What you need to know about the end of Google Universal Analytics (GA4)

About This Webinar on the end of Google Universal Analytics (GA4)

Did you know Google Universal Analytics (UA) will see end-of-life in July 2023? While that may seem a long way off, your team should be making changes now to adopt the newer version that will take its place, Google Analytics 4 (GA4). It’s quite a bit different!

Join our friend Eric Squair of DataHabits for a walk-through of what your team should do to prepare for the change, some GA4 best practices and how to translate and transition some of the data you’ve monitored for years in UA to what it looks like in GA4. It’ll all make sense after this informative webinar and you’ll finish with an actionable plan you can put in place the next day.

This event took place on Wednesday, May 18, 2022 @ 10:30 AM EST.

We’ve highlighted the most important things to know in this helpful guide.

Thank You to Our Clients and Partners

A special thanks to Eric Squair (Data Habits) for his time and expertise in presenting this informative webinar.

data habits

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Thanks for joining us today.

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I know that we have a bunch of people
joining us from all over the world,

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so I won’t say good morning,
even though it’s morning where I am here.

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I would love to see where you’re calling

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in from, so feel free
to drop that in the chat.

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I’m Kat, an account success
manager here at Engaging Networks.

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And I’m calling in from outside
of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

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And if you’ve ever worked with me before

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as an account success manager,
you know that I love a good data chat.

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And I often share Eric’s Google Analytics
webinar from last year.

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It’s super informative,
and I’m expecting the same.

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Today, I’ll drop that webinar off in
the chat just so you can check it out.

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But today we are going to focus on what’s

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to come, and there’s a lot of information
to share with you a little bit about Eric.

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He’s the founder of the web analytics

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consultancy Data Habits,
which they are an accredited partner,

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and he’s here to talk to you about
the end of universal Google Analytics.

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So I’ll let Eric take it away.

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Hey, thanks, Kat.

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Welcome, everyone.

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My name is Eric.

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Last name is Squair.

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He him.

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Pronouns, as Cat mentions.

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I work with web analytics Data
through a consultancy, Data Habits.

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I’m calling from Toronto, Canada.

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And I’ve been doing this work focusing

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on web analytics probably
the last dozen years.

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There’s a couple of the engaging network

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clients I’ve worked with in the past,
and I focus mainly on web analytics work.

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Huge percentage of that is
Google Analytics.

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Hence today’s call.

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Let’s get started.

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Today’s session, we’re going to cover what

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is Google Analytics
and Google Analytics four.

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Why is Google Analytics
four coming out now?

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What to do next?

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Some next steps to take what’s
new in Google Analytics four?

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What’s missing?

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Some parting advice,

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and we hope to have about ten
minutes for questions at the end.

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So I think we should have that.

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Please do hold your questions till the end

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and we’ll stay on until they
are answered within reason.

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All right, let’s get started here.

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Let’s start with a poll just to figure out
where people are with Google Analytics.

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Is your organisation currently
using Google Analytics?

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Let’s launch that poll.

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One, you’re not yet
using Google Analytics.

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Yes, you have an account,
but you rarely look at it.

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Lucky if it gets open once a month.

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You use it regularly to answer questions.

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You’re using it to track
sign ups and donations and your top

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performing content and your
social media and your email.

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So you’re
pretty seasoned and getting a lot of value

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out of it, putting a lot of effort into
tracking and getting a lot out of it.

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Or you don’t know, which is fine.

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You may not be technically,

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it might be new to your
organisation or not necessarily.

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No, so those are the four
encourage you to take that poll.

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It should be in front of you.

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Let’s close it and show
the results in three, two, one.

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Let’s close it and see what happens.

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All right, so everyone is using
Google Analytics and knows that they are.

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People are using it regularly
and almost evenly split,

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rarely using it to using it
at a pretty advanced level.

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Thanks for that.

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That really gives me a sense,
everyone’s using Google Analytics.

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Let’s close that.
I think I can do that.

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Great.
All right, let’s get into it.

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Google analytics is a web based tool

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that records anonymously
all visits to your website.

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It’s code you place on every page of your

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site and then adjust to track
specific behaviours.

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Let’s break this down a little bit.

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It’s a web based tool.

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You’ve all logged into your

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Google Analytics account,
just like your Gmail, it’s web based.

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It records anonymously
visitors to your site.

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We’ll talk a little bit more about that,

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how that works with Privacy,
et cetera, et cetera, in a moment.

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But essentially, in the terms of service,
you have to track people anonymously.

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You cannot send any personally
identifiable information to Google.

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Names, email addresses, addresses,
that kind of thing.

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So by definition, although it can be set

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up to send Google Analytics,
Google would shut your account down if it

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found out that you were sending personal
information to be stored by Google.

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Second, there’s code you place
on every page of your site.

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You’re probably all familiar with that.

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Every page, if you want to track it,
needs to have code on it.

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The other thing is, though,

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that you adjust it to track
specific behaviours out of the box.

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It tracks a certain number of things.

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You have to adjust the codes
on the pages to track other things.

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Has a donation occurred?

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Has a sign up occurred?

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Has somebody scroll
to the bottom of the page?

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That’s Google Analytics.

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In a nutshell,

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universal analytics and Google Analytics
four both fit that description.

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So really, the superpower of
Google Analytics is conversion tracking.

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So the idea of someone comes to your

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website, does something
you want them to do.

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They convert.
For most engaging networks users,

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they sign up either on an email list
or an online action, or they donate.

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Those are the top conversions that the
vast majority of you would be tracking.

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And that is the superpower

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of Google Analytics,
because it can show you

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all the conversions on your site
and where they are coming from.

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If set up properly and sort of the setup

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is maintained properly, it can show
you this little pie chart here.

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So this is probably pretty typical.
Maybe not.

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Yeah, pretty typical.

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Sources of donations, your email list,

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about 60% of donations are
coming in through there.

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Certain number organically from Facebook

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and Twitter, then your online
ads and then search engines.

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This is kind of the
superpower of Google Analytics.

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That idea of giving you a sense of where
your most valuable visitors are coming

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from and what you are doing to
influence these conversions.

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So over time, knowing that particular

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emails raised more money,
which ads are performing best,

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that’s kind of the best and first
use case of Google Analytics.

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It can certainly do a lot of other things,

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but I would recommend
you focus on that first.

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That’s Google Analytics.

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So far, Google Analytics Four
is an entirely new version.

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Google Analytics Four is replacing
the current version,

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which I’ll refer to as Universal Analytics
because that’s its name.

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Google Analytics Four is replacing
Universal Analytics on July 1, 2023.

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So a year and a bit from now,

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not this July, but essentially what is
happening is that your Universal Analytics

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account is scheduled to stop
recording data as of July 1, 2023.

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And your Google Analytics Four account,
if you set one up, will continue to work.

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That’s kind of the threat.

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That’s maybe the impetus why we’re all
here today, because

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this Google Analytics tool that some
of you rarely look at,

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some of you use every day, will stop
working a little over a year from now.

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So we’re going to dive
into what to do next.

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Where does that leave us?

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And I would say that this
is a bit of a surprise.

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It was announced, I guess,
about two months ago.

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And I think anyone outside Google is
surprised that they’re entirely cutting

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off Universal Analytics and going
to Google Analytics Four,

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although we’ll see why that might
be the case in a moment.

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Why now?
A couple of reasons.

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Cookies are going away.

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So cookies are files that are set on your
browser whenever you visit a website.

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They’ve been a key website tracking

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technology at the core
of Google Analytics.

