CEO & Co-Founder - Steve Krull, Be Found Online

Google Analytics 4
Deadlines, Changes,
Learning Curves & Love
MASTER
CLASS
Steve Krull
CEO & CO-FOUNDER
BE FOUND ONLINE
CHICAGO, IL ~ MAY 3 - 4, 2023
DIGIMARCONMIDWEST.COM | #DigiMarConMidwest

Google Analytics 4
Deadlines, Changes, Learning Curves & Love
From the BFO Department of Analytics Initiatives &
Things
“In a business focused on data, it’s the people who make the difference.”

Steve Krull
CEO + Co-Founder
YOUR HOST
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© 2023 Be Found Online, LLC.
Select Client Experience

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THE AGENDA
● Why you NEED to migrate to GA4 yesterday
● Why you SHOULD NOT let Google do your UA to GA4
migration for you
● 7 Things you (probably) SHOULD know about GA4
● Takeaways

Why you NEED to
migrate to GA4
yesterday.
The case for migrating now and not later.
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The Universal Analytics Sunset “Worry-O-Meter”
January February March April May June
UA Sunset Date:
July 1st, 2023
You are HERE

Universal Analytics is sunsetting on July 1st.
- YOUR UA PROPERTY WILL STOP COLLECTING DATA ON
JULY 1, 2023 NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO! (unless you have GA360)
- If you think Google is going to extend the sunset date - you are
probably wrong.
- If GA4 is not running properly on your site by July 1st, your
business will be behind the curve.
Want to know what countries have banned Universal Analytics? heck it
out here: https://www.isgoogleanalyticsillegal.com/
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Time is Ticking

If you are not properly configured by July 1,
2023, you are going to lose data .
Accurate data should be the foundation of all of your
marketing decisions.
Losing even a week of that data might have significant implications on
your marketing decisions.
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Gaps in Data Are
REAL

Don’t let Google
migrate UA to GA4
for you.
Why Google’s auto-migrate feature from
UA to GA4 (mostly) sucks.
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One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to data
and analytics. So unless you only rely on UA for
the most basic of data, your “migration”
through Google will probably suck.
- Goals are not going to properly transfer over due to the new event
model in GA4.
- Custom Metrics or Dimensions you have configured won't transfer over.
- Please, please don’t auto-migrate if you have an ecommerce site (GA4
can open up so many insights when properly configured).
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One-Size-Fits-All
Mentality

Sorry, you’re doomed - ok, maybe not.
There is a process to rollback Your
GA4 Auto Migration.
- It’s complicated, but you can do it (we can also help).
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…But STEVE, I Already Let
Google Auto-Migrate for
me

7 Things you should
(probably) know
about GA4.
Or 7 reasons why GA4 rocks!
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7 Things You Should Know About GA4
1. Privacy + Data Collection
2. Data Streams & The Modern Web
3. Event Based Data Model
4. Making Sense of Metrics
5. Reporting
6. Integrations
7. Account Structure …turn and face the
strange

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“Because the technology landscape continues to evolve, the new Analytics is designed to adapt to a
future with or without cookies or identifiers. It uses a flexible approach to measurement, and in the
future, will include modelling to fill in the gaps where the data may be incomplete.
“This means that you can rely on Google Analytics to help you measure your marketing results and
meet customer needs now as you navigate the recovery and as you face uncertainty in the future.”
“Introducing the new Google Analytics”, Vidhya Srinivasan, Google, Oct. 14, 2020

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Privacy + Data Collection
Power for a Privacy-First Web
GA4’s privacy-forward features allow site owners to collect
valuable information about their users while remaining
compliant with changes on the web. When coupled with a
transparent privacy policy, site owners using GA4 are able
to unlock features such as:
● Cross-platform Reporting
● Remarketing Audience Creation + Sharing
● Advertising Report Features
● Demographics + Interests
No IP Addresses
UA users were able to see IP Addresses unless they
anonymized during configuration. In GA4, IP Addresses are
not allowed.
Data Retention Options
GA4 allows you to control how long it stores user-specific
data. The default time period is two months, but this can
be extended to 14 months. This does not mean that data
will expire, it just means that you will lose access to user-
specific data after the set time frame.
What About Cookies?
Yes, GA4 does still use cookies to identify users, however it
also boasts that its machine learning can fill in the gaps in
your data when cookies are blocked.
© 2023 Be Found Online, LLC. 15

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Privacy + Data Collection
GDPR & CCPA Are The Beginning
Several states including, Utah, Colorado, Iowa,
Virginia, Rhode Island have signed privacy
legislation.
Many others have introduced and/or moved similar
legislation tino committee.
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2. Data Streams &
The Modern Web
Adapting to the way web
usage is changing.

