How Google Analytics 4 will Impact Your eCommerce Website

Google’s Universal Analytics (UA), is being officially retired in July 2023. Since 2013, Universal Analytics has been the industry standard in eCommerce conversion tracking. Universal Analytics is a robust feature-set that has been the industry standard for eCommerce conversion tracking since 2013. However, modern security protocols prevent Universal Analytics from collecting the requested information from most users. Continue reading to learn how Google Analytics 4 will affect your eCommerce website.

Understanding Universal Analytics

Google’s Universal Analytics platform uses cookies to collect information about website visitors. These cookies are placed on the web browsers of your users, and allow Google to track their browsing history. This allows users to navigate from page to page, without having to log in every time they visit a new site.

Security risks of cookies

Cookies can also create a number of problems that make users less likely to accept them, as they become more aware of the security risks. These security risks can range from identity theft and ransomware so it is important that you only accept cookies from trusted websites.

XSRF – Cross-Site Request Forgery Attacks

A website cannot tell the difference between legitimately placed cookies and illegitimate cookies when it detects relevant cookies. A malicious actor could use this to send an email, delete important files, or copy sensitive user data.

Session Hijacking

This attack occurs when the session ID parameter of the user-specific URL is included. This allows a website administrator to log in to your account and make any necessary changes for you.

 

Cookie Capturing

While cookie capturing sounds delicious, it is a form of negligence by website administrators. Cookies are used to authenticate users. The information must be sent to the server using SSL/TLS channels. Hackers can see network traffic and possibly grab insecure cookies to gain access to your account if the cookie is not encrypted properly.

Understanding Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics4 is quite a departure from the model Universal Analytics used previously. Although the model’s functionality is different, most of the functionality merchants seek can be found.

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How to implement GA4 tracking

The process of implementing Google Analytics 4 tracking codes on your website is very similar to Universal Analytics. First, create a Google Analytics 4 Account. All tracking is done based on parameters and events once the account has been created. Universal Analytics had specific hit types that could be used to track pageviews, events and transactions. Every hit type in Google Analytics 4 is called an event. Your website will start collecting information about each of these events after installing the GA4 basecode. To ensure the system is properly tracking data, we recommend comparing simple metrics like sessions, users, visits and device types from both UA as well as GA4.

What GA4 means for your business

UA offers better eCommerce tracking than Google Analytics 4. We expect Google to continue to improve GA4’s capabilities and expand them when UA becomes unavailable. We recommend our clients use Glew.io as a data-collection platform.

GA4’s promise to improve the eCommerce department is important because it provides better cross-device tracking and cross-platform tracking via the use of web and app data. You can learn more about GA4 eCommerce tracking.

Google Analytics 4: The Good and the Bad

Backend Views

GA4 will not allow you to access the back-end views that you had previously created in UA. This topic is hot for Universal Analytics users who have been using it for a while. Marketing agencies have used views to filter internal traffic from a client’s site.

There are no automatic email reports

Many clients now enjoy the automatic Google Analytics reports, which are sent out automatically without any additional effort from their marketing agency. These reports are not currently available, so creating them will increase the workload of the team until they are implemented.

Neue Interface

 

Google is known for trying new interfaces to discover what users like or dislike. The new interface will cause frustration for those of you who are very proficient with Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 3. We won’t have to remember the interfaces as the old version of analytics will be phased out.

Innovative New Functions

Google Analytics 4 is not all bad. These are just a few of our favorite features in the eCommerce space.

Event-based tracking

As this transition period begins, event-based tracking will make a significant impact on marketers. While this transition period may be difficult for agencies, it will prove to be a positive change. This change will allow marketers to collect the information they need while protecting user privacy.

Unified User Experience

We are very pleased with the majority of the changes to the Google Analytics 4 user interface. It is only a matter time before marketing professionals get used to the interface.

Accurate reporting

Some metrics may appear to be lower than those in Universal Analytics. This is due to changes in reporting. However, we believe these changes will provide a clearer view of website performance.

Conclusion

Google Analytics 4 is not for everyone. Universal Analytics has been phased out. This change is good for everyone and we believe it will make the platform even more popular than Universal Analytics. GA4 should be up and running as soon as possible to ensure that you are prepared for the UA sunset date.

source https://www.groovecommerce.com/ecommerce-blog/google-analytics-4-update

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