Google recently launched their newest version of Google Analytics (GA4). This update builds on Google Analytics’ strengths and provides a lot of benefits that are relevant to today’s digital landscape.
Today we want to provide a quick overview of Google Analytics, what it’s used for, and the benefits and changes included in the latest version, GA4. Let’s dive in…
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics tracks website performance and collects visitor insights. It helps us determine the engagement and success of websites, web pages, marketing activities and campaigns by pinpointing patterns in user behavior, activity and demographics. It provides statistics and analytical tools for search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing purposes.
How does Google Analytics work?
A JavaScript tag is inserted into the code of each web page. This tag runs in the web browser of each visitor, collecting data and sending it to one of Google’s data collection servers. This generates customizable reports for the end user to help track and visualize data, such as the number of users, bounce rates, average session durations, sessions by channel, page views and more.
How do we use Google Analytics?
At Virginia Creative Group, we use Google Analytics to obtain and analyze various patient behavior analytics, which can be used to improve marketing campaigns, drive website traffic and better retain visitors.
Google Analytics provides us with valuable insights that can be used to improve the performance of your website and increase conversions! For example, Google Analytics helps us:
- To know the age, gender, interests, device and location of your audience. Google Analytics provides a lot of information about the people who visit your website. The more you know about your audience, the better you can engage them!
- To understand what kind of content we should write. Google Analytics tracks which content receives views and shares. This data helps us maximize top-viewed blogs and gain valuable information about which content is working.
- To optimize your website ranking. As part of our SEO strategy, Google Analytics helps us identify the right keywords, find the best placement, and fine-tune our SEO efforts to boost visibility of your website.
What is GA4?
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the biggest update to Google’s analytics platform in years. We have been keeping a close eye on the updates since it was first released in the fall of 2020, integrating the changes to optimize our clients’ analytics.
Google Analytics 4 provides some major improvements:
- Better insights to improve marketing decisions for higher ROI
- A deeper understanding of how visitors interact with your website
- Tighter integration with Google AdWords
- Designed for today’s digital landscape
- Merging web and mobile analytics
Why is it important to switch to GA4?
One of the most important features of GA4 is a new and improved data model that is built with the future in mind.
You’ve probably seen the option to deny or accept cookies on the websites you visit. Historically, cookies have been some of the most used avenues for developers to store information about a user when they come to a website. However, with new privacy laws entering the digital landscape, cookies are getting blocked by both browsers and users.
While this is advantageous to users, it means that analytics tracking becomes more difficult.
To combat this, Google has created a new concise data model that is not dependent on cookies, but more dependent on the user telling us who they are through their actions and the devices they use. It also gives more long-term flexibility when designing analytics tracking strategies.
As analysts, we can customize and configure this data however we’d like in the form of metrics, dimensions, conversions, audience types, etc., to best serve your practice. GA4 will provide more clarity — and at VCG, we believe information is powerful.
VCG is a Google Analytics Expert!
The new Google Analytics is now the default version. It’s where Google is investing in future improvements. If you’re a Virginia Creative Group client, you can rest assured that your Google Analytics account is optimized and ready. We are continuously committed to expertly utilizing the latest tools and technologies to ensure your practice’s growth.
If you have any questions about this transition, let us know!