What is Google Analytics 4 (GA4)? Key Features, Pros and Cons

Google Analytics 4, aka GA4, is Google’s latest iteration of the analytics platform. Here’s what GA4 offers digital marketers, what makes it different from past versions, and how the experts leverage it for better campaigns.

Google Analytics 4 (aka GA4) has gotten its fair share of industry buzz since its debut in 2023.

The platform’s new Google Analytics iteration garnered lots of feedback (and criticism) because of all its changes and the sunsetting of the Universal Analytics version of GA (and its related app data).

Since its launch, marketers have mostly acclimated to GA4’s platform features and functionality. But, naturally, nothing in digital marketing can stay stagnant for long.

Now, as MarTech recently reported, Google Analytics 4 is evolving beyond web analytics into an AI-powered tool that can measure the entire customer lifecycle journey while improving data quality.

New AI-driven GA4 changes include more accessible incrementality testing with lower spend thresholds, new cross-channel measurement enhancements, and a Data Manager hub for first-party data.

For a deeper understanding of the latest GA4 features, we tapped HawkSEM Analytics Manager Peter Damicone.

Here’s everything you need to know about Google Analytics 4.

What is GA4?

Google Analytics 4 is the latest iteration of the popular web analytics tool. Essentially, it’s a hybrid platform of Universal Analytics (UA) and Firebase, Google’s platform for mobile developers.

GA4’s new property promised to usher in more intelligent insights, cross-platform analytics, a new approach to data control, and much more when it was first announced back in October 2020.

Back then, machine learning (ML) was at the core of this tool, providing improved functionality. And now, with more AI-powered features, GA4 will go from only measuring web and app performance to being able to measure the performance of your entire business.

Let’s take a closer look at what this most recent version of Google Analytics is all about, how it can streamline your marketing efforts, and which key features to take note of.

With Google Analytics 4, marketers gained access to more sophisticated data controls to manage and retain information. (Image: Google)

7 key features of GA4

Just like the search engine’s algorithm, it’s likely we’ll see updates and iterations of GA4’s features and offerings as time goes on.

For now, here’s what you can expect from the platform’s latest iteration.

1. Cross-platform analytics
2. Advanced data control
3. More insights with the help of AI and Google’s algorithm
4. More benefits for Google Ads
5. Consent settings dashboard
6. Explore tool
7. Annotations

1. Cross-platform analytics

Marketers have already worked hard to track user interactions and other behavior across social media accounts, domains, sessions, and devices. Google Analytics 4 allows you to do it across platforms.

Today, the user journey happens mostly through websites and mobile apps. GA4 lets you learn how the customer moves across multiple platforms while engaging with your brand, helping reduce churn in the process.

Let’s say someone browses your website today and then signs up for your services from your app tomorrow.

With regular Google Analytics, you could only analyze each stage of this journey separately. Now, you can bring them together to get a clearer picture of how your customers behave.

If this process sounds familiar, that’s because GA4 is a new name for Google’s App+Web property. The former platform was enhanced and adjusted to become Google’s new and improved tool.

With high-quality cross-platform analytics, you can understand which customers’ actions precede the conversion event, which can help you better adjust your strategies moving forward.

2. Advanced data control

With Google Analytics 4, marketers gain access to better data controls to manage and retain information.

You can choose when to implement customer data into ad optimization or when to limit the data use to pure measurements.

The new data model allows marketers to start adapting to a possible future cookie-less scenario brought about by changes to online data privacy.

GA4 also includes conversion modeling to help measure the customer journey without cookies (trackers that were used to monitor and analyze site visitor behavior) and identifiers.

With advanced data control, you can rely on GA4 to measure marketing results even if third-party cookies are entirely phased out.

Further reading: Click-Through Rate Explained: What’s a Good CTR? (+ Tips for Improvement)

3. More insights with the help of AI and Google’s algorithm

As Google continues to integrate more artificial intelligence (AI) and ML into its analytics tools, marketers are able to see more insights into future customer behavior.

The program analyzes trends in collected data to predict consumer behavior. This is based on things like past purchasing actions, browsing habits, and ad-clicking activity.

Recently, Google also added predictive metrics, giving users the option to predict revenue for certain customer segments.

These insights can help you analyze different customer groups to understand why some spend more than others, so you can better optimize your marketing campaigns.

The old event system of UA is a thing of the past. GA4 now tracks all sorts of events using various systems. (Image: Thurstan Hinrichsen/peopleimages.com)

4. More benefits for Google Ads

Put simply, Google Analytics 4 provides deeper integration with Google Ads.

By using data collected and analyzed by GA4, you can create more specific custom audiences and segments to enhance your paid search marketing efforts.

As a bonus, you can track conversions that came from YouTube with GA4.

5. Consent settings dashboard

The consent settings dashboard (located in Admin > Data collection and modification > Consent settings) is GA4’s centralized hub for managing how your analytics responds to user privacy preferences.

“With regulatory requirements like GDPR and CCPA being enforced in the U.S. and abroad, it’s essential to see how your consent banner and its configuration might be impacting website tracking and other features of your website,” says Damicone.

