Google Analytics 4 rolled out in October 2020, and ever since, early adopters have been diving deep into the new layout and features.
As members of the early adopters club, Data Driven conducted a survey asking 460 users about their GA4 migration plans.
We asked about favorite features, integration timelines and how GA4 is impacting client work. We also put together this infographic to give you a snapshot of the results.
Google Analytics is already heavily used and most estimates suggest that there are more than 28 million websites with Google Analytics already. According to our survey 74% of users ranked Google Analytics as “absolutely critical” or “important” to their marketing efforts.
From freelancers to individual business owners, our survey participants showed the variety of people relying on the data GA provides.
And most are excited for the changes Google Analytics 4 is bringing. Of the people we surveyed, 42% were excited about the new event-based model of GA4, citing the new way of event tracking as their favorite feature.
In a close second, 41% of users stated the conversion tracking was the most intriguing aspect. Funnel mapping and predictive analytics capabilities also ranked very high at 39% and 31% respectively.
The new monetization and integrated demographics reports are getting a lot of attention as well. BigQuery only got 15% of the excitement but I expect that number to change as users become more comfortable with this powerful tool.
While not everyone is rushing to the new upgrade we found that 69% of users are planning on upgrading to this version at some point.
Our projections see this migration happening in huge numbers over the next two years.
However, our study found that 34% of GA clients surveyed know nothing about GA4 at this point. Moreover, only 25% of users have upgraded, so there is an enormous opportunity for service providers and other early adopters of GA4.
While many people haven’t yet made the shift from Universal Analytics to GA4, our survey found that 54% of our users are thinking ahead of the curve, citing GA4 as an opportunity to offer a new service to their clients.
In fact, 31% of the service providers surveyed have already set up GA4 for some clients. If you’re an early adopter of GA4, there is a massive opportunity to share your knowledge of this new platform with others by helping with the migration process, training end-users on the new setup, or offering long-term support.
Whether you’re using GA4 for your own website or offering data collection and analysis to clients, this new platform has a lot to offer. From the event-based, mobile-first model to the enhanced reports, there’s something for everyone in Google Analytics 4.
What did you find most interesting in these results?