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And almost any
online tracking uses cookies.

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Browser support for cookies is declining.

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It’s been declining for a while,

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and its usefulness of the tracking
mechanism is going away.

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And so Google Analytics Four
is working around that.

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It still uses cookies,
uses them in a different way.

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And as we’ll see in a moment,

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it sort of works around Google’s attempt
to work around cookies going away.

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That’s cookie monster, by the way.

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I love it.

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Privacy changes.

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Most of you have been working
with GDPR for the last few months.

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Not many of you have been working
with GDPR or other Privacy changes.

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This is a rethink of Google Analytics
to be more compliant with Privacy.

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We’ll get into a little bit more
of that in a moment,

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but that would be a huge impetus for this
that’s related to the cookies changes.

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Why now?

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The last major reason is that mobile apps
are now a huge part of the internet.

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And when Google Analytics is focused,

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we’ll see in a moment,
it’s focused on tracking web pages.

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And as web pages become only a portion

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of the internet and probably not
as important as they were originally.

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When Google Analytics and its precursor

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technologies were designed,
mobile apps didn’t exist.

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So they’re basically a measurement

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system that can track the Internet
as opposed to just web pages.

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So arguably a long overdue upgrade.

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But this would be kind of the third main

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reason why Google Analytics Four
has come out.

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If it’s not obvious,
it’s an entirely new technology,

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still has some of those basic code you
place on your site to track things.

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But it’s an entirely new framework,

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which is good and bad,
as we’ll see the next steps.

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So what do we do before July 1, 2023?

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Here are the next steps.

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Start a Google analytics four Account Well,

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you are all already using
Universal Analytics.

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I’ll send you a link and
you want to start an account.

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Put the code on every page of your site.

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There’s a little bit of a trick there for
engaging networks users at this point.

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We’ll talk about that in a moment.

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Run Google Analytics four alongside
Universal Analytics.

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They’re totally fine to work in parallel,
you’ll still be tracking to your existing

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Universal Analytics account
of a Google Analytics Four account.

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Finally, I highly recommend
using Google Tag Manager.

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And so we’ll explore each of these
next steps in the next slide.

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So that first next step.

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Start a Google analytics four Property If

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you have started a new Google Analytics
property, I think in the last year,

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maybe 18 months, it’s by default
a Google analytics four property.

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But if you’re using Universal Analytics,
start one in parallel.

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This link here.

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Bitly Ga Four Q Setup quick setup that is
sort of step by step instructions.

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If you are using Universal Analytics, how
to start a Google analytics four account?

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It’ll Port over certain of your settings,
like time zone, a couple of other things,

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just a really bare bones
part of the settings.

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But it’ll give you the basis of starting

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an account, so that’s not going
to go too much into that.

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How that’s done.

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Place the code on every page you will

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create in Google Analytics,
where you call create a web data stream,

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which will result in a code which you’ll
put on every page of your site.

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Here’s the thing.
So with engaging networks,

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one thing to note is that you can’t just
put your tracking code into the admin box

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of Google Analytics that is
set up to track the track.

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Universal Analytics So there’s some

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documentation in engaging networks
install Google Analytics.

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Just put in your tracking code.
The rest is done for you.

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That won’t work with Google Analytics

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for you will have to paste this
code on every page of your site.

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Hence, I have this screenshot

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of a template with that GTAG
configuration there.

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For those of you using Google Tag Manager,

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you can simply include it
via Google Tag Manager.

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I highly recommend that you do that.

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Use Google Tag Manager.

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Place every code on your site
and we’ll see why in a moment.

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Google Analytics Four again,
it can run alongside universal analytics.

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You’re highly recommended to do that.

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We’ll see why again in a moment.

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But you don’t have to remove your
existing universal analytics code.

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Let’s go right until the deadline using

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Universal Analytics and start using
universal Google Analytics four now.

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Last step.
So those are the three steps.

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Start a property,
place code on every page.

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Don’t delete your universal
analytics account.

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Really straightforward advice.

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I’ll give you some resources
for that in a moment.

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Last bit is using Google Tag Manager.

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Now that many of you
would know what I’m talking about,

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some of you may not understand
what Google Tag Manager is.

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Essentially,
it’s a piece of code that you put on every

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page of your site and allows
you to manage tracking codes.

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It works particularly well
for Google tracking codes.

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Google Analytics, Google Ads,
Google Optimise.

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But it can also be used
for many other platforms.

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Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, Microsoft Ads.

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So it’s not Google specific.

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It is a way of placing one code on your

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site and then managing
through an interface.

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How to do this?
Let’s look at the left hand side.

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Tag Management Without Google Tag Manager,

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we start at the one, which is the whatever
10:00 spot.

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The marketing person,

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probably you or someone in your
Department, collects tags.

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I want to track AdWords,
and I want to track Twitter ads.

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You get in touch with your web developer,

[00:15:42.520]
either in house or at an agency, and you
say, I want this tag on this page.

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I want this tag on that page.

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They do it either same
day or the next month.

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You tested that Tags are working properly.

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You see that they’re not.

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You go back to the web developer,
they make changes, and then the person

[00:16:03.840]
and then someone in the campaign says,
oh, we’re going to change things up.

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We want to track other things.

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The whole process starts over again.

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If you’re lucky, you have a web developer

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who’s not super busy
and can help you with this.

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If not, it means that tracking can
really fall through the cracks.

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Once you have installed Google Tag Manager

[00:16:24.160]
on every page of your site,
your web developer does it place

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Google Tag Manager code
on every page of your site.

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Anyone who wants to who has a login
to Tag Manager can place Tags on relevant

[00:16:37.280]
pages, test that they’re working, and fix
or disable them based on their needs.

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It doesn’t have to be this back and forth

[00:16:44.720]
between the web developer
and the people running the marketing.

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So it’s a way of tracking
to Google and other platforms.

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Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads.

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It’s really quick.

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And I guess the thing that last thing is
that it will allow you to do very complex

[00:17:03.440]
tracking
on your own and test that set it up once

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you learn how to use it,
it’s a bit fidgety, but it means that you

[00:17:15.320]
don’t have to change the code of your site
going to the template, files, etcetera.

[00:17:19.600]
Etcetera.
You can do some pretty sophisticated

[00:17:22.440]
tracking with an interface
much like Google Analytics.

[00:17:31.840]
Spend a tonne of time on that.
Let’s move on.

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Google Tag Manager.
I love it.

[00:17:37.080]
And if you’re going to be doing
this work, it’s super useful.

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That’s the next steps.

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I’m running some webinars,
some free webinars in June

[00:17:49.240]
where we cover these in literally 20
minutes webinars with time for questions.

[00:17:56.960]
Afterwards, there’ll be three webinars,

[00:17:59.040]
one on putting the code on your page,
one on campaign tagging,

[00:18:04.360]
and finally looking at the new
reports in Google Analytics.

[00:18:08.240]
Where to kind of start,

[00:18:09.920]
because as you’ll see in a moment,
it can be a bit overwhelming.

[00:18:14.680]
If you don’t want to take those webinars

[00:18:16.520]
and you just want those steps taken
care of for you, let me know.

[00:18:22.000]
I’m super busy between
now and that deadline.

[00:18:24.240]
But let’s talk.

[00:18:25.320]
I’m at Eric at Datahabits.

[00:18:28.240]
All right.

[00:18:30.560]
So to recap the timelines, Universal
Analytics stops tracking July 1, 2023.

[00:18:37.040]
Google Analytics Four, ideally.

