Google to Deprecate Universal Analytics and Universal Analytics 360 by Next Year
Announced on Wednesday, Google says that they will deprecate Universal Analytics by next year. Take note of the following dates as these will be crucial: Both Universal Analytics and Universal Analytics 360 properties will stop processing hits on July 1, 2023 and October 1, 2023 respectively.
If you happen to have any data that was previously processed in UA will be stored for at least six months after the depreciation dates ended.
So Why is Google Making the Sudden Switch?
According to Russel Ketchum, Director of product management at Google in the announcement:
“Universal Analytics was built for a generation of online measurement that was anchored in the desktop web, independent sessions and more easily observable data from cookies,”
“This measurement methodology is quickly becoming obsolete.”
Google Analytics 4 is Highly Different from Universal Analytics and 360
It is different from its predecessors in terms of how it operates since it does it across platforms and doesn’t rely on cookies. The way it does measurement is by event-based data model. And good to note that it also leans on the privacy of users since it doesn’t store any IP addresses.
What is Google Analytics 4? Here’s A Brief History
According to Google themselves, Google Analytics 4 or also known as GA4 is the next-gen approach to measurement due to its “privacy-first” tracking, x-channel measurement, and its AI based predictive data all at once.”
GA4 also uses its advanced machine learning models, and what this means is that GA4 can fill out data for the website traffic and user behavior without relying solely on “hits” which comes from every page of a website.
Google self-describes the purpose of the new Google Analytics as a next generation approach to “privacy-first” tracking, x-channel measurement, and AI based predictive data all at once. By applying Google’s advanced machine learning models, the new Analytics can fill out data for website traffic and user behavior without relying on having “hits” come from every page.
Additionally, Google Analytics 4 was released back in October 2020. And it features the following:
- Smarter AI-powered insights and predictive metrics
- Better and deeper Integration with Google Ads
- Cross-device measurement capabilities
- Codeless event tracking
- Intelligently organized reports
Now that we’ve told you about this, it’s time for you to set up your own GA4 properties. We all have over a year to prepare so better start tracking the metrics you’re carefully monitoring in GA4.
Additionally, now is the time to adapt to GA4, by next year we will have no options once Universal Analytics and 360 gets deprecated. So better start now so you won’t be having a hard time transitioning.