How to Add Google Analytics 4 to Your Website?
If you’ve been putting off updating Google Analytics, now is the time to buckle down and add Google Analytics 4 to your website, let’s take a look.
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Google Analytics 4 is Google’s newest version of their wildly popular analytics platform. It is an analytics service that enables you to measure traffic and engagement across your websites and apps. This post provides implementing instructions and reference materials that focus on a developer audience.
Google Analytics 4 enables users to track a website and an app through the same account. There are also some new reporting features that give you a more in-depth analysis of user interactions with your website. Whether a user is looking up birthday places in Bangalore or escape rooms near you on your website, their data will be analyzed to identify trends and patterns in your website. This will help improve your digital marketing strategy and online brand presence.
Google Analytics 4 looks different from the previous version of Analytics, and the navigation has changed as well. The way data is stored and processed is completely different from previous versions of Analytics. It will work on providing completely new ways to measure and analyze traffic usage for years to come. The way reports are being stored has been updated as well. Furthermore, all new features will be updated in Google Analytics only.
Why do you need Google Analytics 4?
- According to Google, Google Analytics 4 is the future of analytics. It has all the previous features but with new developments. They are letting go of the previous Universal Analytics, and all new features will be updated on GA4. As of 2020, GA4 is the default property type.
- It will not import previous data but will only consider data stored after the time of creation. But it will enable data collection in case you have existing tags on your website that enable this function.
- GA4 encourages custom-made reports by the user as it reduces the amount of irrelevant premade reports and enhances efficiency.
- If you already have Universal Analytics (UA) added to your website, you can just upgrade to GA4 instead of going through the trouble of setting up a new Analytics for your website.
How to Add Google Analytics 4 to Your Website?
If you own or manage a website, you will surely have Analytics added to your website. It is extremely important that you have that in place because user data collection is the basis of a digital brand presence. The Analytics will collect all kinds of data from the user and use it to understand upcoming trends that can affect your business. It will also analyze user traffic and audience engagement with the website.
It will take you some time to get used to Google Analytics 4 and add it to your website. But it is not a difficult process. You need to follow the instructions given to set up the GA4 setup assistant wizard, and you are good to go.
Instructions for Existing Websites
You have to follow the instructions of the Google Analytics setup wizard to create your GA4 property. These instructions will be the same regardless of whether your website pages have a Google Analytics tag or a Google Tag Manager container. You need the Editor role for the account to use the Setup Assistant.
- First, go to Google Analytics and click on Admin on the lower left.
- In the Account column, select your desired account if you have multiple GA accounts is selected.
- Then go to the Property column, and select the UA property that collects data for your website.
- In the Property column, click on the first option, which will be GA4 Setup Assistant.
- Click on Get started under I want to create a new Google Analytics 4 property. If your site uses GA tags like gtag.js tag, you can also use Enable data collection using your existing tags. This will implement standard data collection, and you need to review the custom tags for further implementations.
- If you use a website builder or CMS that supports the gtag.js tag (for example, WordPress), you can choose to Enable data collection using your existing tags. But in case your website builder/CMS does not yet support the gtag.js tag, or your website is tagged with analytics.js, you have to add the tags yourself.
- Then click on Create Property, and the setup wizard will:
- Create your new GA4 property.
- Copy the property name, website URL, time zone, and currency settings from your previous version of Analytics property.
- Activate enhanced measurement in your new property.
- Create a connection between your old Universal Analytics and GA4 properties. This will help you migrate configurations from the old version to the new properties.
- In the case of sites where you have used the Enable data collection option, it will create a connected site tag between your old Analytics and the new GA4 properties.
- Generate a tracking code after filling in website details and successfully adding a new property.
- Make a note of your GA4 property name after you have successfully connected your properties, as it will be needed later on.
- Finally, click on See your GA4 property to open Setup Assistant in your new GA4 property, and you are all set.
If you’re like me and need a good visual walkthrough check out this video from Analytics Mania.
Instructions to Add New Websites
- In case you are adding a new website to GA4, you need to first follow the instructions on your Google account that will help you set up a new Google Analysis Account.
- After adding the details, click on Get Tracking Id, and you will see the new Google global script.
- Next, copy the global tag and paste it into the head section of all your website pages.
- Lastly, verify that the code is working properly. You can use the Google tag assistant or send test traffic to verify the setup.
Wrapping Up
Congratulations! You have learned to add Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to your new or existing website. Hope our article helped clear some of the confusion and trouble you were facing while adding GA4 to your website. Here’s to wishing you great traffic and insight analysis of user data.
