3 Reasons Google Analytics 4 Is Better Than Universal Analytics

For almost two decades, Google’s Universal Analytics (UA) has been a critical tool to study and evaluate online user behavior and the effectiveness of digital marketing efforts. In July, UA was replaced by Google Analytics 4 (GA4). This significant transformation created a major impact on how we assess and understand user behavior. Here are three key reasons why Google Analytics 4 is better than Universal Analytics and how GA4 has helped our ability to deliver meaningful data to clients to help them better understand their users and drive growth for their businesses.

Increased Accessibility for Stakeholders

The GA4 interface is completely different from its predecessor. For digital marketing professionals who spent years diving into data on UA, the change required considerable adjustment to know exactly where to look for particular pieces of data. Time working on the new platform has resolved most of those challenges. 

The people who benefit from the new interface are the business stakeholders. GA4 offers improved user journey visualization tools to understand how users are reaching and interacting with their websites. The updated event tracking system tracks the user journey comprehensively to see how users are engaging with your website and helps identify pain points and opportunities for improvement.

Emphasis on User Engagement

The goal of UA was to track how users reached your website and how they moved across individual landing pages. As a result, website marketing strategies were built around increasing those traffic metrics and were less concerned about converting users into qualified leads. 

GA4 takes a different approach by prioritizing the actions a user takes on your website that align with your business’s key performance indicators (KPIs). Now, website tracking metrics focus on the actions your users take to move along the sales pipeline. By focusing on the KPIs important to your business, GA4 tracks more qualified and actionable data.

The changes to analytics are part of Google’s holistic shift to support positive user experience (UX) alongside the Helpful Content System and EEAT guidelines.

Unlimited Event Tracking

The previous version of Google Analytics was limited to a set number of events you could track. This could be restrictive for businesses with complex websites or apps. GA4 removed these limitations, allowing you to track as many events as needed. This means you can delve into the minutiae of user interactions and gain a deeper understanding of how users engage with your digital assets. Ultimately this leads to a more user-centric approach to UX design and optimization.

Not sure which conversion metrics best align with your business goals?

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