Upgrade to Google Analytics 4 to Enhance Your Analytics Options 

GA4 is an analytics service designed for how today’s consumers shop, with the privacy options they desire and require. Whether your potential high-value customers are browsing on their phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop, GA4 tracks every interaction. GA4 captures events, including clicks and scrolls,  across platforms; allows you to assign different categories to these events; and offers your business a holistic view of the customer’s journey while complying with privacy rules and regulations. GA4 streamlines your tracking and reporting, with all the tracked platforms monitored from a single dashboard. GA4 leverages machine learning for conversion modeling and to automate key insights about your customer behavior. 

With first-party data usage at the center of GA4’s design, your customers have more control over how their data is shared through options like Consent mode. This mode adjusts what data is collected based on user preference, while still allowing for the collection of non-identifying data, such as functional and aggregate information. GA4’s use of server-side tagging improves attribution for conversion and offers a deeper understanding of the specifics of the customer’s journey. GA4 offers an opportunity to effectively collect accurate, insightful first-party data that can benefit your strategy in real-time, with no need to rely on third-party data. 

While GA4 is an upgrade from Universal Analytics, (because UA is built around page views and sessions on a single device and GA4 tracks events across platforms), the two platforms work differently and offer different reporting and metrics. You’ll need to invest time to understand what options are carried over to GA4 and how new features may replace or augment current reporting. By migrating to GA4 now, you can take time to learn GA4’s interface, explore its features options, and develop your marketing and analytics strategies before support for UA ends. Google’s helpful comparison of UA metrics with GA4 offers insight into how metrics might report in different ways after the migration and what new metrics are available. Google’s support resources are a critical tool when navigating this transition and exploring new options, such as enhanced attribution features and modeling that includes cross-channel rules-based models, an Ads-preferred rules-based model, and data-driven attribution. 

Ensure a Successful Migration to Google Analytics 4

Haven’t had time to upgrade to GA4 yet? To ensure a seamless migration, make sure you communicate the updated migration to all your channel stakeholders, and plan for a reporting transition period as your business and team get up to speed with GA4. The sooner you migrate your data, the better: Standard Universal Analytics properties will stop processing data on July 1, and eventually these properties will go away entirely, taking your historical reports with them if you don’t export them ahead of time.

As of March 2023, if you haven’t created your own GA4 account, Google has already built one for you. Google will automatically create a basic GA4 account for your business that copies over your UA configurations.

What if you don’t want this profile but you missed the opt out date? In the Admin section of your account, select your UA property, click GA4 Setup Assistant, and click Disconnect from your “Connected Property”. After that, you can go ahead to your GA4 property and delete it. If you’ve created your own GA4 property, you can control which configurations you’d like to copy over.  

Future-Proof Your Business with NetElixir’s AI Solutions

Check out our GA4 Strategies For Your Brand on demand webinar for a discussion between our Senior Director of Client Strategy  Tauseef Syed and Google’s Agency Development Manager Billy McLellan.

Our analytics technical experts can work with you to ensure your e-commerce business is set up for success with Google Analytics 4. We’re here to answer your questions and share best practices that can inform your digital marketing strategy now and into the future. By crafting a strategy that collects and leverages first-party data, your business can field targeted campaigns that respond in real-time to customer behavior.

AI-powered modules are the future of digital marketing, and at NetElixir we are AI-first. GA4 uses machine learning to analyze user behavior, offer predictions, and help your business optimize the user experience. We can help you access real-time insights that will maximize the quality of your data inputs to ensure you are getting the most out of your tracking, reporting, and analysis. Our proprietary AI-powered digital marketing platform, LXRInsights, seamlessly integrates with Google and other platforms to help you understand and reach your customers.

Additional Resources

• Go Organic: Your SEO Strategy In The Cookieless World
• Your Social Strategy For the Cookieless Future
• Web Development For the Cookieless Future

The post Benefits of Google Analytics 4 appeared first on NetElixir.

