One of the cardinal rules of Web analytics is to always compare between dimensions and between timeframes. For example, at Smartt, we always compare traffic month over month and year over year to identify potential actionable insights.

If comparing traffic year over year is something you do and you have not yet installed Google Analytics 4, you need to do so as soon as possible! In this blog post, we will discuss the importance of upgrading to GA4 and the one setting you MUST have use to be able to do year over year analysis.

The first and most important reason to upgrade to Google Analytics 4 NOW if you have not already done so yet is data loss. Universal Analytics is set to stop working on July 1, 2023, and you won't be able to transfer your historical data from Universal Analytics to GA4. In other words, unless you start capturing data in your Google Analytics 4 account NOW, you will lose the ability to do any kind of year over year analysis.

And if you are have already set up Google Analytics 4, make sure you review the "Data Retention" setting. By default, this setting is set to 2 months, but you can change it to "14 months" for the free version. This will ensure that all of your data is retained long enough to perform year over year analysis.

So, if you want to keep your year over year data and take advantage of all the new features in GA, upgrade to Google Analytics as soon as possible! If you need any help, feel free to reach out and see how our team can help with your Universal Analytics to GA4 migration. We will help you:

Plan Out Your Migration Quickly: 

• Review your current events, dimensions, and metrics, and see how to best structure them in GA4 
• Review your Tag Manager account and clean things up
• Review your current IP and filters settings and see which to move over
• Review your current product linking
• (So not only will your GA4 account be set up, we can also help you optimize your Universal Analytics and get the most out of it until you are ready to start using GA4)

Execute the Migration and Double Check Everything:

• Create the account
• Set up your Google Tag Manager tags
• Apply the right property settings based on best practices
• Configure the data stream and data settings
• Add data filters
• Link to other accounts such as Google Ads, Ad Manager, Search Console, Google Merchant Center , and BigQuery
• Setup Conversion Events and ECommerce Tracking

Interested? Please contact us to get in touch with one of our friendly experts.