What You Stand To Lose By Ignoring GA4

If you still have not transitioned from Universal Analytics (UA) to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), then this video is for you.

Keep watching to learn what happens if you don’t migrate to GA4 by the July 1, 2023, deadline.

With potential adverse effects on SEO and paid search advertising, it is crucial to prioritize migrating to GA4 as soon as possible.

On June 22nd, 2023 we will be hosting a live GA4 training designed to teach you how to install and use GA4 to set your business up for success.

To sign up for that training, register using the link below 👇
https://www.mainstreetroi.com/google-analytics-live-training/

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Video Transcription

0:05
Hey everyone this is Kelly one of the
0:07
analysts here at Main Street ROI we love
0:11
helping small businesses with their
0:12
digital marketing and today’s Main
0:14
Street marketing tip has to do with what
0:17
you stand to lose by ignoring GA4
0:20
I know that many marketers and small
0:22
businesses out there are so tired of
0:25
hearing about GA4 and we are so tired of
0:28
saying either no thanks or go to set up
0:31
assistance in our Universal Analytics
0:33
properties today is May 31st as I’m
0:37
recording this video and as you can see
0:39
we have 30 days to migrate over to GA4
0:43
so if you are a small business or a
0:47
digital marketing specialist and you’ve
0:49
been procrastinating about migrating
0:51
over to GA4 and you’re not sure why it’s
0:53
so important then this video is for you
0:57
now
0:59
the first big thing here is that Google
1:02
is going to stop collecting data on your
1:05
Universal Analytics property on July 1st
1:08
if you have not migrated over to GA4 by
1:11
this time then Google will will
1:13
automatically migrate over to GA4 for
1:16
you now one of the the important things
1:19
to note here is that when this automatic
1:21
migration happens not everything is
1:23
going to be automatically imported into
1:26
your GA4 property so you can see one of
1:29
our clients here we still have some
1:32
configuration to do in the GA4 property
1:36
when you click on the setup assistant it
1:39
will create the GA4 property for you and
1:42
send you right into the new GA4
1:45
dashboard and so it has seven steps here
1:48
that you’ll need to complete in order to
1:50
get everything migrated over so it does
1:52
have a basic guide on what you um you
1:56
know what the steps are
1:57
now the other important thing here is
2:01
that the the historical data in the
2:05
Universal Analytics is not going to be
2:08
accessible after six months once this
2:11
migration is official so I believe we
2:13
have six months after July 1st now that
2:16
was the latest article that I had read
2:17
I’m not sure if there are updates to
2:21
that
2:21
um but if you want to retain that data
2:25
from Universal Analytics then you have
2:28
got to get that downloaded and stored
2:31
somewhere else either in a Google sheet
2:33
or using you know
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some of these big query
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um
2:40
uh softwares
2:43
oh goodness I can’t get it out but yeah
2:46
there are software out there that you
2:48
can connect to your Universal Analytics
2:51
account so that you can extract some of
2:53
that historical data and store it
2:54
elsewhere now another big thing as far
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as GA4 is concerned it will affect your
3:02
Google ads campaigns as well so if you
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are using a Universal Analytics property
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and you have a custom audience segments
3:14
in your Google ads account for that
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property then those segments are going
3:19
to be going away as well so you will
3:20
have to recreate those custom segments
3:23
in GA form another big thing here is
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that
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if you’re bidding on imported
3:30
conversions that are coming from your
3:34
Universal Analytics account then these
3:37
are going to basically stop tracking on
3:40
July 1st if they have not been
3:41
provisioned in GA4 as a new event and a
3:47
new conversion so that’s one of the
3:49
things that will not automatically
3:50
migrate over when Google does this for
3:53
you
3:54
on July 1st if this process has not been
3:57
started yet so the goals are not going
4:00
to automatically transfer over and the
4:03
reason for that is that it’s just not
4:06
going to be considered a goal anymore so
4:09
goals have transitioned over into GA4 as
4:13
events and then we have to set these
4:15
events as conversions so it’s a slightly
4:18
different setup than what you’re used to
4:20
in Universal Analytics but there’s a lot
4:22
of reasons for doing this and it will
4:24
benefit all the small businesses that
4:27
have taken an early adoption approach
4:30
here to GA4 because you’re getting
4:32
familiar with the dashboard and you’re
4:34
also able
4:36
to do some exploring and you know learn
4:39
how to navigate all of the different ins
4:43
and outs in GA4
4:45
um now one of these key differences
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between UA or Universal Analytics and
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GA4 is the way that you can visualize
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the customer Journey
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um so there’s you know the ability to do
4:59
cross-platform tracking in GA4 that you
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were you know that we were just not able
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to do in Universal Analytics now
5:08
Universal Analytics based everything off
5:11
of like sessions and you had to separate
5:15
everything into different reports and it
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was hard to to get all of that data
5:18
under one umbrella so that you could get
5:20
a really good idea of what your
5:22
customers are doing on your on your
5:24
properties whether it’s an app or
5:26
whether it’s a website so with with GA4
5:31
there’s just a lot more intuitive data
5:35
that we will have access to in GA4 and
5:38
it has enhanced e-commerce tracking as
5:40
well so
5:43
one of the benefits there is that you
5:45
will be able to see how those customers
5:47
are interacting with the different
5:49
product pages on your website how how
5:52
they
5:53
um respond you know right when they’re
5:55
getting ready to check out there’s just
5:57
a lot of benefits to getting familiar
6:00
with GA4 and becoming
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confident with your with your GA4
6:07
property and and how to manage it so
6:12
the the real big thing here is that we
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don’t we don’t want our clients of
6:20
course but we also don’t want other
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small businesses out there to to
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basically suffer from from having no
6:28
audiences set up in their Google ads
6:30
account scrambling trying to get their
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imported conversion goals uh set up
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again in Google ads because if you’re
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bidding on these conversions it’s going
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to have a detrimental impact to your
6:41
Google ads campaigns if we have not uh
6:44
you know if you have not adjusted the
6:45
settings and created new conversions
6:47
that would import from GA4
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I hope you found this video helpful we
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specialize in helping small businesses
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with their digital marketing
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um that includes SEO Google ads social
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media marketing as well on Facebook and
7:01
Linkedin we also help agencies assist
7:05
their clients through our white labeling
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services so we we do actually have a
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free GA4 training coming up on June 22nd
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and you should see a link to register
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for that down below in the in the video
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description
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um we would love to help you know guide
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you on how to get those settings
7:27
properly set up so do sign up for that
7:30
um and if you found this this video
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useful then then please share it as well
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um we hope to see you on the June 22nd
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training and thanks for watching the
7:44
video until next time
7:48
thank you
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