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Data Streams & The Modern Web
Single Page Applications (SPAs)
A SPA is any website that loads content dynamically as
users interact with it, no reloads required. Popular single
page applications include: Facebook, Gmail, Netflix, and
many more. GA4 is built to handle the challenges that
come along with the rise in popularity of SPAs. Tracking
must be configured properly, otherwise valuable data will
be lost.
An Analytics Platform For Today’s Web
Universal Analytics made its debut in 2012. At the time
45% of people had smartphones, there were 540k apps in
the App Store, and $225.5 billion was spent on
eCommerce yearly. By comparison, at the beginning of
2021, 85% of people had smartphones, there were 4.5
millions apps in the App Store, and $578.5 billion was
spent on eCommerce in 2019.
The user journey from first click to conversion is much
different, and GA4 is built to give platform owners insight
into the user journey on both websites and apps. Each
GA4 property can have a unique data stream for an app
and for a website.

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3. Event Structure
The new measurement
model for GA4.

In GA4, every interaction is an event
In UA, hit types included page views, events, eCommerce
hits, social timing hits, and more. Each with their own
unique structure designed around UA’s data model. Event
hits in particular were structure around 3 customizable
parameters: Event Category, Event Label, and Event Action.
GA4 shifts this perspective and has made each type of hit a
fully customizable Event. Users can enrich their reports by
adding up to 25 Custom Parameters per event (100 for
GA360 Accounts). Each GA4 Property can have up to 50
event-scoped dimensions (125 for GA360 Accounts).
Users must configure their parameters in the GA4 UI as well
as in GTM or tracking code.
Event Based Data Model
3. Event Structure
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Event Based Data Model
Enhanced Measurement Events (Web
Streams)*
page_view
scroll
click (outbound only)
view_search_results
video_start
video_progress
video_complete
file_download
form_start**
form_submit**
* Configuration is required for Enhanced Measurement
Events
** BFO does not recommend using GA4’s default events
for form interactions (Create a Custom Event Instead)
Automatically Collected Events (Web
Streams)
first_visit
session_start
user_engagement
Default Parameters (All Events)
language
page_location
page_referrer
page_title
screen_resolution
3. Event Structure
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Users, Page Views, and Sessions

In Universal Analytics, there are two User metrics: Total Users, and New Users.
In Google Analytics 4, there are three User metrics: Total Users, Active Users, and New Users.
Users
Metric UA GA4
Total Users Primary user metric in UA:
Total number of users
Total number of unique users who logged an event
New Users Number of users who interacted with your site for the
first time
Number of users who interacted with your site or launched your app for the first
time
The metric is measured by the number of new unique user IDs that logged the
first_open or first_visit event.
Active Users N/A Primary user metric in GA4: Number of distinct users who visited your
website or application. An active user is any user who has an engaged session or
when Analytics collects:
● the first_visit event or engagement_time_msec parameter from a website
● the first_open event or engagement_time_msec parameter from an
Android app
● the first_open or user_engagement event from an iOS app
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In general, Pageviews should be fairly close between UA and GA4, generally within a few percentage points, since the Google tag fires on each
page and generates a pageview. However, the differences can vary based on any filters you may have set up in Universal Analytics or Google
Analytics 4.
Page Views
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Metric UA GA4
Pageview Total number of pages viewed. Repeated views of a
single page are counted.
aka Views: Total number of app screens and/or web pages your users saw. (The
Views metric found in the reporting interface is the combination of pageviews
and screenviews.) Repeated views of a single screen or page are counted.
Unique
Pageview
Total number of pages viewed but duplicates are not
counted
N/A

Sessions
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Metric UA GA4
Session ● Period of time a user is actively engaged with your website
or app
● Has defined parameters for what may cause it to end e.g. a
session will end when there has been more than a 30-
minute period of inactivity (depending on the session
timeout settings), the timestamp has been cut off at
midnight (according to the timezone the view is set up in),
or new campaign parameters are encountered.
● If a user comes back after a session timeout, it will start a
new session
● If the user is on the website when midnight arrives, a new
session will be started
● If a user picks up new campaign parameters while on the
website, a new session will be started
aka Session Start
● To determine the session that each event comes from, the
session_start event generates a session ID and Analytics
associates the session ID with each subsequent event in the
session
● A session will end when there has been more than a 30-minute
period of inactivity (depending on the session timeout settings)
● Sessions are not restarted at midnight or when new campaign
parameters are encountered
● If a user comes back after a session timeout, it will start a new
session
The duration of a session is based on the time span between the first and last event in the session. This and other nuances can lead to
sessionization differences between your Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 properties.