[00:18:39.440]
And we’ll talk about this in a moment.

[00:18:40.680]
Ideally, you want to have Google Analytics

[00:18:43.280]
at a very basic, at least a basic
account tracking by July 1.

[00:18:47.480]
That’s ideal.

[00:18:48.760]
No huge penalties if you don’t, but you’ll
see why you want to do that in a moment.

[00:18:52.560]
Finally,

[00:18:54.280]
ideal scenario, you’re using
Google Tag Manager to track

[00:19:00.280]
the Google analytics four, ideally,
by July 1 and definitely by July 1, 2023.

[00:19:08.400]
All right.

[00:19:10.280]
I said hold questions to the end.
But here’s the thing.

[00:19:12.800]
Are there any questions about those steps

[00:19:16.240]
that are just kind
of sticking in your mind?

[00:19:18.160]
We are going to take more questions

[00:19:19.600]
at the end, but if there’s anything
specific about these four steps,

[00:19:26.360]
maybe just chat them, I think makes sense
and will take two to three minutes.

[00:19:34.360]
If things are sticking
in your brain, let me know.

[00:19:37.320]
Yeah.

[00:19:37.760]
Penny had a question that I
think is applicable.

[00:19:41.600]
They said, will the code need to be

[00:19:43.440]
replaced on all platforms
or just engaging networks?

[00:19:47.920]
It will need to be very good question.

[00:19:49.960]
It’ll need to be replaced on every page.
Yes.

[00:19:55.200]
All platforms.

[00:19:56.800]
So you can’t track pages
that don’t have the code on them.

[00:20:00.600]
That was true with Universal.

[00:20:01.800]
It’s also true with Google Analytics.

[00:20:03.560]
So your WordPress pages,

[00:20:05.240]
your Drupal pages, all those things
will need the code on every page.

[00:20:08.720]
Another good reason, another good call
for Tag Manager makes this very easy.

[00:20:15.760]
Otherwise, you are editing multiple
pages and page templates, et cetera.

[00:20:24.080]
All right, great question.

[00:20:25.840]
Any other really quick questions
on what we just covered?

[00:20:38.000]
All right, let’s move on.

[00:20:39.480]
Great.

[00:20:40.800]
There are questions at the end.

[00:20:42.200]
Again.

[00:20:43.560]
Here we go.

[00:20:45.360]
All right.

[00:20:46.520]
Google Analytics Four
is almost entirely new.

[00:20:51.040]
Technology has some similarities.

[00:20:53.680]
The web based tool that records

[00:20:55.600]
anonymously all visits to your
website or mobile app.

[00:21:00.240]
So it is a framework that can track either
internet property,

[00:21:07.760]
it’s code you place on every website
page or into your mobile app.

[00:21:11.720]
Again, iOS or Android special ways.

[00:21:16.240]
You add some code to the SDK and you’re

[00:21:18.800]
good to go and then you adjust
it to track specific behaviours.

[00:21:23.560]
Again, out of the box.

[00:21:25.120]
And we’ll look at this in a moment.
Out of the box.

[00:21:26.840]
It tracks certain things.

[00:21:28.080]
It answers certain questions.

[00:21:30.960]
The key to getting the most out

[00:21:34.120]
of Google Analytics is making sure
that you have adjusted it properly

[00:21:39.400]
to track the things that are
most important to you.

[00:21:41.600]
The ones we mentioned previous are sign
ups and donations,

[00:21:46.200]
where I recommend you start,
but out of the box.

[00:21:50.240]
Putting the code on every page

[00:21:53.840]
will not automatically track
signups and donations.

[00:21:56.440]
There’s a little more work to do in terms
of adjusting the code, testing it,

[00:22:00.840]
and I would say making sure
that it is maintained properly.

[00:22:06.120]
As your website changes,

[00:22:08.240]
you will have to adjust the code
conversion or other tracking will stop.

[00:22:12.880]
If you sort of relaunch a new site

[00:22:14.880]
and don’t make little tweaks to the code,
that’s a super common issue.

[00:22:19.520]
Finally, the last thing I would add

[00:22:20.840]
that was not
in universal analytics or was

[00:22:24.920]
catastrophically bad in universal
analytics was machine learning

[00:22:29.440]
and artificial intelligence
they’re built into the platform.

[00:22:34.040]
I hope you understand why by the end
of this webinar,

[00:22:37.520]
but it is a sort of machine learning
and artificial intelligence tool that was

[00:22:43.320]
not really built into the core
of universal analytics.

[00:22:47.840]
All right, so that’s
Google Analytics four.

[00:22:49.880]
Roughly the same,
almost entirely different.

[00:22:53.880]
Some of the ways it’s different is that

[00:22:57.800]
Google analytics four is based
on events, not page views.

[00:23:03.480]
This is sort of a higher concept here
in terms of how these things work.

[00:23:08.840]
It’s Google Analytics nerdy.

[00:23:10.440]
But basically universal analytics,

[00:23:12.600]
as I mentioned, it was based
around tracking a page view.

[00:23:16.160]
And as it evolved over time, it added
events or did somebody click this?

[00:23:19.880]
Did they scroll to the bottom of the page?

[00:23:22.080]
Did they fill out a form?

[00:23:23.720]
But at the core it said

[00:23:26.840]
Everyone views a page and then
they do things on that page.

[00:23:31.280]
Google analytics four is tracking events.

[00:23:36.320]
It’s just, did somebody open
an app or did they view a page?

[00:23:40.520]
Did they click on something?

[00:23:41.720]
Did they do XY and Z?

[00:23:43.040]
And all events are kind of equal.

[00:23:45.720]
It doesn’t assume a page view has

[00:23:47.520]
happened, because if you’re tracking
a mobile app,

[00:23:52.880]
there’s no really such thing as
a page view, a distinct page view.

[00:23:57.240]
So it’s not fundamental to understand
using Google analytics four that.

[00:24:03.880]
You understand that idea,
but you have to be aware that what it’s

[00:24:08.080]
measuring and what at its core
is measuring is different.

[00:24:11.920]
On the left hand side is
from Google Analytics, a core metric.

[00:24:15.560]
How many page views did you get?

[00:24:17.160]
How many unique page views did you get?

[00:24:22.320]
On the right hand side is kind of what
Google analytics four puts out in front.

[00:24:29.440]
How many events happened
on your app or web page?

[00:24:35.840]
How many users, how many
events happened per user.

[00:24:39.080]
These are the same account over
the same time period, right?

[00:24:42.320]
So 60,000 page views, 355,000 events,

[00:24:51.920]
they’re different,
but this is the exact same.

[00:24:55.280]
This is an organisation
that is tracking in parallel.

[00:24:58.600]
Left hand side is their page views.

[00:25:00.400]
Right hand side is Google analytics four
this avalanche of events comes at you.

[00:25:07.920]
So there we go.

[00:25:10.080]
That’s one of the key differences between
Universal Analytics and Google Analytics.

[00:25:17.320]
Four.

[00:25:18.640]
Next bit is that it’s far
more powerful and flexible.

[00:25:24.040]
That’s a bit vague, but as I mentioned,
Universal Analytics is tracking websites.

[00:25:30.480]
This is kind of a measurement framework
that evolved from tracking mobile apps.

[00:25:37.760]
So there’s some really interesting

[00:25:40.840]
features that
you used to have to pay a lot of money

[00:25:44.960]
for or just weren’t available
in Universal Analytics.

