What's the new version of Google Analytics, GA4?

Google Analytics is reinvented! On 14 October, the Mountain View company announced in its blog the release of its new version, GA4, designed to replace Universal Analytics in the medium term and become the new market standard for web analysis.

Going back to the theme of data unification introduced in the beta version App + Web, GA4 is presented as a tool adapted to the new privacy rules and far more intelligent than the previous version.

So what does this announcement mean and how will this new model perform in reality? We'll explain all the new features in this article!

A smarter Google Analytics to increase your ROI

Thanks to machine learning, Google can now inform you about a certain number of trends from your data. This will allow you to identify the actions that users will take in the future. 

In concrete terms, Google automatically collects a certain number of events and can complement tracking with predictive KPIs, such as the probability of churn. Beyond reporting, these new predictive indicators are exploitable via Google Analytics audiences, supported by integration with Google Ads.

Lastly, the solution gives a  more granular view of all your marketing efforts. For example, the new YouTube integration allows you to display conversions made via YouTube views on the app and web, amongst other things.

 YouTube Engaged-View Conversions in Analytics reports

In addition, GA4 allows you  to integrate other Google solutions and platforms. Thus, GMP will be integrated more simply with, a free export of Google Analytics data to Big Query,for example, available on the free and 360 versions. 

GA4 offers more unified data resulting in a more comprehensive view of your marketing actions. 

Vidhya Srinivasan, Vice President, Measurement, Analytics, and Buying Platforms at Google, explains: "To help you get better ROI from your marketing for the long term, we're creating a new, more intelligent Google Analytics that builds on the foundation of the App + Web property we introduced in beta last year. It has machine learning at its core to automatically surface helpful insights and gives you a complete understanding of your customers across devices and platforms." All that sums up Google's state of mind on the subject pretty well!

Learn more about the way customers interact with your company

The new version of Google Analytics allows you to very precisely track the way in which users interact with your site. Google gives you as an example that the platform will show you whether a user has come to you via an ad, to then go on to install your app and then make purchases through it.

Against a backdrop where consumers' needs are changing very fast, they must be understood, from acquisition through to creating loyalty. GA4 allows you to go deeper in the collection of key data and exceed the initial framework offered by Google Analytics. How? Via a redesign of events complemented by new customised parameters. Thus, Google is focusing on user data compared to session data with more data to exploit. 

It is also for this reason that the company has reorganised its reporting, so marketing insights based on the customer journey are easier to find. For example, the dedicated interface makes it possible to generate far more customised reports based on new events.

A Google Analytics ready for the end of cookies?

With these changes, the Mountain View company is preparing users for the future, particularly in terms of privacy. 

Consequently, you can now more precisely control the way you collect, store and use the data collected via Google Analytics. 

More granular controls for the personalisation of advertising allows you to choose when to use the data to optimise your ads.

The tech giant also states that this new version is designed to help advertisers prepare for the future and the disappearance of third-party cookies in particular. For example, GA4 will be able to rely on data provided by the set-up of Google Consent Mode and offer advanced modelling to compensate for the missing data.

The new Google Analytics model responds to the burning issues with new features, whether it be the needs of advertisers or evolutions in relation to privacy.