If you haven’t heard about the new changes to Google Analytics, you soon will be hearing lots about it. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest version of Google Analytics. GA4 is not an update to the previous version of Google Analytics 3 (Universal Analytics) but a new system that replaces it. The switchover will be happening on the 1st of July 2023. After this date, Google will stop supporting Universal Analytics, which means that you will no longer have access to the Universal Analytics interface or be able to send data to Universal Analytics properties.
First things first, let's talk about what GA4 is. In a nutshell, it's the newest version of Google Analytics that offers a more comprehensive and intuitive way of tracking and analysing your website's data. It focuses on machine learning and artificial intelligence to give you even more insights and recommendations for improving your digital marketing efforts.
So, what are the benefits of using Google Analytics 4?
For starters, it offers enhanced cross-device and cross-platform tracking, so you can better understand how users interact with your brand across different devices and platforms. It also has improved measurement capabilities for things like ecommerce and conversions, which is always a plus for any digital marketer. Plus, it has a brand-new interface that makes navigating and finding the information you need easier.
What's the difference between Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics?
Compared to Universal Analytics, GA4 offers more advanced and nuanced data tracking and analysis. Here are some of the main differences:
- Data collection: GA4 uses a new measurement protocol that makes it easier to collect data from various sources and devices, such as the web, mobile apps, and IoT devices. Universal Analytics, on the other hand, primarily collects data from web browsers.
- Data modelling and machine learning: GA4 uses advanced data modelling and machine learning techniques to provide insights and recommendations, making it easier to identify opportunities for improvement and optimise your digital marketing efforts. Universal Analytics does not have these advanced modelling capabilities.
- User-centric measurement: GA4 allows you to track user interactions across multiple devices and platforms, providing a more complete picture of how users interact with your website and your business. Universal Analytics primarily tracks user interactions on a single device.
- Enhanced privacy features: GA4 provides enhanced privacy features such as cookie-less tracking and support for browser-based tracking, which can help your business comply with data privacy regulations. Universal Analytics does not have these enhanced privacy features.
- Integration with other Google products: GA4 is designed to integrate seamlessly with other Google products such as Google Ads, Google Search Console, and BigQuery, making it easier to gain insights and improve your overall digital marketing strategy. Universal Analytics does not have this level of integration.
- ecommerce tracking: GA4 provides improved ecommerce tracking, making it easier to understand sales, revenue, and conversion data, and providing more insights into customer behaviour and preferences.
- Reports and Analysis: GA4 has a new set of reports and analysis features that allow you to gain insights on cross-device and cross-platform user behaviour, attribute conversions and revenue to your marketing efforts, and more.
So, when do I need to switch over to Google Analytics 4?
The short answer is, the sooner the better, July 1st, 2023, is not that far away!
Google has stated that they will no longer be updating Universal Analytics. So if you want to stay on top of your digital marketing and web analytics, it's best to make the switch as soon as possible. By switching over sooner, you’ll also be able to compare the data between GA4 and Universal Analytics to ensure you’re tracking the data consistently. You should also export your data from Universal Analytics to Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) Google Sheets, Excel, or other formats so you can refer to them again.
However, by not switching to GA4, you and your business risk falling behind in terms of your digital analytics capabilities, as your competitors will surely be transitioning and making the most of the new analytics features to improve their website, ecommerce and digital marketing performance.
What if I need help with setting up and transitioning to Goggle Analytics 4?
Google provides free online training resources for you to follow and transition. However, it may be challenging for some businesses, especially those that are not familiar with web development or analytics.
If you do need help and advice, please reach out to us at the Digital Mavens. We've been helping our clients to:
- Set-up GA4 across their lead-generation websites, ecommerce webshops,
- Setting up their GTM tags,
- Link their Google Ad campaigns and social campaigns, and
- Help them to set-up their reporting and analytics.
We'd love to help you set-up your new GA4. Please contact us.
For the last 3 months my inbox has been flooded with emails for blogs, webinars and tools to help me prepare for Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM). For the last 3 days it’s been flooded with emails for retail brands’ BFCM sales. I don’t think it makes a whole lot of sense, even in the US but I’m particularly perplexed as to why it’s such a big thing here in Australia. Here’s a few reasons why:
It’s based around a US public holiday
There is a logic to having retail sales on black Friday in the USA where many employees have the day off. Some employers give workers both Thanksgiving day and the day after off to form a four day weekend. Thanksgiving is a US specific celebration based on boatloads of European invaders almost starving to death then being rescued by the very people whose land they later steal. It doesn’t have any connection to Australia past or present.
Given this, and the fact that in Australia Black Friday has a very different meaning there’s no reason Australian retailers need to run sales in late November.