[00:25:47.920]
One of the really interesting ones that’s

[00:25:50.280]
the screenshot here is different
Attribution models,

[00:25:53.960]
and I’m calling them retroactive,
but what that means is they work.

[00:26:02.520]
You can switch between Attribution models.

[00:26:05.640]
Now, what Attribution is, Google Analytics
was kind of focused on tracking what

[00:26:11.320]
brought the person to the
website during that visit.

[00:26:15.680]
That’s called last click Attribution.

[00:26:17.800]
And Universal Analytics was
built around that.

[00:26:23.240]
There were ways to kind of
ferret out that information.

[00:26:27.800]
But essentially it was saying,

[00:26:31.760]
if we’re going to attribute a donation
to a Facebook ad,

[00:26:36.200]
they had to have clicked the Facebook ad
on the same visit, they make the donation.

[00:26:39.640]
That’s the last click.

[00:26:41.120]
What Google analytics four is promising
is several different Attribution models.

[00:26:46.320]
First click, what brought
them to your website?

[00:26:48.080]
The first time they ever
visited your website?

[00:26:50.840]
Was it Facebook ads?

[00:26:52.320]
Was it organic search?

[00:26:54.680]
Last click?

[00:26:55.880]
And this one data driven,

[00:26:58.000]
which is the default one when you set up
Google analytics four cross channel,

[00:27:02.840]
data driven model, which promises
a number of different things.

[00:27:07.040]
But essentially this idea of,
did they come in through your web app

[00:27:12.840]
first and then come to your
website and donate?

[00:27:15.120]
And what was their first
interaction with your site?

[00:27:18.160]
So it’s a lot richer,
more powerful method.

[00:27:22.000]
It’s advertised as such,

[00:27:24.480]
remains to be seen what is involved
in fully fleshing out each of these

[00:27:30.120]
Attribution models, but it has the ability
to do this kind of Attribution modelling.

[00:27:38.640]
Next thing I mentioned, really quickly,

[00:27:40.160]
machine learning and artificial
intelligence are built in and really

[00:27:44.920]
quickly, what this is doing there is
saying, we know

[00:27:52.520]
there’s a bunch of people who came to your
website because they opted in to be

[00:27:56.760]
tracked fully, they accepted all cookies
in perpetuity and et cetera, et cetera.

[00:28:03.720]
We know how they got to your website.

[00:28:06.520]
We know a lot about their behaviour.

[00:28:08.520]
There’s all these other people who came
to your website that didn’t opt in to be

[00:28:12.080]
tracked or they, for whatever reason,
they were using iOS 14 and there’s big

[00:28:17.680]
gaps in their tracking
and what it’s doing.

[00:28:22.360]
It will use machine learning
and artificial intelligence to fill

[00:28:25.840]
in those gaps of people
who couldn’t be tracked.

[00:28:28.440]
It won’t be tracking any
personal information.

[00:28:31.960]
It’ll just say, hey, we know this audience
behaves this way has these attributes

[00:28:37.120]
because we tracked it and they
agreed to be tracked.

[00:28:39.640]
So all these people who didn’t agree to be

[00:28:41.000]
tracked, we’re going to kind of like use
machine learning and artificial

[00:28:44.440]
intelligence to tell you things about
those people without tracking them.

[00:28:49.400]
Essentially,

[00:28:53.160]
Google has some really interesting
artificial intelligence stuff out there.

[00:28:56.200]
I hope they apply it
in a useful way to this.

[00:28:59.400]
That would be interesting.

[00:29:01.200]
That’s kind of the promise there of this

[00:29:03.320]
machine learning and artificial
intelligence built in.

[00:29:08.840]
That’s one reason why you want to set up

[00:29:12.000]
a Google analytics four account sooner
rather than later to allow this machine

[00:29:15.680]
learning and artificial
intelligence to start learning.

[00:29:18.720]
If you wait until July 1, 2023,

[00:29:22.960]
Google analytics four won’t have as much
information to work from and this cross

[00:29:28.640]
channel data driven model will be far less
useful is the plan so that’s kind of why

[00:29:35.480]
you want to run them in parallel
and start sooner rather than later.

[00:29:39.200]
So the machine learning model has time to

[00:29:42.520]
build a profile of the people who it’s not
really tracking in any meaningful way.

[00:29:50.680]
Finally, there’s BigQuery integration
which is like a really powerful database

[00:29:56.600]
and your data can go
unsampled into BigQuery.

[00:30:02.960]
If people have been using universal

[00:30:05.280]
analytics four a while,
there’s this sampling.

[00:30:06.480]
If you have a really

[00:30:08.360]
popular site, it’s giving you a subset
of representative sample of your data.

[00:30:13.160]
You can get unsampled raw
data put into BigQuery.

[00:30:18.920]
You have to pay for BigQuery

[00:30:22.920]
but that’s essentially a really
professional level,

[00:30:28.040]
powerful analysis tool that the vast
majority of us won’t necessarily need.

[00:30:33.240]
But it’s there all right.

[00:30:37.040]
Another new thing about Google.

[00:30:39.280]
Analytics four really advanced reporting.

[00:30:40.760]
It’s much more flexible.

[00:30:42.200]
Google analytics reports are okay

[00:30:44.520]
pretty quickly hit a wall in terms of what
you can do with the standard reports.

[00:30:48.800]
That’s why I highly recommend
Google Data Studio.

[00:30:52.600]
It just gives you a much better, better
interface to your Google Analytics data.

[00:30:58.840]
So there’s some interesting new reports,

[00:31:03.400]
extremely steep learning curve,
not entirely usable at this point.

[00:31:09.320]
I expect that will change
over the next year.

[00:31:11.360]
But the idea of some of these things,
for instance, the funnel exploration.

[00:31:18.240]
Right now, if you want to set up a funnel,

[00:31:20.080]
universal analytics,
you define it and then wait for people to

[00:31:25.920]
go through that funnel
and then analyse the data.

[00:31:29.760]
You’ve got a flexible

[00:31:31.720]
retroactive funnel tracking report,
tear your hair out,

[00:31:38.760]
getting it to work exactly the way
you want, but it will be worth it.

[00:31:43.000]
I’ve done so far.

[00:31:46.280]
Similarly, path exploration.

[00:31:48.000]
If you’ve ever used universal analytics to
say how do people move through our site?

[00:31:52.840]
It was really hard to get out of there.

[00:31:55.960]
The promise of Google analytics four is

[00:31:59.520]
again, sort of that retroactive past
exploration with good, nice granular data.

[00:32:07.520]
So more advanced reporting,
big caveat, really steep learning curve.

[00:32:12.800]
I would suggest that

[00:32:16.960]
Google Analytics Four is not going to give
you that many AHA insights in the next

[00:32:24.440]
probably before the fall for sure,
unless you have a lot of time to spend

[00:32:30.080]
learning it and you’ve
set it up a while ago.

[00:32:33.560]
That said, I expect big things from it

[00:32:36.320]
just because of the flexibility
of the reporting.

[00:32:38.480]
And once they iron out the kinks

[00:32:39.920]
in the kind of usability
Google Analytics Four,

[00:32:42.800]
I think it’s going to be a much
more powerful and useful tool.

[00:32:47.200]
One of those useful tools that I think is

[00:32:49.640]
applicable almost right away is this idea
of audiences, extremely granular segments

[00:32:54.520]
of your website visitors
that you can create.

[00:32:58.760]
That was certainly something you
could do in universal analytics.

[00:33:01.240]
They weren’t sort of built
into the core of what you were doing.