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5. Reporting
How do we visualize the data?

Reporting
Built For Custom Reporting
Universal Analytics was in many ways built as a suite of
comprehensive reports. GA4 has far fewer built-in reports
and is best utilized when used with custom reports or by
exporting data. GA4 shows its strength most when it
comes to collecting highly customized data via Event
Parameters (aka Custom Dimensions).
Explore Tab
GA4’s Explore Tab is similar to UA’s Custom Reports tab. In
it, users can create three different types of reports: Free
Form, Funnel Exploration, and Path Exploration. These
reports help to gain short term insights, but are limited in
other ways.
Looker Studio
Building GA4 reports in Looker is fast and easy. However,
they are constrained to Quota limits. Quotas are
limitations that are placed on the amount of data that a
user is allowed to access or transfer over a specific period
of time. These limits are put in place to ensure that the
system can deliver consistent performance to its users
without individual users and/or requests taking up so
much bandwidth.
5. Reporting
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Grown Up aka “Big Girl” Reporting
BigQuery and beyond…
BFO is currently exploring advanced reporting solutions for
GA4. Not just for in-depth analysis of GA4 data, but also to
ensure our clients are able to merge YoY data from
Universal Analytics.
Ideas?
Do you have an interesting report or use case problem you
need to solve for? The BFO Analytics department is
constantly expanding our reporting solutions with GA4. If
you have a unique ask, bring it our way.
We love a good challenge!
5. Reporting
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6. Integrations
Leverage the power of Google Marketing Platform

More Product links than before…
One of the last settings you configure in GA4 Properties is
Product Linking. If you’ve used Google Products, you’ve
probably already used this feature before. However, GA4
offers a new link to Google Merchant Center, as well as free
native export to Google BigQuery!
Linking Google Ads and Google Search Console will unlock
additional insights and reports in the GA4 UI.
Integrations
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7. Account Structure
How is it organized?

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Account Structure
No More Views…
In Universal Analytics, the account structure contained 3
elements: Account - Property - View
Users configured many views per property, with different
filters applied to customize the data set for each particular
need.
In GA4, there are only two elements: Account and
Property. There are also only two options for filtering
Property data: Internal Traffic and Developer Traffic.
Adding Additional Data Streams
GA4 Users can make up for the loss of views by
segmenting traffic by Data Stream. Each Google Analytics
4 property can have up to 50 data streams (any
combination of app and web data streams, including a
limit of 30 app data streams).
Further Customization in Reporting
Depending on the organization, this could also mean that
the Analytics administrator is often required to create
more customized reports in Explore or Looker and cater to
a specific user or use case. This adds to GA4’s learning
curve within each organization.

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2. Data Streams & The Modern Web
3. Event Based Data Model
5. Reporting
6. Integrations
7. Account Structure …turn and face the
strange
Recap: 7 Things You Should Know About GA4

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1
2
It’s New, It’s Cool & Yes, There’s Room To Improve
● Consider this GA4 version 1.0 and you’ll save yourself many
headaches. Realizing it gets easier as you use it will help. Google will
also continue to improve it.
Solution Stacking
● Only Google really knows where they want to take GA4. At BFO, we
feel they are stacking tech, making GA4 an intelligent collection
point, while stacking Looker & Big Query alongside as options.
3 It Needed To Happen
● Along with GDPR and privacy laws, we’ll eventually see the death of
the cookie. If Google had continued down the UA path, more bans,
more lawsuits, and stronger privacy would only made things worse
for them.
Key Takeaways

Questions?
Connect?
● steve@befoundonline.com
● https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevekrull/
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CEO & Co-Founder - Steve Krull, Be Found Online

CEO & Co-Founder - Steve Krull, Be Found Online

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