In the lead up to Christmas people are going to buy anyway
Christmas, whether you believe in Christ or not, is a big thing in Australia. Everyone is compelled to buy their loved ones thoughtful gifts. Smart retailers prepare in the months leading up to it by stocking their shops and warehouses. With such an increased demand they can sell at full price. People have multiple purchases to make, they just want to get in, get what they want and get out. Few can be bothered to hunt around for who might be selling something a little cheaper. Reliable delivery by 25th December and returnable/exchangeable items are often a higher priority than bargains.
It’s only after Christmas, if retailers haven’t moved the stock they had expected to that they discount. Boxing Day, until BFCM came along, was the most anticipated sales period of the Australian retail calendar.
It’s a race to the bottom
In retail, discounting can make sense in certain circumstances. Doing it when you know all of your competitors are also doing it is problematic though. These days customers can compare prices with a few taps on their phone. You need to be cheaper than all your competitors to get the sale. This turns what should have been an attractive but sustainable discount into a discounting bloodbath.
It causes unnecessary strain on your staff
Sales of any kind means more work. It means more orders need to be picked, packed and dispatched. Customers have questions, returns, exchanges, complaints. This all causes work for your warehouse and customer service teams. Spread evenly over a year this would be manageable, but crammed into a couple of days it means you need to hire more staff or risk lengthy delays and more unhappy customers. Couple the additional staff costs with the reduced margins of the heavy discounts and BFCM doesn’t really make that much business sense.
It causes unnecessary strain on your servers
A bit of a boring techie reason but, much like your staff, your web servers weren’t designed and built to handle all your customers all at once. To allow an ecommerce website to cope with this deluge of clicks it needs to be scaled up, with this comes cost. Don’t scale up and it doesn’t matter how crazy your prices are, no one will be able to checkout as your site grinds to a halt.
The great thing about websites is they can stay open 24/7. They don’t need to sleep, they don’t take religious holidays off annual or long service leave. They’ll keep working through the night and over the weekend year-round.
You could be offering discounts at times of low traffic rather than deliberately trying to crash your site by shoving all the traffic onto it at one single point in time. If you were to have a sale, why not ask customers to sign up to the deal over a month or so. Then you can release the sale items to sensible portions of traffic over another week or two. Your servers, not to mention your staff, will thank you for it.
Technology now allows you to tailor different offers to different people at different times and for different reasons
Sales used to be generic, they used to be boring. The same discount on the same product at the same time of year. It didn’t matter who you were, everyone got the same. This was a symptom of the limitations in marketing technology at the time. Billboards all needed to show the same message, price tags in the shops all needed to display the same price no matter who was looking at it.
These days it's easy enough to tailor pricing down to the individual. We can offer up the right promotion to the right person at the right time. We can do this anytime, not just after a public holiday in a foreign country.
Customer behaviour, AI, business needs, supply and demand data can all be used to optimise both the customer experience and revenue in more sophisticated promotional activities.
If you want to know more, get in touch and find out more about how our team at Digital Mavens can help with your ecommerce challenges.
Retargetting ads, automated emails, SMS, personalised content, live selling, loyalty programs, cashback offers etc, etc. We have so many ways to try and convince users to buy, buy more, buy again, buy more often but what happens when they do? Do we ever just say thank you?
I don't mean inserting the words 'thanks for your purchase' into a order confirmation. I mean a real, genuine thank you for taking the time to purchase from us. Not even a 'here's 10% off your next purchase as a way of saying thank you'. Just a simple plain text email from a real person to a real person saying thanks and that's all.
Give this a try and make sure you don't send it from 'no-reply@'. No one likes being talked at. You might be surprised with the response you get. After I started sending thank you emails to customers I was surprised, not just that they responded but that they were appreciative that I had sent the email. It started to open up some really valuable one-on-one dialog. Customers were volunteering all sorts of information about their shopping experience, about the products they bought, what they were looking to buy next, wanting to know when certain products were back in stock and even promising to tell their friends to try out my site.
You can sift through Google Analytics reports, Hotjar recordings, run countless A/B and multivariate tests to try and find out what your customers are thinking, or you can just say 'thank you'. Sometimes the oldest and simplest approaches are still the best.
If you do need any help with your ecommerce, please reach out. At the Digital Mavens, we are a full-service digital agency. We’re not just another web development company that can build your web store; we’re the experts who can guide you through the entire journey from strategy through to implementation, helping you get more out of your marketing channels (paid media, social media, email campaigns etc) and your online store. Resulting in more sales, more revenue and more customers!
At the Digital Mavens, we will help you to DEVELOP YOUR EDGE.
Please reach out and contact us.