{"id":23720,"date":"2024-03-27T14:17:41","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T08:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/?p=23720"},"modified":"2024-03-27T14:17:42","modified_gmt":"2024-03-27T08:47:42","slug":"ppcchat-google-analytics-4-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/ppcchat-google-analytics-4-2\/","title":{"rendered":"PPCChat | Google Analytics 4 | 26th March 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

During this week’s PPCChat session, host Julie F Bacchini<\/a> was joined by Brie Anderson<\/a> to discuss about \u201cGoogle Analytics 4.\u201d Here is the screencap of the entire discussion where experts talked about recent changes in Google Analytics 4 and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Q1: How would you characterize your working relationship with Google Analytics 4?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Personally, I think I\u2019ll go with\u201cOh it has me working alright\u2026@brie_e_anderson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An unhealthy relationship I can’t leave\/wish I could go back to my ex but I can’t? @revaminkoff<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am trying hard to fully embrace it. But GA4 sure doesn\u2019t make that easy! @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve used it since it released in gosh what was it 2018? I was fascinated by the fact that pageviews weren’t the primary event, and how that could have all of us rethink how we measure and track online. @ferkungamaboobo<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the most part I ignore it in favour of Google Ads tracking. @Pete_Bowen<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully non-existent. but I oversee a PPC community that has daily issues with it. @TheMarketingAnu<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My biggest headache with GA4 as an in-house growth exec is the disparity btw the data especially in conversions\/key events. @GraceUdogwu <\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just don’t know how to help my clients because the product is so different. It feels like there’s a new item every day, and when my clients ask for advice, I don’t know what to say to them. @JuliaVyse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I try my best to learn<\/s> ignore it. @arnolditdepends<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel like GA4 is recently similar to Google Ads where things appear or move and you never really know if it’s always been like that, if it was a UA thing you’re thinking of or if it’s changed. Just go with the flow and hope for the best. @Meriem<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could never get management or clients to buy into that vision though – we’re still stuck in the tyranny of these low-level events and pages as the core lens that we view user interaction through. @ferkungamaboobo<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@ferkungamaboobo<\/a> Yeah, I think Google skipped the “Bringing the clients up to speed” part. @revaminkoff<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@revaminkoff<\/a> @ferkungamaboobo<\/a> I\u2019m just impressed that you had clients that would go into Analytics by themselves! Lol, hard to find those folks. @brie_e_anderson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love\/hate.It’s still a learning curve for me, but I got the basics (ok more than the basics) down by now. But why does everything have to change all the time? @BorisBeceric<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GA4 reminds me of my Russian swim instructor that is responsible for my fear of sharks\/swimming in dark water. He would have us swim the length of the pool holding our breath and if we failed…”the sharks would get us”.Did I become a good swimmer? Sure. Do I LIKE swimming? Absolutely not.GA4 took comfortable marketers who were in the habit of reporting workflows, and dropped us into the deep end of “choose your own adventure”. Some thrive because they knew what they wanted and could articulate it. Others flailed about in tech fright\/indecision. But the biggest issue is the ones who needed the really cool tools (SMBs and B2B) often got blocked by thresholding. @navahf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@brie_e_anderson<\/a> @ferkungamaboobo<\/a> While there are some that do go into GA4 on their own, either way it’s imperative that they understand the new form of measurement and that there are certain metrics we just can’t report on any more — that’s the piece I think Google skipped. @revaminkoff<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My thought is it has potential. It is hard to believe they produced a product that is worse than the original. @StephaniePPCPro<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, they don’t — that’s the thing. But if you hear for 20 years that “ok you got 1200 visitors to your site this month” as the main top-line metric that everything else flows from — and then all of a sudden you say “this thing everything was based on actually is full of fraud and junk oopsie whoopsie” it is a hard sell. @ferkungamaboobo<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 @BorisBeceric<\/a> just keep swimming…just keep swimming XDIn all seriousness I actually like GA4, but I understand why folks are frustrated. @navahf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s be real too\u2026 Google is historically terrible at rolling things out. Particularly when said things represent a gigantic departure from what came before.This all could have been done so much better. But part of me thinks they actually don\u2019t want to be the world\u2019s free analytics keeper anymore too. