Google Analytics 4 was launched officially on 14th October 2020. This new Google update has many business owners and marketers scrambling to figure out how it will affect their future marketing plans and efforts. The ‘next generation of Google Analytics’ as Google prefers to call it is for all Analytics users.

Before you perform a Google Analytics 4 upgrade, you need to understand what is destined to come your way. Fortunately, that’s what this post will help you unearth today. Here are some of the things you need to know about Google Analytics 4.

New Data Model

Google Analytics has continuously relied on a hit-based model for their previous versions. What this simply means is that each time a user performed a specific action within the website, Analytics recorded that activity. Things tend to be different with Google Analytics 4 since it is moving away from that hit-based model. Instead, it is moving towards the event-driven model. In short, the new version of Analytics is leveraging the Firebase Model where everything you track is an event.

User Identity

GA4 comes with a host of new features added aimed at making sure users have a remarkable experience. One of the most important improvements is about the user identity. Initially, you had to implement your own Users IDs, and monitor their behavior to a separate view from your anonymous audience to track users across different devices or browsers. This proved to be stressful since you have to look at two different places to extract your audience insights.

That will now be a thing of the past since GA4 will use both Client IDs and User IDs to specify the identity of your customer. To pull this off, it will start with your User ID after which it returns to your Client ID if it’s not available. Better, it will add Google Signals in your Data Collection to the game if you enable it.

Final Thoughts

These are just but some of the things you need to know about the next generation of Google Analytics. Be sure to get as much information as possible as it goes a long way in making sure you avoid mistakes while performing your remarketing activity. Continue reading about GA4 here and figure out what it takes to get the most from the next generation of Google Analytics.