Google Analytics 4 – Should You Upgrade? What You Need to Know First

Not So Fast – Hold Off on that Google Analytics 4 Upgrade

The launch of Google Analytics 4 sent a chill (Happy Halloween!) across our SEO and Client Services teams. They jumped into action to alert clients: DO NOT UPGRADE.

In case you haven’t already heard, Google is rolling out a brand new version of Google Analytics: Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

Before we go any further – or if you don’t have time to keep reading, read this: PLEASE DO NOT UPGRADE TO GA4 YET.

There are many reasons for not upgrading yet, and it’s not just our recommendation, the core of the Analytics community advocates for this as well. Some of the reasons for holding off and testing first are:

• GA4 is changing some of the philosophy around how to measure website traffic. For example, channel grouping has been removed and replaced with medium.
• Many property configurations are different.
• Working side by side will give us the opportunity to review and compare analytics data from both GA and GA4.
• Goal tracking is changing – this upgrade could pretty much break your existing goal tracking.

There is still more to uncover that we haven’t had a chance to learn about yet.

It’s a brand new Google product, and it’s possible there will be some bugs that need patching in the coming weeks and months.

We have already started playing with GA4 here at Elevated and will be taking pro-active actions with our client account when the time is right. For now, the best source of online information is Google’s own blog post about the rollout.

Please don’t hesitate to ask the Elevated team any questions about GA4 – give us a call or book a time to learn more about our marketing and analytics services.