2
Here is some special information for our United Way customers. United Way Worldwide is requesting website statistics as part of Database 2. You will get that data from your Google Analytics. Don’t lose your data; be sure to get switched over to the new GA4 before the July 1 deadline. And if you don't have Google Analytics set up yet, make sure you create an account since you're going to be required to report on it.
Wrapping It Up
Per Google, it can take up to 30 minutes for data to begin appearing in your new GA4 property. Google also provides this helpful guide to help you configure your tracking abilities with the new GA4 property, once it’s been created.
As always, your OneEach Account Managers and Support Team are here to help. Contact Us with any questions you may have.