The most major difference between Universal Analytics and GA4 is the measurement model they use. Universal Analytics uses a session- and page-view-based metricing system. A session is a collection of user interactions with a website over a set period.
A single session can include many website views, events, and eCommerce purchases. Google Analytics 4 employs a measuring methodology based on events and parameters. According to this method, any interaction can be recorded as an event.
Every Universal Analytics hit type is turned into an event in GA4. What’s more, an event in Universal Analytics has its category, action, label, and its hit type. In GA4, there is no such thing as a category, activity, or label. Every hit is an event, and events can have parameters attached to them.
What metrics does Google Analytics 4 use to track users?
“Cookie-based” tracking feeds data into Universal Analytics. A UA website delivers a cookie to the user’s web browser, which allows the platform to track and record online activity on the site during the user’s session. A session-based data model is used to measure the results.
Google Analytics 4 enables “companies to measure across platforms and devices using numerous forms of identity.” This includes first-party data and “Google signals” from consumers who have chosen to have their adverts personalized. And when cookies are accessible for tracking, Google Analytics 4 will continue to use them. GA4 uses an event-based data model instead of monitoring sessions.
In a world where privacy is becoming more essential, it’s reasonable to assume that such cookies will become less common. Although this is undoubtedly a net good for humanity, it appears to be a major drawback for digital marketers at the moment.
Monthly Hit Limits Can Remove
The elimination of monthly hit restrictions is another key distinction between Universal Analytics and GA4. Universal Analytics’ free edition has a monthly limit of 10 million hits. That’s no longer the case. Several of our clients had trouble gathering all of the data they needed while keeping under this time constraint.
Nevertheless, the number of various events recorded in GA4 is limited. There is no limit to the number of hits that may accumulate in writing. As a result, several clients have already chosen to use GA4 as their primary analytics tool.
BigQuery is available for free.
The final distinction I’ll discuss is GA4’s free BigQuery connection. This feature was previously available exclusively to GA360 customers and was one of the big differentiators between the free and paid versions of GA.
BigQuery, for those who aren’t familiar with it, allows incredibly huge and complicated data sets to be searched fast. Suppose you’ve ever attempted to generate complicated segments in GA. You’re well aware of the impact sampling has on your ability to analyze data. Big Query extracts the data from GA and allows you to query it without worrying about sampling.
Google Analytics 4 Segments vs. Universal Analytics
Segments focus on looking at your Google Analytics data segment to learn more about your users and our website. In GA4, segments function similarly to how they do in Universal Analytics. You may examine up to four segments simultaneously in GA4 and UA. The sorts of segments you can make are slightly different.
In GA4, we can build three segments: user segments, session segments, and event segments. We can only generate two segments using Universal Analytics: User segments and Session segments.
The technique for constructing segments differs significantly between GA4 and UA. Segments may be found in a new location named “Explorations” in GA4. Check out this tour of generating custom segments in Google Analytics 4 vs. Universal Analytics for a detailed comparison.
Is the Attribution Modelling in Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics the Same?
When GA4 was initially released, it only supported the first and last-click attribution methods. Several choices were left out, such as position-based attribution, time decay attribution, and linear attribution. In 2022, we have excellent news: attribution modelling in GA4 is significantly more robust.
Conclusion
The differences between Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Universal Analytics are significant. And it’s critical that you thoroughly comprehend these before making the transfer. If you have any additional concerns concerning the differences between GA4 and Universal Analytics, please contact the Web Analytics agency, who will be more than pleased to assist you.
