It’s no secret by now that Google Analytics is one of the most valuable tools in a business owner’s arsenal, and the recently updated Google Analytics 4 gives website owners even more insight into how their pages are performing. Recently, GA4 has brought in a wave of new users, many of whom aren’t fully familiar with how the platform works, how to fix some of the more common user issues, or even why Google Analytics is important to building an effective website.

So we wanted to deep-dive into all of it and prepare you to get the most out of Google Analytics 4.

1. What is Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a marketing tool that tracks data on how Google users use the search engine and the websites they find on it. If you sign up for an Analytics account, you’ll get real-time reports on how many people interact with your pages and, more importantly, what they’re interacting with. That way, you can monitor your traffic, make sure you’re reaching your business goals, and adjust the pages and features that are underperforming.

Google Analytics gathers data by tracking page tags, which are lines of code that monitor how each website visitor interacts with each page. With these tags, Google Analytics can track how many people have viewed your website, how long the average visitor spends on your site, and what pages they click on while they’re there (and in what order). 

All that information together can help you determine what content your customers are interested in and if there are any valuable resources they’re not seeing often enough. From there, you can adjust your website to cater to the content that resonates with your clients the most.

2. What’s New in Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 has new and improved features for tracking users’ online behavior and predicting trends based on their previous site traffic. This helps business owners market to the people and demographics that actually have an interest in their products and services. Additionally, GA4 has a new “Insights” feature, with plenty of information about trends relevant to your business.

Another new feature in Google Analytics 4 are the editor abilities, which lets you change what data you track and how you track it. Specifically, you can alter the events Google tracks with the new GA4, letting you hone in on niche activity so you can fine-tune specific parts of your website. For example, Google Analytics 4’s events page might not have much information on how your customers use your shop page, but you can edit the parameters so it tracks what kind of products people are viewing and the value of their average purchase.

Google Analytics 4 also has a redesigned user interface that, in addition to being more user-friendly and easier to understand, has more features for in-depth data tracking. While there are some UI elements of GA4 that will look new to longtime users, many are actually just retitled versions of old features. For example, the ‘Page Views’ tab is now titled ‘Events,’ but it still tracks how many people have viewed your website along with all the button clicks and actions it receives. 

3. What Happened to Universal Analytics

For the past year, Google has planned to retire Universal Analytics, an alternate version of Google Analytics that was stronger at tracking and predicting user behavior. The launch of Google Analytics 4 and its updated tracking system made Universal Analytics obsolete, and as of July 1, 2023, Universal no longer processes new hits, although former Universal Analytics users can still access old data.

Though old users can still sign into Universal Analytics for now, Google will shut down access to the platform on July 1, 2024. However, if you have an old Universal Analytics account or an active contract, you can transfer your data to Google Analytics 4 as long as you make the switch before the July 1 deadline.

4. How to Fix Common Analytics Tag Issues

Though they’re both Google tools, switching from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics will be a bit overwhelming for some longtime Universal users. While Google Analytics 4 strives to be as user-friendly as possible, not every tool will come naturally to you, with analytics tags being the biggest potential struggle point. 

Your Google Analytics tag is what allows the search engine to monitor activity across your web pages. Without a functioning tag, Google Analytics can’t track how your customers use your website, so it's crucial to ensure yours is in the right place and functioning properly.

Below are three common issues users face with their analytics tags, with instructions on how to fix them:

Measurement Code is Installed Incorrectly

Your Google Analytics tag should be on every page of your website that has data you wish to monitor. If it’s not on a page, GA4 won’t be able to report any information for it and might send you an error message. You might also have the tag on all your pages but have it in the wrong place on some.

To fix this, make sure you place the tag directly after the first HTML tag on your website’s code.

Wrong Tag

If your Google tag is in the right place but still isn’t working, it might just be spelled incorrectly. You can find the proper spelling of your Google tag by clicking the “Admin” tab in Google Analytics, clicking on “Data Streams,” scrolling to the “Stream Details” section, and copying your measurement ID. You can then paste the proper tag in the right spot to start tracking your data.

Pending/Absent Data

It’s possible that there’s nothing wrong with your Google tag and that your website simply hasn’t received any data for the tag to track. Either that, or you’ve received so much new traffic that Google hasn’t been able to process it in real-time.

In either case, there isn’t anything wrong with your tag. You will just need to wait about 24 hours for the traffic to slow down and the data to come in.

Google also offers a tool called Google Tag Assistant, a browser extension that watches over your tag, ensures it's working properly, and helps you fix any issues you might not be seeing.

Final Thoughts

Google Analytics 4 is the future of Google’s analysis tools; whether former Universal Analytics users are on board or not. GA4 is advanced enough to make the formally more advanced Universal Analytics dated in comparison, so Google is shutting down the latter and inviting everyone to the former.

Fortunately, Google has updated its base analytics tool to make up for what we lost with Universal Analytics, putting advanced data-tracking tools into a user-friendly package.

Though you might encounter some roadblocks learning the new user interface and properly tagging your pages, you won’t want to let the obstacles keep you from taking advantage of this powerful tool.

Need help making the transition? Reach out!