[00:33:05.440]
Audiences are much more integrated

[00:33:07.960]
into Google analytics four this is one
set up for clients so far,

[00:33:15.840]
and it has advertised sign ups that come
from organic search as a first visit.

[00:33:21.680]
The idea here is it gives you insights

[00:33:24.480]
into what of your SEO is working to
inspire people to sign up.

[00:33:33.720]
If you’re using Google Analytics properly,

[00:33:35.680]
you know which ads work, you know
which emails encourage people to sign up.

[00:33:39.560]
We’re talking about people who Typed

[00:33:41.480]
into Google about your topic,
found your website, were so inspired,

[00:33:45.600]
they signed an action or
joined your email list.

[00:33:48.440]
It’s useful to know about that segment

[00:33:50.680]
because you can then say, okay, which
content inspired that action, right?

[00:33:56.920]
We know which ads do,
we know which email do.

[00:33:59.200]
But

[00:34:03.640]
what content on our website was so
inspiring to people who found us on Google

[00:34:07.960]
that they ended up signing up
either that visit or the next one.

[00:34:12.360]
It’s this little sliver as you
can see in the bottom it’s 00:20.

[00:34:15.240]
9% of all users for that time period.

[00:34:20.560]
But over time, that’s a really useful
segment of your if you’re creating

[00:34:26.320]
original content,
which this client is doing a lot of,

[00:34:29.760]
and they want to know what is inspiring
and what is kind of boring for people.

[00:34:34.720]
So that’s that

[00:34:39.440]
also new in Google Analytics
for Privacy features.

[00:34:44.240]
Maybe it’s obvious,
but I’ll state it again.

[00:34:46.200]
Google Analytics Four is a reaction

[00:34:48.840]
to Privacy becoming more
of an issue on the Internet.

[00:34:52.520]
Thank God.
I think it’s really important.

[00:34:57.840]
But it means that Google Analytics has to
have some serious features built into it.

[00:35:04.920]
For instance,

[00:35:06.200]
one of them is the individual user
data disappears after 14 months.

[00:35:11.120]
Two months by default.

[00:35:12.200]
You have to go in.
When you’re setting up

[00:35:14.000]
Google Analytics Four and do the event
data retention for 14 months,

[00:35:18.000]
that doesn’t mean that you can
only track 14 months back.

[00:35:21.760]
It means that specific user behaviours

[00:35:29.960]
identifiable to a particular user,
not by their first name or anything.

[00:35:36.280]
But Google Analytics will
give them a user ID.

[00:35:41.080]
They stay in the system, but their event
history goes away after 14 months.

[00:35:46.680]
So

[00:35:48.960]
put it this way,
it won’t necessarily affect your really

[00:35:51.680]
key reports, but it will allow people
to kind of be forgotten after 14 months.

[00:35:59.120]
There’s kind of no

[00:36:01.720]
record of their interactions
with your site except in aggregate.

[00:36:05.360]
They’re just one of the million people
that came to your site during that time.

[00:36:10.800]
That might be a little convoluted,

[00:36:13.240]
but essentially certain data
gets flushed after a while.

[00:36:19.280]
More in line with upcoming
Privacy legislation.

[00:36:23.640]
Ip anonymization is on by default,
so that can be used to locate a user

[00:36:33.240]
and could be set to track or not
in Universal Analytics, does it tell you?

[00:36:40.840]
But in Google Analytics Four,
it’s anonymized by default.

[00:36:48.040]
The thing will be you’ll get a city level,

[00:36:51.040]
somebody from Toronto or Detroit visited
your website or

[00:36:56.680]
Paris, but you’re not going to get
that much more detailed IP address data.

[00:37:05.680]
And finally mentioned for using
artificial intelligence to fill

[00:37:11.120]
in the gaps, people who opt
out of being tracked at all.

[00:37:14.800]
Google analytics is just
putting artificial intelligence at work

[00:37:20.400]
to model those people without
actually tracking them.

[00:37:26.440]
Those are the new one last out of the box.

[00:37:30.840]
It records a lot more by default.

[00:37:32.400]
I mentioned this briefly before.

[00:37:34.280]
The idea that Google Analytics,

[00:37:36.440]
when you put
Universal Analytics code on every page,

[00:37:40.200]
it tracks a page view, that’s it,
and then you add events to it.

[00:37:45.280]
As soon as you put Google Analytics four

[00:37:49.760]
tracking code on your site and enable
enhanced measurement,

[00:37:56.280]
which is enabled by default, it does
its best to track these behaviours.

[00:38:02.640]
So page views, which we’re familiar
with when somebody Scrolls to 90%

[00:38:06.960]
of the page, when they click off your
website, when they use your site, search,

[00:38:12.000]
when they engage with a video,
and when they download a file.

[00:38:16.560]
So right away you’re getting more

[00:38:18.600]
behaviours tracked, more events
tracked than just a page view.

[00:38:22.720]
This is maybe a good example of that.

[00:38:25.160]
One caveat is that it’s a best guess
as to when a site search occurs.

[00:38:31.320]
It’s pretty good, but you might have to go

[00:38:32.960]
in and make sure that it’s properly set
up, or similarly a video engagement.

[00:38:37.680]
If you have sort of a nonstandard way

[00:38:39.360]
of embedding videos,
Google analytics fourm may not work

[00:38:44.800]
and you’d have to make
some slight adjustments.

[00:38:46.480]
But essentially that’s the promise there
that in probably 80% of cases,

[00:38:52.320]
these events will be tracked as soon as
you put the tracking code on your page.

[00:38:56.400]
That’s one benefit of
moving to Google Analytics.

[00:39:00.960]
Four.

[00:39:03.920]
All right, what’s missing
in Google Analytics four?

[00:39:09.120]
One of them that I’m not so sad
is going away is bounce rate.

[00:39:13.520]
So the idea of metrics that were built

[00:39:15.640]
around a page view,
those are kind of disappearing.

[00:39:19.880]
You could still configure Google Analytics

[00:39:21.840]
for to give you these, but in the default
reports, they’re not kind of highlighted.

[00:39:27.080]
So you couldn’t log into universal
analytics without seeing these two.

[00:39:31.440]
If we’re set up properly,
these two metrics were front and centre.

[00:39:36.440]
Bounce rate, which I’d argue wasn’t super
useful anyway, and one that was super

[00:39:42.040]
useful, which is your
goal conversion rate.

[00:39:44.360]
How many people who came to your site
ended up converting doing this goal either

[00:39:49.160]
a goal conversion or
an ecommerce conversion.

[00:39:52.000]
This was as mentioned in a previous slide,

[00:39:53.920]
this was like the whole value of Google
Analytics was your conversion rate.

[00:39:58.400]
Did our conversion rate go up?

[00:40:00.160]
What’s our conversion rate for?
Email?

[00:40:01.720]
What’s it for ads.

[00:40:03.200]
That was the whole value
proposition of Google Analytics.

[00:40:06.720]
It’s not

[00:40:08.280]
in Google analytics four by default
there are ways to calculate it,

[00:40:13.680]
but it’s not kind of front and centre, so
it’s a bit of a surprise.

[00:40:19.600]
I’d be extremely surprised if
Google Analytics and there are some hints

[00:40:24.320]
that they will,
will kind of bring a conversion rate back

[00:40:27.480]
because it’s a core feature that people
who are using Google Analytics got used

[00:40:32.680]
to and found value
in and it’s kind of missing.

[00:40:37.400]
So beware conversion rate is going away
as a default metric and bounce rate.

