All standard Universal Analytics properties will stop processing new hits on July 1, 2023.
It’s 2022 and challenges galore for marketers who must offer multi-channel, multi-device, and personalization with privacy. As marketers navigate the space between cookies and consent while continuing to offer relevance and ROI without wasting ad dollars, the need for a smart analytics platform that considers these challenges.
Two and a half years ago, Google introduced Google Analytics 4 via a company blog. According to the blog, reports for this new property use a single set of consistent metrics and dimensions, making it possible to see integrated reporting across apps and the web. Marketers do doubt celebrated because it promised to answer questions like; which marketing channel is responsible for acquiring the most number of new users across your different platforms, how many total unique users do you have, regardless of which platform they use, how many conversions have occurred on your app and website in the last week – and which platform is driving most of these conversions.
It promised to take away the ambiguity in measurement standards.
Earlier this month, Russell Ketchum, Director, Product Management at Google Analytics wrote another post about how Google Analytics 4 has the flexibility to measure many different kinds of data, delivering a strong analytics experience “designed for the future”. It allows businesses to see unified user journeys across their websites and apps, use Google’s machine learning technology to the surface and predict new insights, and most importantly, it’s built to keep up with a changing ecosystem.
This journey begins with the sunset phase of Universal Analytics – the previous generation of Analytics – next year. All standard Universal Analytics properties will stop processing new hits on July 1, 2023. Earlier this week, the company also announced the Analytics 360 experience, focused on privacy-safe solutions with machine learning at its core. Universal Analytics 360 properties will receive an additional three months of new hit processing, ending on October 1, 2023.
After that, marketers will be able to access previously processed data in Universal Analytics for at least six months. Google advises that marketing and publishing teams make the move over to Google Analytics 4 as soon as possible to build the necessary historical data before Universal Analytics stops processing new hits.