The Consent settings dashboard is essentially your privacy compliance command center for GA4 and other Google-centric services.

6. Explore tool

The Explore tool, located in the left-side pane of GA4, is a workspace that helps marketers gain deeper insights into their website data.

“It’s essentially a standard reporting system where you can build any report from scratch using their easy, drag-and-drop system to quickly visualize events and traffic on your website,” Damicone explains.

“I frequently use it to answer questions for internal stakeholders around reducing friction in their lead-flow process. It’s also a useful tool for anything from spam detection to creating easy, event-based waterfall charts to detect possible friction points on your website.”

7. Annotations

Those who remember annotations from Universal Analytics will be delighted to know that they’re back.

“When a noteworthy event occurs on your website, you can make a text note that will be visible on your charts and graphs,” says Damicone.

“This helps keep track of things like noting when new campaigns begin, tracking technical changes like website redesigns, or changes to a checkout workflow.”

Additional Google Analytics 4 features

Here are a few additional features offered by GA4:

Upgraded and enhanced event tracking system

The old event system of UA is a thing of the past. GA4 now tracks all sorts of events using various systems.

“What makes the GA4 event system different is custom parameters,” explains Damicone. “Events are now free from the ‘Event Category, Action Label’ shackles, and they’re allowed to contain any parameters that you decide to send with them.”

GA4 can read and interpret these events in a robust way, and marketers can level up their tracking game to much more than typical button clicks on a website if they so choose.

Cross-platform tracking and attribution

Cross-platform attribution allows marketers to tag multiple websites and apps with the same Google Analytics tracking code.

GA4 can process and unify all of that data under the same GA4 measurement ID, giving marketers insights into multiple platforms and website behavior all under one data source.

“For example, if someone discovers your brand on mobile, researches on desktop, signs up for your app, and ultimately purchases, GA4 can connect and stitch these events all under one user journey,” says Damicone.

Free BigQuery Integration

The BigQuery integration helps you send raw data directly to the cloud data warehouse to generate ML-driven insights.

Funnel feature

Previously available only on GA360, the funnel feature is now accessible to all GA4 users to build segmented custom funnels.

Event tracking

With GA4, you don’t need to add custom code or use Google Tag Manager for core event tracking.

The new tool includes automatic event-based tracking with an Enhanced Management feature for scroll, outbound clicks, site search, video engagement, page views, and file downloads.

Custom reports

GA4’s Free Form (ex-Analysis Hub, ex-Explorations) option offers access to custom reports. You can create visualizations of cohorts, paths, funnels, or segments to get a better understanding of their behavior.

These reports are shareable, printable in PDF format, and downloadable as an Excel workbook.

Custom tables

GA4 allows you to customize automated tables. Users with admin access can customize data presented in the program’s reports, saving you time on juggling metrics and custom dimensions.

Anomaly detection

This AI-powered tool allows you to identify anomalies in metrics over time. When a value changes drastically (beyond the set interval), you get notified.

Improved audience builder

GA4 improved the existing audience builder feature and added more options, including event scoping, time-based sequences, exclusion, and duration. As a bonus, exclusions aren’t all permanent.

Better debugging

A nice new feature GA4 offers is the debugging view. You can put the test data into one report specifically created for debugging, which improves troubleshooting.

Attribution measurement

You can now (finally) update the attribution measurement within the platform to options like data-driven and position-based.

Time measurement

A huge GA4 benefit is the ability to measure time in a way you couldn’t with UA. GA4 can measure the time between actions, whereas UA could essentially only measure time on site.

While there are some hoops to get through, it seems fair to remain optimistic that the additional features we all want will continue to be built out. (Image: Unsplash)

Pro tip: Launch Mappers offers a pre- and post-migration checklist template that can help you get ready to fully migrate to GA4.

How to get GA4

Ready to get started with GA4? You’re in the right place — here’s what to do.

Step 1: Choose a setup option

You have three setup options to choose from.

If you’re new to Google Analytics, you can set it up GA4 for the first time for your website and/or app:

• Go to analytics.google.com
• Select “Start measuring” if you’re creating an account for the first time
• If you’ve created an account and just need to make a new one, click “Create Account” under the “Account” column in the Admin section
• Name your account
• Set up your data-sharing settings
• Click “Next” to add this property to your account

If you’re adding GA4 to a site that has used UA, the process is a bit different.

• Someone with an Administrator or Editor role needs to complete this setup
• Click “Admin” on the lower left of the Google Analytics dashboard
• Select the desired account in the “Account” section unless it’s auto-selected
• Under “Property,” select the UA property you want to convert to GA4
• Click “GA Setup Assistant” in the “Property” column
• Select the way you want to migrate your UA data to GA4 (you have a few varying options)
• Create the property (either new or migrated from your UA settings)
• Choose how you want to install your Google tag – this can be done manually, with a CMS, by using an already existing tag, or by creating a new tag

Lastly, you can add GA4 to a site builder platform (like WordPress) or CMS (content management system like HubSpot).

• Determine that your platform accepts a Google tag ID (see the list here)
• Follow the steps outlined by Google that coincide with your particular platform

Step 2: Finish and review your setup

Once you’ve completed the above steps, you should see a message at the top of your “Google Analytics 4 Property Setup Assistant” page saying your properties have been connected successfully.