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And like, I think it’s hard from an industry perspective that “we know its junk internally but the graphs are all up and to the right, please give us more money” — I dunno. It’s like how the IAB actively fights against fraud protection. We as practitioners have a vested interest in doing sleights of hand with analytics. @ferkungamaboobo<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m embracing the change, but I have my struggles like all others. My goal is to be an absolute pro within the next month so I grow past all the headaches. I’d rather have my limitations set clear than to continue wading through the unknown. @teabeeshell<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@NeptuneMoon<\/a> I 100% think this – especially with the stuff about only storing the data for so long and deprecating UA relatively quickly. @revaminkoff<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right @revaminkoff<\/a> ? If they really wanted to be a analytics provider they would have built capabilities to compare your old UA data with GA4 data. Do not underestimate Google\u2019s desire to not get drowned in privacy regulations or lawsuits. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think the real challenge is that we taught clients that numbers are real – like, yeah, I’ve reported 1000 leads per month from ads using an agreed-upon metric of leads — but both I and the client knew that number wasn’t “leads” it was “this action as determined by us to be a reasonable proxy” @ferkungamaboobo<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that gets elided into something it’s not if you try to de-jargonify things @ferkungamaboobo<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CF “impressions” vs “viewable impressions” @ferkungamaboobo<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

or comparing CPV in YouTube to CPV in Facebook @ferkungamaboobo<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d argue the \u201creasonable proxy\u201d part is very new. Particularly for advertisers who have been advertising for years.Google flat out reported conversions as real, tangible things until very recently. That is HARD to get clients to move off of. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My thinking is that it’s on us as the experts in the room to temper expectations — all a conversion was in 2010 was a line of javascript firing. Nothing to do with what actually happened. Will never forget when I fired a dummy event on every page and the client was amazed at how our CRO dropped bounce rate so much! @ferkungamaboobo<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which let us do the real work of lowering CPL but the client was so focused on that number because another expert said it was “the best metric to track user experience” @ferkungamaboobo<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Q2: Let\u2019s talk about the recent changes in Google Analytics 4 that are designed to address discrepancies between Google Ads & GA4.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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@brie_e_anderson<\/a> – can you walk us through what this means on a practical level?And if you all have questions about this, ask them in this thread!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My understanding <\/strong>is that at the end of the day, this all just came down to vernacular and naming conventions. Well, that and they value people who spend money with them over the actual success of our clients sometimes\u2026@brie_e_anderson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ll now have two data sources as \u201cKey Events\u201d and \u201cConversions\u201d, but how does that solve the data discrepancies? @arnolditdepends<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think of it like this. Google Ads wants you to bid on mid-funnel events because more of those events happen than low funnel, right? Makes sense because technically they NEED data to run the ads. But this idea wasn\u2019t reflected in GA4, we just had \u201cconversions\u201d which most folks used as the ultimate event to happen. So, to sure things up a bit, in most places in GA4, we will have \u201ckey events\u201d The only place this is different is in the advertising section – which you ONLY get access to when you connect to a Google Ads account (annoying) & technically this data should<\/strong> match up with what you see in Google Ads. @brie_e_anderson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel (emphasis on “feel” vs “know”) this is an attempt to get us to be better about syncing in offline conversions and opting into sharing of data to improve models so they can do a better job of tracking\/reporting at the level we’re used to. @navahf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think it\u2019s really kind of confusing but may ultimately push more folks to \u201cuse\u201d Google Ads (at least connect to it) because that\u2019s the only place clients will see conversions. @brie_e_anderson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m eager for the alignment. Beyond that, it’s effectively a nothing burger (naming conventions only) that may add to the general confusion around GA4. @teabeeshell<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you say that you only get access to the advertising section when you connect Google Ads, do you mean the entire advertising tab (eg where the Model Comparison Tool is)? @AmethystMurphy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also little to no communication between product teams at Google which does not help any of this. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@AmethystMurphy<\/a> EXACTLY that. And as someone with a lot of SEO clients, it\u2019s very annoying. @brie_e_anderson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[GA4] Get started with Advertising – Analytics Help ( https:\/\/support.google.com\/analytics\/answer\/10607798?hl=en#zippy=%2Cin-this-article<\/a>) @brie_e_anderson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@brie_e_anderson<\/a> is there anything specific PPC managers should be doing, or not doing, in their GA4 configurations with this change? @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So honestly, I\u2019m not overly surprised to see something like this come about.There have been a lot of terminology changes in GA4 that are seemingly attempting to help folks \u201cpin-point\u201d attribution, which is odd considering that it\u2019s getting harding to do this\u2026. But we now have like 4 types of \u201cattribution?<\/p>\n\n\n\n