Google Analytics is an amazing tool for marketing teams to track their ROAS and make more informed decisions on their marketing strategy. Recently, Google decided to improve this program to maximize user success. Buzzing around the industry is the implementation of Google Analytics 4 and its event-based data tracking. GA4 is a privacy-aware mechanism built upon its predecessor and established as modern construction. Google is bringing more power to the hands of marketers by improving the way they track user engagement across their website. GA4 offers an extensive set of options and allows marketers to track more specific segments. These improvements to Google Analytics will be valuable additions to any marketing toolkit and should be implemented in all future campaigns. These are the top five benefits of GA4 for marketers:
1. Automatic Alerts
Automatic alerts are a great new feature GA4 offers as a way to be alerted to sales trends or any other point of interest as it is happening. It's not only a tool for marketers but almost everyone involved because it can allow extra time to prepare for a sales increase and expand product stock if necessary. Why should this feature matter to marketers? Knowing which products are increasing in sales and popularity can help predict behavior among consumer groups and allow for more efficient strategizing. Automatic alerts give great insight into user behavior at different stages within the purchase funnel. For example, if a coupon shared on the company’s social media site is applied multiple times, that indicates that investment is working well and could be a future marketing tactic.
2. Future-Proof Design
GA4 is here to stand the test of time with its future-proof design and give everyone peace of mind that it can adapt to the changing landscape of data analytics and the user privacy concerns that come with it. Unlike its predecessor, Universal Analytics, GA4 doesn’t depend on cookies to operate and can offer much better user privacy. What does this mean for marketing teams? It means there is a decrease in Personal Identifiable Information (PII) violations which keeps teams from having accounts shut down. Google has a zero-tolerance rule when it comes to collecting PII, even if collected accidentally. So thanks to GA4 and its distaste for cookies, there is no worry about losing access to campaigns and losing the money invested into them (Pro-tip! Implementing GA4 early leads to less disruption in marketing plans in the long run). In addition to this cookie-free landscape, GA4 has an AI system that can help fill in the data gaps that the old version lacked due to cookie consent. Who needs cookies when there’s plenty of other desserts in the world to enjoy!
3. Advanced Modeling for User Behavior
An additional benefit to GA4 is its advanced modeling for user behavior. This feature allows marketers to break down the data and see trends, not just numbers on a screen. This gives the marketing team the chance to see instant changes in customer demand, know what products to keep in stock, and see how that changes from a set timeline. As mentioned previously, AI helps fill the data gaps and delivers more information with less work. Advanced modeling can also show which parts of a website are being read and which are being skipped, allowing marketing teams to invest more time in readjusting website aspects that are gaining traction and those that are not. Thanks to GA4, understanding user behavior is key when selling a product or service, and gaining more in-depth insights is easier than ever.
4. Can Be Coupled with Other Google Products
Google offers many platforms to help marketing teams reach their potential and GA4 is at the top of the list. Knowing how campaigns and websites work is extremely important to any business in the e-commerce space. GA4 takes the lead on this by allowing for deeper integration with Google Ads to know quicker and more precisely how ad campaigns are performing. To go beyond that, GA4 also enables marketers to track their conversion rates from Youtube ads to give an even deeper look into the effectiveness of campaigns. This coupling allows for new machine learning-led insights into behavior. The new coupling power allows for analysis such as segment overlaps and user journey pathing to be built in a matter of minutes to see how other Google campaigns are performing without jumping between platforms.
5. Built for the Mobile-First Era
Our technological landscape changes every day, so much of what or how we consume is on a mobile device. Google saw this change and designed GA4 for the mobile-first era to help marketing teams update their strategies. With this, GA4 offers better calculation of audiences and the ability to serve ads to such audiences in a cross-device and cross-platform setting. Furthermore, GA4 replaces pageviews and sessions with events to better understand the way people consume content across multiple devices. This gives marketing teams an option for additional extensive custom reporting resulting in better strategies and more successful campaigns.
6. Bonus! GA4 will include other useful tools such as deeper AI insights, lifecycle reports, and predicting future actions to help better strategize marketing spend and maximize results!
All in all, Google Analytics is an amazing tool for marketing teams everywhere to track their ROAS and make more informed decisions on their marketing strategy. With the new GA4 stepping up to the plate, marketing teams get automatic alerts, a future-proof design, advanced modeling for user behavior, the power to couple with other Google products, and a tool that’s built for the mobile-first era. GA4 helps marketers redefine how to sell and track their products and opens up new opportunities that they didn’t know existed before. We know that all of this information can feel overwhelming at times and figuring out where to start is tough. Luckily, amazing teams such as ours at RHUX Analytics can help!