[00:40:46.040]
Bounce rate is being replaced by
engaged visits.

[00:40:50.520]
So instead of saying bounce rate is like

[00:40:52.320]
unengaged visits, who left without doing
anything on your website,

[00:40:55.480]
it’s being replaced by sort of a positive
metric, which is like, oh,

[00:40:59.200]
this many people did things on your
website, essentially stayed for at least

[00:41:02.520]
10 seconds and or clicked a PDF or,
et cetera, et cetera.

[00:41:07.160]
So bounce rate is still there.

[00:41:08.640]
It’s kind of translated
into something else.

[00:41:11.400]
Conversion rate probably coming soon.

[00:41:15.080]
I’d be very surprised if
it doesn’t pop up soon.

[00:41:18.320]
What’s missing in Google Analytics?

[00:41:19.840]
Four, maybe this is not as obvious,
but your favourite reports.

[00:41:24.120]
So all that your kind of reports
that you’ve used for years.

[00:41:28.440]
This one’s mine as
a Google Analytics nerd.

[00:41:30.760]
This is the first one I look at which is
like your conversions by source.

[00:41:36.520]
And this tells me what needs to be fixed

[00:41:39.040]
in your installation, but essentially
your donations and where they came from.

[00:41:44.360]
It’s two clicks in universal analytics.

[00:41:46.960]
If you’ve got your Google Analytics set up
properly and this tells you a tonne

[00:41:50.560]
of information, again, that’s kind of the
value proposition of Google Analytics.

[00:41:53.560]
This does not exist in

[00:41:56.280]
Google analytics four it can be recreated
and with very powerful dashboards.

[00:42:03.000]
Maybe.
Let’s just say that your favourite reports

[00:42:04.880]
are going away and you’ll have new
favourites with a little bit of work.

[00:42:10.040]
Google analytics as mentioned, it’s

[00:42:13.040]
going to have a lot
of really powerful features.

[00:42:15.680]
But if you log in expecting to see

[00:42:18.840]
and generate reports in the same way,
bad news.

[00:42:25.400]
What’s missing right now?

[00:42:26.680]
A migration tool.

[00:42:28.880]
And there’s very little evidence that they

[00:42:30.920]
will ever have a migration tool to say,
oh, you’re using universal analytics.

[00:42:36.400]
Click here.

[00:42:37.600]
And now you’re using Google Analytics
for because they’re almost entirely

[00:42:42.400]
different technologies in terms
of the data they’re collecting.

[00:42:45.960]
There’s no way to do it.

[00:42:47.080]
There’s a few tools like this,

[00:42:48.400]
which is just like a rough translation,
kind of like using Google Translate.

[00:42:51.880]
Like, oh, you have these
goals in universal analytics.

[00:42:54.760]
Hey, let us

[00:42:57.440]
translate that into Google Analytics
four sort of works, but I don’t know.

[00:43:02.920]
You don’t use Google Translate
to speak to native speakers.

[00:43:05.680]
So I’m torturing the metaphor here.

[00:43:09.440]
Point being there’s no
really easy way to migrate.

[00:43:15.360]
It’s essentially a new set up

[00:43:19.400]
and I would suggest you take
those next steps we talked about.

[00:43:23.520]
Put it on every page of your site.

[00:43:24.920]
Track donations, track sign ups.

[00:43:26.600]
You’re kind of 80% of the way there
as an engaging networks user.

[00:43:33.960]
Let’s go.

[00:43:34.680]
Here what’s missing
in Google Analytics Four.

[00:43:37.280]
I sort of hinted at this.

[00:43:38.680]
I’d say usability.

[00:43:40.680]
This tweet life is too short to complain
about Google Analytics four.

[00:43:46.920]
This is one of the top

[00:43:50.040]
users and implementers of Google Analytics
and he has spent the last few months

[00:43:55.720]
complaining about Google Analyst
with good reason.

[00:43:57.560]
It’s entirely new technology
in the way it’s implemented.

[00:44:02.320]
Google analytics has done
an abysmal job of documenting it.

[00:44:05.760]
Really smart people who can’t
explain how it works.

[00:44:09.720]
So he’s kind of figuring out

[00:44:11.160]
and documenting it as our other people
and this other meme that I really liked.

[00:44:16.120]
Again, somebody uses
Google Analytics every day.

[00:44:18.120]
I was just like, Whoa, this is a lot.

[00:44:20.800]
So I hinted at this before.

[00:44:23.520]
Don’t expect big insights from Google
analytics four in the next six months.

[00:44:28.040]
Even if you do a seamless installation,
the usability just isn’t there.

[00:44:35.080]
There’s a lot of like glitches.

[00:44:37.240]
And that said, I expect big things of it.

[00:44:41.200]
It’s going to be good.

[00:44:43.520]
By the time

[00:44:46.680]
in six months from now,
this will be a different situation,

[00:44:49.520]
I am certain, or I’ll be looking
for a different line of work.

[00:44:53.800]
Your numbers will not line up.
Sorry.

[00:44:56.840]
So those are the what’s new?

[00:44:58.960]
What’s missing in Google Analytics?

[00:45:00.760]
I’m going to end with a
little bit of advice.

[00:45:02.600]
I’ve caught three minutes to run through

[00:45:04.880]
my last things to give
us time for questions.

[00:45:11.160]
This was true in Google Analytics.

[00:45:12.920]
Universal analytics

[00:45:14.120]
and in Google analytics four your numbers
Will Not Line Up If you want to use

[00:45:18.040]
Google Analytics, you have to admit
that your numbers will not line up.

[00:45:23.400]
You don’t expect your data to line up

[00:45:25.120]
between different sources,
universal analytics will already be

[00:45:29.280]
tracking differently
from Google Analytics four.

[00:45:31.560]
If you try and say, oh,

[00:45:32.400]
we’ve got to make sure they line up,
you’ve wasted your life trying to do that.

[00:45:36.800]
Similarly with Facebook events different

[00:45:39.560]
attribution models, last click versus
a look back window.

[00:45:44.720]
Or Facebook can track if somebody
has viewed an ad and then donated.

[00:45:51.920]
So they will never line up except this.

[00:45:54.600]
And Google Analytics will be usable.

[00:45:56.480]
It’s unusable if you
expect it to line up 100%.

[00:45:59.320]
Even with your engaging network’s number

[00:46:02.320]
of donations, Google Analytics will
almost always be a little bit off.

[00:46:07.800]
Instead, recognise that your
numbers will never line up.

[00:46:10.760]
You got this many donations
in engaging networks.

[00:46:14.320]
Google analytics said you had this many.

[00:46:16.120]
They want to be relatively close.

[00:46:18.280]
If they line up something’s wrong month
after month, if they line up something’s

[00:46:21.720]
actually wrong, accept that they will
be different and understand two things.

[00:46:26.680]
Instead, the source of the diversions
is it an attribution model issue?

[00:46:30.640]
Is it your consent management?

[00:46:34.000]
Is it other sort of web
tracking challenges?

[00:46:37.200]
You will not be tracking people on iOS 14.

[00:46:43.320]
There will be a tiny fraction of them.

[00:46:44.800]
You will similarly.

[00:46:46.440]
And I haven’t mentioned this a lot,

[00:46:47.840]
but consent management,
accepting cookies, what percentage?

[00:46:54.440]
This is a key metric that you’re going

[00:46:55.920]
to want to know what percentage
of people opt out of being tracked.

[00:46:59.600]
That will be one sort of divergence
that you’ll need to know.

