article, probably less. Whenever we at KK BOLD login into our analytics, this is the first prompt
we see, right at the top: “Universal Analytics will STOP processing new data on July 1, 2023.”
I used to think July was a great month (my birthday), but this date has loomed over me with the learning curve that was set to ensue, and at my age sometimes learning new tricks is a hard task to ask. Needless to say, it has been fun! Yeah, I said it.
Many who have learned Google Analytics are used to the data that Google provided us, but with GA4, we get to tell GA4 what data we think is important and if we consider that data trackable as a conversion or not. How FUN!!! GA4 along with Google Tag Manager allow us to set up trackable events and watch as those events “fire” on the website, and then those events magically (hence sarcasm) appear in GA4 and we can create the journey.
Let’s say you have tickets for sale on your website. The first place you send your ads to is the event information on your website. As an agency, KK BOLD creates trackable UTMs (Urchin Tracking Modules) for our campaigns. We would also create an event that fires on the website based on that URL we send the ads to. Now that URL may not be considered a conversion just yet, but then let’s say you have a “Buy Tickets” button on your website. An event would be created using GTM and GA4 to track that button. Are you following the journey? Well that button could be considered a conversion, an “Add to Cart” conversion, or whatever you would like to consider that event to be. Next, you take them to another page on the website that has some information for the user to add, such as contact info. Using GTM and GA4, you set up another event to track that form submission and you call that “Initiate Checkout”. Are you following the journey? FINALLY, for the last step, you send someone to the confirmation page, you receive their info, and now what? Using GTM and GA4, you set up another event to fire on that confirmation and call it “Purchase”, or whatever you want actually cuz GA4 allows you to name your events as custom events. How fun is that!?
Now I know that most of us have done some online shopping, and after we have done our shopping, all of a sudden we start seeing ads from that business all of the time. Maybe you started a shopping journey online and did not finish that journey by exiting the shopping cart, or not filling out that form. Somewhere along the line, a GA4 event could track that exit and retarget you, reminding you what you have been missing, or how you abandoned your shopping cart. Or you may not have exited the journey BUT that business knows that you are a shopper or interested in their product or offering. GA4 allows advertisers to be more creative and tell it what we want to track and how.
All in all, I guess my point in writing this article is that sometimes old dogs can learn new tricks, and even though they may seem daunting at first, the journey is real and it can sometimes be fun!
— Social Media Director Monique Kingsley, finding fun in the fracas