The Transition to Google Analytics 4: What Do We Need to Know?

How to Make the Changes Work for You

This year, Google will complete its transition to Google Analytics 4, a robust update of its renowned tracking and engagement metrics platform. While many businesses have already transitioned to using GA4, many have not, preferring to hold off until the transition is forced or truly necessary.

Given the new features, now might be the best time!

The sooner you upgrade, the more accustomed to the new features (and the more competitive) you’ll be. Businesses are already switching and optimizing their new systems in GA4. This article helps explain how not to get left behind.

Setting it Up

To set up a Google Analytics 4 property, go to “Property” and choose “GA4 Setup Assistant”. This process will help you configure and set up the new system. When you click this, create a new Google Analytics 4 Property and notice the window that pops up informing you of what happens and how to do it. Make sure you read it carefully so you understand the ins and outs.
Creating the property simply creates it in the dashboard, but it doesn’t configure it for the useful metrics you’ll want. There are a few steps, but they aren’t too hazardous, especially not if you’ve configured Analytics before. If you’re paying to have this done by a marketing company, they should have it handled easily. But if you’re going on your own:

Go to “Tag installation”
Choose your data stream
Copy the tracking ID of the Google Analytics 4 property you created
Go to Google Tag Manager to create the new tag
When you’re in “Tag Configuration”, choose the option for “Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration”.
Enter the ID you copied in the “Measurement ID” field
Select “All Pages” in the “Triggering” section to add the new GA4 tag to each page o your site that you want to track and name the tag
Save the tag

If you’ve completed all these steps, now is a very important final step: Make sure it worked.

Enter your website’s URL and choose “Connect”. When you return to Tag Assistant, make sure the new GA4 tag has begun tracking. It should be working alongside the legacy Universal Analytics tag, so you don’t miss any metrics.

If you’ve tested the tags and they’re working properly, you can publish them by clicking “Submit” and then the “Publish” button. Publishing makes sure the changes take effect, so be sure to do this before checking if the trigger fired.

Once this has been completed successfully, you’re now running the new Google Analytics 4 and you have access to all its amazing features. When you’re running the new Google Analytics 4, you can also enable broader functionality to keep your online presence competitive. You can connect your Google Ads account, activate Google signals and a few other tools that will allow you to have more robust use of this expanded platform.

Common Troubleshooting Tips

Of course, we know things aren’t always as simple as we make them out to be. While Google Analytics 4 should be easy to configure in theory, there are a few things that can go wrong or become buggy that affect your use of the platform and its data tracking. Some common trouble areas include:

Google tag snippet in the wrong place
Google tag ID is incorrect
Google tag contains extra whitespaces or characters

These are a few, but the best way to know if your GA4 is not configured is by checking your dashboard. If you’re not seeing any traffic coming in, it might be that Google hasn’t begun receiving it yet, or that you’ve possibly installed the configuration incorrectly. When working properly, you should see data feeds in real time from across all webpages that have the tag configured.

If you’ve installed the Google tag snippet in the wrong place, you might find your data isn’t coming in. This is one of the most common ailments, and one of the easiest to fix! The Google tag belongs after the opening <head> HTML tag in your website code. If you’ve placed a tag there before for earlier editions of Analytics, you should be familiar with this placement. You’ll also need to make sure the snippet is included on any page that you want data collected from.

If you have the wrong Google tag ID, go to Google Analytics and click Admin. In your Admin dashboard, you can find the correct data stream and make sure the Measurement ID is working. For full steps on this, visit Google’s official help page.

Google recommends avoiding using a word processor to copy the tag from your account, as this can add extra white spaces that disrupt the snippet code and cause it to not work properly. A single space can prevent the tag from firing, so make sure to preserve the code formatting whenever you’re copying it over to your tracked pages.

There are a few other things that can go wrong, such as:

Tag Manager snippets in the wrong places
Tag Manager changes haven’t been published
The GA4 configuration doesn’t have a trigger condition, which it must have to run
Google tag ID is incorrect

If you notice data not feeding correctly after a few days post installation, you might have a configuration problem to remedy. While these are likely relatively easy to fix, consult Google’s official GA4 help page to make sure you have the instructions you need to do it correctly if you’re uncertain.

New Platform, Better Results

While these steps can seem onerous or provoke anxiety, don’t panic! Installing Google Analytics 4 is well worth the time and effort and can pay huge rewards for your business. Now is the best time to transition to the new suite to ensure you have access to all the features that your competitors likely have. As Google is deprecating support for non-Google Analytics 4 properties later this year, it’ll be essential to make this change now, and it’s great to have a foothold on it before time runs out. After a few weeks you’ll likely find you like GA4 better than the previous versions.

Google Analytics 4 represents the future of online tracking for commerce and users. While there is a learning curve to its expanded features, learning these tricks and tools will set your business up for success in the coming year and years to come (until GA5).