Pro tip: Make sure you note the name you gave your property in the platform so you can easily find it in the future.

Step 3: Monitor the results

To see your new GA4 property, go to Setup Assistant. This section can walk you through things like recommended features and settings to ensure your setup is complete.

To check that data is now being collected properly, Google recommends browsing your website, then selecting “Realtime” from the report navigation section.

From there, you should begin to see activity (though it can take up to 30 minutes for data to start appearing).

GA4 vs. UA: Data collection

One of the biggest differences between Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics is how these platforms collect data. That’s because different data collection methods mean different reporting and analysis options.

For example, Google explains UA counted one conversion per session for the same goal. GA4, on the other hand, counted multiple conversions per session for the same conversion event.

Other main components include:

• UA was session-based, while GA4 is event-based
• Bounce rate has changed (GA4 uses engagement rate, but that includes any session over 10 seconds, not just non-bounces. This means looking at UA and GA4 comparisons is like comparing apples to oranges.)
• Data-driven attribution is now the default instead of the last non-direct click
• GA offers better cross-domain tracking

Pro tip: You can add Google’s tag gtag.js to your website as a way to easily send data from your site to Google measurement and advertising products like Google Ads, Google Analytics, Campaign Manager, Display & Video 360, and Search Ads 360.

Potential GA4 drawbacks

Once the initial excitement around GA4 subsided, a few downsides came to light.

If you used the Universal Analytics property for years, GA4 may have involved a bit of a learning curve. The new program is substantially different.

Some issues marketers have pointed out include:

• The need to use separate tools for GA4 reporting, data collection, and analysis
• Some old pre-defined reports (landing page, site search) are gone
• Data organization tiers went from Account-Property-View to Accounts and Property
• There are no GA4 filtering mechanisms for things like updating URLs from uppercase to lowercase
• Building data collection off of data streams can take some getting used to
• You no longer build out and track goals the same way
• Ecommerce tracking is a bit more complicated

One drawback Damicone has noticed in particular relates to path exploration.

“What used to be an amazing tool in UA is now reduced to using the following dimensions in GA4: event name, page title, page path, screen name, or screen class,” he says.

“The functionality of this tool is so limited, and you have to export raw GA4 data and use other path visualization tools if you want to visualize any sort of session data as sessions. The promise of the data it’s supposed to display ends up falling flat when you try and utilize it in the real world.”

Despite these snags, many new users call GA4 beginner-friendly. It seems to have a lower learning curve for someone who has never used Universal Analytics before, but a steeper one for seasoned GA users.

While there are some hoops to get through, it seems fair to remain optimistic that the additional features we all want will continue to be built out.

Pro tip: Consider a setup assistant (like, ahem, your favorite digital marketing agency partner) to help build out your GA4 properly.

Historical Google Analytics data issues

Another problem marketers face with GA4 involves keeping historical data.

When you set up a Google Analytics account, the program begins collecting data from your website.

Everything you’ve collected over the previous years doesn’t appear in the GA4 view. That means you can’t currently compare year-to-year data on the same platform.

Google allowed the option to preserve your UA data up until July 2024.

Pro tip: GA4 has a setting that defaults data retention to two months. We recommend a best practice of setting this to 14 months upon implementation.

Why do you need GA4?

There are a handful of reasons why it’s a good idea to start leveraging GA4.

If you’re looking for the best-possible tracking, particularly across multiple devices and platforms, GA4 is where it’s at.

“It’s an incredibly robust website tracking tool that is free for marketers to use,” says Damicone.

“You can answer so many different questions from internal stakeholders with it. It’s an invaluable tool, and alternatives are serious cost investments.”

What’s more, nearly all businesses are facing some level of competition: other similar companies bidding on the same keywords and trying to attract the same customers.

So it makes sense that you’d want to take advantage of all the latest tools, tactics, and platforms at your disposal.

Just like with the app update notifications you get on your phone, each Google Analytics iteration is better designed, offers more features, and makes data analysis more clear.

Google lays out how to migrate to Google Analytics 4. (Image: Google)

Further reading: How to Measure SEO ROI (+ An Easy 3-Step Formula)

The takeaway

“There is seriously no better free website tracking tool out there that does more for digital marketers than GA4,” says Damicone.

“What it lacks is more than made up for in helping us understand how traffic is navigating to and through our websites.”

He adds that it’s perfect for lead-gen clients who want a more in-depth picture of their lead flow process. It’s also a perfect out-of-the-box, free ecommerce tool with a built-in ecommerce tracking dashboard and event system.

Google Analytics 4 is a highly efficient analytics tool with impressive potential for future improvements.

Getting used to GA4 has transitioned from a “nice to have” skill to a necessary one, in light of UA’s demise.

With Google being one of the leading ad platforms in the world, GA4 is an excellent opportunity to take full advantage of the existing features and improvements available.

The good news: By having an expert implement GA4 into your marketing efforts, you can start preserving historical data ASAP and gain an advantage over competitors who may not yet be on the bandwagon.

This post has been updated and was originally published in December 2020.