[00:47:03.240]
So understand roughly what those are.

[00:47:05.920]
And then the second bit is understand
when your tracking is actually broken.

[00:47:11.640]
It’s not consent management,
it’s not attribution models, et cetera.

[00:47:15.560]
You’ve left tracking codes off certain

[00:47:18.320]
pages or the wrong ones on certain pages,
that kind of thing.

[00:47:21.680]
So don’t expect your numbers to line up,
but understand why they’re not lining up.

[00:47:25.560]
It’s far more useful.

[00:47:32.440]
Okay, let’s say walk before you run.

[00:47:35.680]
I gave you all these flashy slides about

[00:47:38.000]
what Google analytics four is going to be
able to do and

[00:47:41.680]
teleport you back to funnels with your
big donors, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:47:47.560]
Don’t try those before you’ve done this,
which is focus on conversion tracking,

[00:47:54.560]
which is tracking sign ups and donations
for engaging networks users,

[00:47:58.840]
and then time spent doing UTM tagging,
which I haven’t really touched on.

[00:48:04.000]
But it’s essentially making sure
that your marketing is tracked.

[00:48:07.320]
Your ads, your email, your social.

[00:48:09.880]
Those two are your first objectives.

[00:48:12.000]
Make sure those are sort of well

[00:48:14.440]
implemented and then move on to
some of the other features.

[00:48:21.520]
You can get lost if you say, oh,

[00:48:24.080]
we can do this or this or this
track form interactions.

[00:48:28.920]
Well, if you’re not

[00:48:31.600]
properly tracking your basic conversions
and making decisions with that data first,

[00:48:38.960]
your chances of being really disappointed
in Google Analytics go way up.

[00:48:43.080]
So don’t disappoint yourself.

[00:48:45.120]
Focus on these things before you move

[00:48:47.760]
on to more sophisticated
Google Analytics tracking.

[00:48:52.160]
All right, last thing counterintuitively.

[00:48:57.240]
Do you really need Google Analytics?

[00:49:02.520]
I would argue that not all of you do

[00:49:04.520]
and you will spend a lot of time
and effort and it ends in tears.

[00:49:11.840]
I would say these questions and a couple
of others are really important.

[00:49:15.080]
How often do you currently use
it if you just never use it?

[00:49:19.560]
You got to ask yourself, is this worth
installing a new system?

[00:49:25.040]
How effectively do you
manage cookie consent?

[00:49:27.320]
You can have an amazing
Google Analytics install.

[00:49:30.960]
There’s cookie management technology

[00:49:33.360]
that just essentially doesn’t work
and shuts down.

[00:49:37.920]
Even if people do give consent,
it’s so finicky to set up.

[00:49:44.400]
So many people are struggling with this

[00:49:46.120]
where cookie consent is
just getting better.

[00:49:48.680]
Obviously, there’s some platforms
that work fine and are fantastic.

[00:49:52.000]
There’s some that for all intents
and purposes do not work for cookie

[00:49:55.200]
consent and your tracking
will be entirely useless.

[00:49:59.400]
And the last thing is,

[00:50:00.840]
how much time and energy do you
have to learn a new platform?

[00:50:04.040]
If you’re not using Google Analytics now,

[00:50:06.840]
you got to ask yourself,
there are other alternatives,

[00:50:10.520]
too that I really like so far
for just some simple tracking.

[00:50:15.840]
Unfortunately, they’re paid,
but they’re not going to break the bank.

[00:50:19.320]
Father analytics and Simple Analytics,

[00:50:21.680]
they don’t require consent because
they’re storing their data in the EU.

[00:50:26.720]
There’s no personal information.

[00:50:29.040]
They’re giving you just some basic website
tracking for dozens of dollars a month.

[00:50:37.600]
And you don’t have to worry about
their cookie consent.

[00:50:41.800]
Learning a new platform,
you get what you get.

[00:50:44.400]
And for many of us, that’s good enough.

[00:50:48.240]
So I don’t mean to be
too much of a Downer.

[00:50:50.680]
Google Analytics Four
is going to be amazing.

[00:50:52.720]
It’s also a learning curve.

[00:50:54.160]
It’s an investment in time and energy.

[00:50:59.680]
It’s a bit like getting a gym
membership or going to a therapist.

[00:51:05.080]
Like, you can go once,

[00:51:06.680]
but it takes a bit of investment on your
part to get any benefit out of it.

[00:51:15.560]
Yeah, that’s kind of where we’ll leave it.

[00:51:18.920]
Are you up for
putting in the time to do this?

[00:51:26.760]
That is that.

[00:51:27.760]
And we have
about six minutes on the clock,

[00:51:34.840]
but we can stick around if there are
a lot of curious questions.

[00:51:39.240]
This is what you all came here for.

[00:51:40.560]
The kitten slide.

[00:51:44.080]
The payoff is real.

[00:51:46.840]
Doing some webinars that
covering a lot of this.

[00:51:49.320]
In June, Google Analytics
for Progressives that link.

[00:51:55.240]
If you want help with this
outside of that, let me know.

[00:51:58.680]
I’m at Arrogant Data Habits
and thanks everyone.

[00:52:03.480]
Thanks for sticking through.

[00:52:04.720]
54 minutes of Google Analytics Four.

[00:52:10.560]
Thank you Eric and everyone for attending.

[00:52:12.680]
I know we all learned a tonne, but of
course, as you learn, you have questions.

[00:52:18.040]
So here we are.

[00:52:20.040]
I have been tracking the questions
in the chat as well as the QA and Zoom.

[00:52:25.400]
I will just feed those to you.

[00:52:26.720]
And if there’s questions that are related

[00:52:28.520]
to Engaging networks,
I will just chime in and answer those.

[00:52:31.960]
So the first one, how will
this impact engaging networks?

[00:52:35.160]
Email
these are two questions that I’m merging

[00:52:38.680]
together and what’s the latest news
on the ecommerce data layer for Ga Four?

[00:52:43.800]
If we have both running simultaneously,

[00:52:45.640]
will Engaging Networks be able
to send donation data to Ga Four?

[00:52:49.040]
This is an engaging networks question
that I’ll just take an answer.

[00:52:53.400]
Clearly, it is something
that we’re thinking about.

[00:52:55.640]
Considering we did put together this

[00:52:57.120]
webinar with Eric to give you
the information that we have.

[00:53:01.000]
It is a possibility that we will introduce
a new data layer to work with Ga Four.

[00:53:05.760]
We are still putting that all
together and the plans for that.

[00:53:10.120]
So once we have that information,

[00:53:11.640]
we will share that with you and feel free
to reach out to your account success

[00:53:15.200]
Manager as well for any more
information as plans develop.

[00:53:22.360]
So, yeah, moving on to the next question.

[00:53:24.600]
Are similar changes coming to Google Ads?

[00:53:27.760]
I’ll send that one to Eric.

[00:53:30.640]
Very good question.

[00:53:33.240]
Tiny bit outside my core focus.

[00:53:38.560]
Similar?

[00:53:39.760]
Yeah.

[00:53:41.000]
I mean, I know that Google Analytics Four,
if properly implemented with Google Ads,

[00:53:46.320]
will allow you to do tracking
that you couldn’t do that one.

[00:53:52.440]
Similar changes in terms of I guess
I would put it as they’re facing the same

[00:53:58.440]
headwinds in terms
of cookies just going away.

[00:54:03.280]
And arguably, Google Analytics Four,
maybe that wasn’t entirely clear.

[00:54:10.520]
Do you really need Google Analytics?