Deck the Halls Early with a Review of 2022 and a Web Refresh 

We can’t expect 2022’s holiday season to look exactly like 2021 – or 2020, or any pre-pandemic holiday season. But you can prepare your business for the unexpected by reviewing what challenges you faced last year and what tools and strategies might minimize disruption this year. While there has been an increase in first-time shoppers due to the pandemic, companies such as grocery stores that jumped on the online boom have found their margins challenged as the market shrunk. Businesses should innovate while staying focused on long-term sustainability and profitability.

E-commerce sales fluctuations have become the new norm, and in 2021 that meant that for the first time in over a decade, sales on Cyber Monday were less than those on Black Friday. We expect that customers will start their holiday shopping earlier, with planned, considered purchases that account for inflation and the supply chain slowdowns that continue to affect business. As patterns become harder to predict, the deprecation of third-party cookies means your business will need to find new ways to track customer behavior and report and analyze trends to notice fluctuations and react accordingly.

Has it been a while since your e-commerce site had a refresh? Whether your branding and content are out-of-date or your site could benefit from updated tech and a new e-commerce platform, now is a great time to think about user experience and web development and creating a frictionless journey for your customers. Consider supplementing your online presence by entering marketplaces like Amazon. Amazon and other marketplaces are likely to attract more holiday shoppers than DTC sites with discounts and early holiday deals.

Make Your Holiday (Customer) Lists and Check Them Twice with Google Analytics 4 and First-Party Data

If you haven’t already made the move to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), don’t wait any longer. Universal Analytics (UA) and Universal Analytics 360 properties will be fully phased out by October 1, 2023, and historical data for 2022, which is only held for 6 months, will be gone. By having GA4 up and running before the holidays, your business will be ready to track the important October, November, and December search-shop-buy behaviors that will inform your strategy not only this season but for years into the future. 

With third-party cookies disappearing, finding new ways to connect to customers and capture first-party data is critical to your business’s success. Use this time to create a loyalty program that will bring your customers closer to your brand and to find other ways to drive the customer recognition and connection that will encourage users to trust you with their data. Brands should consider investing in an  in-house insight labs or working with digital marketing partners to experiment with different strategies to reveal patterns and discover which strategic moves deliver the best outcomes.  

Create a Data-Informed Holiday Digital Marketing Strategy

With uncertainty a certain feature of holiday shopping this year, it’s never too early to plan for difficulties or opportunities that might arise. By taking the time to build out customer personas and develop SEO-optimized holiday content, when the unexpected happens (and it will!), you will have a back-up strategy that can be adapted to fit new circumstances and will avoid having to start from scratch. Save time and reduce holiday stress by designing contingency plans now, including messaging, for potential supply issues and other disruptions that might impact holiday buying and shipping in the months ahead.

Ready to Plan for Holiday Shopping? NetElixir is Here to Help.

At NetElixir, we are here for your business at every stage of your holiday planning. Whether your e-commerce site needs a facelift or an overhaul, whether you need help getting started with GA4 or a full-on support with track and reporting, we are here to support you as you prepare for the holiday shopping season. We’ll work with you on all your digital marketing strategy needs, from optimizing SEO to developing customer personas that help you reach your high-value customers and implementing the brand loyalty programs that will inform your content and campaign planning.

Additional Reading

• Our e-book: Preparing for a Cookieless World
• 2021 Holiday Readiness Resources

The post Christmas in May: Your Holiday Strategy in the Cookieless World appeared first on NetElixir.

A year ago, we suggested that it was time for e-commerce businesses to start thinking about making the switch to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) for their tracking and reporting needs. Today, we at NetElixir are here to tell you that if you haven’t already begun ‌implementing GA4 for your e-commerce platform, the time to start is now. 

Why Should My E-Commerce Business Upgrade To Google Analytics 4 Now?

