GA4 – Migration Readiness
Google Analytics (UA/GA3) End of life is coming in 2023!
As a Google Analytics Certified Partner with hands-on experience, we are perfectly positioned to support you and your business through the migration process.
Check out the free resources below and if you need some guidance or support, please drop us a line.
This is a great opportunity to review & improve your analytics capabilities
Google has made the decision for you: Migrate from UA to GA4 before you lose analytics & performance data July/October 2023. The migration process will cost you precious time & resources (money). For many clients this process will amount to a re-implementation and similar in scale, to a migration to another technology stack (TMS & analytics).
For many clients, a migration to GA4 will make sense and deliver incremental value if done well, but, this is not a given. Before you migrate to GA4, you should make sure it’s right solution for your business and can fully support your priority use-cases and growth in maturity. A dual-solution approach may also make sense wherein GA4 is used alongside other analytics solutions.
Make sure you ask and answer key questions such as:
How much effort & resource will a GA4 migration require? Can we do this internally?
What analytics set up will address our business challenges?
Do we need to consider a server-side solution? What is the value?
GA4 – Key Considerations You Need to Understand – Ahead of Time
GA4 confers a number of enhanced/additional integrations such as Google Display & Video 360, Search Ads 360 and Big Query. You need to look at existing integration usage and ensure that you manage cut-over well ahead of time to mitigate any potential impact.
GA4’s reporting interface is quite different and customisable. Additional analysis capability is introduced in the form of ‘Explorations’ (Similar to GA360 analysis hub). Additional enhancements are introduced for attribution models. Note: Some limitations exist for reporting/data available in Google Data Studio at the time of writing.
Consent mode introduces features that may need to be configured (via GTM/Consent management solutions) to ensure that users privacy preferences are respected. More info.
ACTION SUMMARY
Understand the key differences
GA4 brings with it a number of significant differences; some obvious, others more subtle. DMPG can help you in the context of your business needs, priorities, goals and objectives, review these difference across key areas and ensure that any potential impacts are understood ahead of time, including:
- Data model, data collection syntax, retention
- Dimensions, metrics
- Limits and integrations
- Interface
– Menu customisation, reports & explorations - Segmentation, audiences, sharing
- Consent, IDs, ML & attribution modelling.
Understand your current implementation & identify potential enhancements
Understanding the current feature usage, data collection and consent management integration (where relevant) is key to ensuring that value previously left untapped is addressed in migrating to GA4.
Invaluable outputs from this work stream include an audit document detailing everything that is tracked and how mapped to GA4 plus any data layer dependencies and dev work required to support GA4 solution migration.
Prepare for the journey with an experienced partner
DMPG have extensive experience in specifying implementations from scratch and in re-implementing suboptimal implementations.
As such we will leverage our tried-and-tested templates to plan the delivery of your migration to ensure that you successfully transition on time and in budget.
A key deliverable from this phase will be a detailed project delivery plan tailored to your businesses context with clear stages, inputs/outputs and milestones giving your team a blue print for success.
DMPG can extend your team and do the lifting for you
DMPG have extensive experience in managing the process end to end.
As such, we can leverage our tried-and-tested templates to plan and deliver your migration to successfully transition on time and in budget.
You won’t need to worry about deliver and can instead focus on planning to use all of the rich insights that you will have available to you!
Develop internal capability
DMPG carry extensive certifications in wide range of analytics and optimisation technologies, including Google.
DMPG pride ourselves on transferring our skills and experience into teams and in helping client to build out their internal capability.
We strive to help clients minimise the time to value from the investments made in measurement and performance optimisation tech.
Maintain compliance and develop progressive, robust trust practices
Privacy and first party data strategy are increasingly sources of competitive advantage, consumers and the advertising industry are increasingly focussed on progressive trust practices.
GA4 confers a number of features including difference data retention, consent mode which integrates with GTM and any third party CSMs to ensure that you remain compliant and respectful of user preferences.
DMPG can also support across cookie audits, data quality assurance automation and server-side cookie solutions.
Need support that is tailored to your specific needs?
Have already started one or more parts of the migration process and need help in particular areas or have you struggled with one or more aspects?
DMPG can pick-up from wherever you have gotten upto or fully customise the support needed with fixed fee or flexible time and material models available.
For more information please reach out to us on hello@dmpteam.com
Free Downloads to Support You with GA4
UA to GA4 Info Pack
Adobe vs. Google Analytics
GA4 Information Article
Tealium x DMPG Server-Side
How DMPG can help make sure you get it right
Audit & Evaluate
DMPG take a discovery led approach to consulting engagements, this helps us to ensure that we fully understand your needs and context, before we propose solutions.
Our tried and tested approach has been shown to deliver significant value to our clients and minimise time to value.
Playback & Plan
Effective communication and planning are at the heart of our approach to service delivery and keeping projects on time and in budget.
We are happy to provide case studies and walk you through real-world examples, please contact us if you would like to learn more.
You’re in Safe Hands
Beyond certifications, the DMPG team includes many experienced practitioners with an extensive range and depth of experience from many industries spanning strategy down to technical systems integration and development.
We pride ourselves in being, straight talking, no-fluff creative problem solvers, with unparalleled attention to detail and focus on delivering client value quickly in a friendly and professional manner.
Who we work with
Clients currently trusting us to help guide them on their GA4 journey include:
Get in touch – we’re keen to talk