[00:54:12.120]
One of these keys is are you running

[00:54:13.640]
Google Ads and are you invested
in them quite heavily?

[00:54:19.040]
That would definitely be a reason why you
would want to use Google analytics four

[00:54:24.320]
there’s a lot of new features for Google
analytics four to work with Google Ads.

[00:54:31.400]
One of those ones I mentioned is

[00:54:32.760]
an audience which was always there
but is now so much more flexible.

[00:54:37.720]
So I’ll say two things.

[00:54:38.920]
I’m not sure of the exact details,

[00:54:42.040]
but I would recommend if you’re using
Google Ads to use Google Analytics

[00:54:48.320]
for sooner rather than later
for a number of reasons.

[00:54:51.760]
It’s a solution to some of these tracking
headwinds or it’s an attempt at solving

[00:54:57.920]
some of these tracking issues,
Privacy and cookie related issues.

[00:55:03.280]
And that will be your best bet
for tracking Ads Google Ads in the future

[00:55:09.600]
because they’ve given a lot
of thought as to how that will work.

[00:55:13.960]
So I have that for an answer.

[00:55:15.320]
Not really sure.
Remains to be seen.

[00:55:17.480]
All right, great.

[00:55:19.440]
We have a question from Anna.

[00:55:21.040]
Can audience segments also
be created retroactively.

[00:55:25.960]
No.

[00:55:33.080]
Yes.

[00:55:33.520]
You set them up and then
they start populating.

[00:55:38.720]
The reason is that it gives you
an indication of how many people would

[00:55:41.680]
fall into that audience if you had set
it up already, but then starts at zero.

[00:55:46.520]
So when you’re setting up those
audiences like, what did I do?

[00:55:49.120]
It’s not working properly.

[00:55:50.160]
There’s nobody in it.

[00:55:51.280]
Because
when you’re setting up an audience,

[00:55:54.360]
it kind of hints that it is
retroactive and then it’s not.

[00:55:57.400]
And you think you’ve made a mistake.

[00:55:58.880]
But no, they start from when you
configure them and go forward.

[00:56:05.960]
Great.

[00:56:07.200]
And a question from William, is exit rate
still included if bounce rate has gone?

[00:56:16.800]
No, not as a rate.

[00:56:18.960]
Again, that information is in there.

[00:56:22.160]
And just like in Universal Lennon, you
could make a customised metric to do so.

[00:56:26.400]
Similarly, you could calculate your
bounce rate with a custom metric.

[00:56:35.800]
It’s not front and centre as
an easily accessible metric.

[00:56:45.720]
And maybe what I’m hinting at here is,
yes, these top level metrics that are

[00:56:49.680]
calculated for you and put out
the forefront of like default reports,

[00:56:53.840]
they’re all possible if you fiddle with
your setup of Google analytics four it’s.

[00:57:01.800]
Just when you go looking for them,

[00:57:04.320]
they’re not going to be
there until you set them up.

[00:57:07.080]
So that’s kind of cool, but
not super helpful in the migration.

[00:57:14.560]
Great.
And question from Ilio and Penny that I

[00:57:17.800]
will put together in one,
because I think you’ve gone through this

[00:57:22.200]
a lot with your presentation, but it can’t
hurt to nail the hammer on the head here.

[00:57:27.600]
So will Google start collecting
data as soon as you install it?

[00:57:31.920]
And when we migrate to Ga Four,

[00:57:33.680]
will any of the old data from UA
be able to be analysed in Ga four?

[00:57:37.960]
Or is the entire world
starting from scratch?

[00:57:43.240]
Your first one is it’ll collect data.

[00:57:47.160]
As soon as you install it?

[00:57:48.600]
Yes.

[00:57:50.080]
The one glitch that I’m finding,

[00:57:51.520]
which is really odd, is that it used
to say you won’t see it for 24 hours.

[00:57:57.080]
When that was never true.

[00:57:58.240]
You saw it within minutes.

[00:57:59.640]
Google Analytics Four.

[00:58:01.120]
You wait a long time,
you wait 24 hours to see the data.

[00:58:03.800]
So that’s one thing.

[00:58:05.280]
You’ll see it in real time reports

[00:58:06.720]
and then there’ll be nothing
in your standard reports.

[00:58:08.720]
What is going on?
Did I do something wrong?

[00:58:10.480]
No, you just have to wait 24 hours.
It’s annoying.

[00:58:13.040]
They might fix that.
They may not.

[00:58:15.560]
So it is collecting data.

[00:58:17.680]
You won’t see it for 24 hours.

[00:58:19.720]
The second question was,
are we starting from scratch?

[00:58:23.480]
Essentially, there will be ways
to take some of your data in.

[00:58:31.560]
It’s not going to be apples to apples.

[00:58:35.200]
And Google Analytics is figuring
out ways to bring things in.

[00:58:43.320]
I’m still, you know.

[00:58:44.840]
Yeah, I got my eye out
for the best way to do that.

[00:58:48.000]
There’s nothing clear yet.

[00:58:51.040]
The recommendation is
you will always have access to your well,

[00:58:55.920]
not always, but your universal
analytics will be there.

[00:58:59.840]
You just won’t necessarily be able to link

[00:59:02.840]
it easily to your Google analytics four,
you could, for instance

[00:59:09.600]
translate some of your key metrics like
page views to have those brought in.

[00:59:16.480]
But no, there’s no kind
of easy way to do this again.

[00:59:20.680]
It’s possible it could be quite
difficult or is quite difficult.

[00:59:28.840]
Great.

[00:59:30.240]
The question from Andrew does Ga four

[00:59:32.960]
still use cookies when adding the script
snippet if it uses cookies,

[00:59:37.520]
we need to Mark the script tag so that our
cookie compliant script will only let it

[00:59:41.160]
run if the correct types of cookies
are accepted by the user.

[00:59:44.760]
Yes.
So it still does use cookies.

[00:59:47.240]
Yeah.

[00:59:48.040]
And so people opt out of cookies,
you are not going to track them.

[00:59:53.680]
So that’s that great.

[00:59:57.520]
And a quick question from Joe,

[00:59:59.240]
which consent management platforms
do you recommend, if any.

[01:00:07.520]
Been most impressed with user Centrics?
I actually don’t know the pricing.

[01:00:11.760]
I haven’t checked.

[01:00:12.360]
It
cookie bought I don’t have a tonne

[01:00:16.640]
of experience with but
people seem to love it.

[01:00:20.720]
And then the one that a lot of you
probably started out using,

[01:00:23.240]
I would never use I’ll leave the name off
but you can imagine there’s kind of three

[01:00:27.360]
top ones and those would be user
centric is pretty impressive.

[01:00:35.680]
Cookie bought I’ve heard very good things

[01:00:37.640]
about so those would be the two
that I would kick the tires on first.

[01:00:44.960]
Great.

[01:00:46.680]
Well, we are at time now and we’ve
answered most of the questions but if

[01:00:51.080]
there are any other questions
feel free to email Eric.

[01:00:56.240]
We shared his email there,

[01:00:57.640]
[email protected] or feel free to reach
out to one of your account success

[01:01:01.600]
managers and we can help
you as best as we can.

[01:01:06.080]
Thank you for joining us.
This has been great.

[01:01:08.200]
Learned a tonne about Google
analytics as always from Eric.

[01:01:12.440]
Yeah.
Thank you.

[01:01:14.280]
All right.
Thanks, everyone.

[01:01:15.880]
Thanks for taking the time.