Google has announced that Universal Analytics (UA) will be phased out next year. UA properties will stop processing new hits on July 1, 2023 and Universal Analytics 360 properties will no longer process new hits starting on October 1, 2023. While summer 2023 may feel far off, in reality e-commerce businesses that use UA have just over a year to make a smooth transition.

By making the leap now, your business can immediately begin to gather historical data to support your digital marketing strategy for the future. If you begin using GA4 sooner rather than later, by the time UA is sunset – when many of your competitors will finally make the switch – your business will have had at least a full year’s data recorded and analyzed. You will be a step ahead for the 2023 holiday season! Your 2022 holiday data will have been processed and analyzed in GA4’s algorithm to better inform your future holiday strategies.

In fact, by using dual-tagging, it’s possible to begin building out your GA4 implementation while keeping your UA implementation in place for the time being. This allows your business to build that critical historical record while still accessing ongoing insights from UA. As you start to understand and use GA4 and its tools, you can compare and contrast the data collected and insights offered through both GA4 and UA to better recognize how patterns you have seen in UA might appear in GA4 in the future. When the time comes to shift completely to GA4, you can do so with confidence.

However, it is important to note that GA4 does not share e-commerce and event data structure with UA. The best practice for setting up e-commerce data collection in Google Analytics 4 properties is to have two implementations in place: one for UA and one for your GA4 property. We at NetElixir can provide flexible GA4 packing from core e-commerce events implementation to UA events migration to ensure your data is being accurately tracked, measured, and analyzed.

How Can GA4 Help My Business To Understand Customer Journeys And Events Across Platforms While Meeting Privacy Standards?

When UA was introduced in 2012, it had only been five years since the unveiling of the iPhone. Because e-commerce shopping and advertising were not yet the multi-platform experiences they are today, UA’s tracking was based on user sessions (most often via web browser) and used third-party cookie data to measure key data points such as conversion and attribution. 

GA4 is the most recent version of Google Analytics. Today, as customers move between email, web, and social media apps on their phones as well as browsing and communicating on computers, all with an expectation of privacy, it’s important that tracking captures each event in a customer’s journey. GA4 collects event-based data across platforms, assigning different categories to these events to better understand and analyze a customer’s activities and interactions with your brand. GA4 was designed with built-in compliance to GDPR, CCPA, and other regulatory developments, including the requirement that IP addresses must no longer be tracked. 

GA4 is an analytics tool built for the cookieless future that allows you to monitor web, mobile, and app analytics on a single dashboard. With a more in-depth integration system and audience list, users are afforded a robust understanding of the customer journey as well as more informed ads targeting. GA4 uses advanced machine learning for customer tracking across platforms and devices, with conversion modeling offering knowledge where the loss of third-party cookie tracking leaves holes. GA4 automates certain customer behavior insights, such as showing how changes in new customers’ activity connects to a rise in demand for a certain category.

How Can Netelixir Help You Succeed On GA4 In The Post-Cookie World?

Need some expert assistance getting set up with GA4? Whether your business uses Miva, Shopify, WooCommerce, or another standard e-commerce platform, NetElixir can handle the complete technical implementation of GA4. We offer professional setup of GA4 and support crafting website goals and conversion funnels. NetElixir can also:

• Create more advanced tracking for your business through customized tracking pixels.
• Upgrade your pixels to GTM or global site tag prerequisite for GA4.
• Perform post-implementation data validation and other setup-related maintenance checks.
• Institute best practices around reporting insights and tracking audiences and events‌.

GA4 can provide your business with valuable analysis from your customer data, and NetElixir can make sure GA4 is implemented across your e-commerce website to maximize its capabilities. 

Want to learn more? Request a consultation with our experts today.

Further reading

• Our latest e-book: Preparing for a Cookieless World
• NetElixir + Google webinar: The Future of Analytics and Thriving in A Cookieless World
• Preparing for the Cookieless World With Google Analytics 4
• Using Data to Guide Your Content

The post Google Analytics 4 & Cookieless Tracking: Why You Need to Upgrade Now appeared first on NetElixir.