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A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
As many of you know, the switch to Google Analytics 4 is less than 8 days away. For many B2B marketers this will fundamentally change the way you tactically measure digital experiences (website, mobile, advertising, ABM programs, etc.). In today’s article, I tackle 3 fundamental changes that will impact B2B marketing.
Want to learn more, we added 3 more changes in our UA to GA4 Cheat Sheet?
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3 Items to Keep in Mind As We Switch to GA4
The switch from Google’s Universal Analytics to the GA4 is imminent. This change will materially impact how we measure the success of our digital B2B marketing programs. In this article, I outline a few of the more important changes and how they will impact your overall analytics and measurement efforts.
Item #1: From Sessions to Events
One of the biggest changes from Google’s Universal Analytics model to GA4 is the migration from a session-based data model to an universal event-based one. That is, in GA4 everything is an event. There are no discrete event definitions (e.g., page view, session)
The impact for B2B analytics will be that your underlying metrics and measures measuring the impact digital has on B2B go to market will need to be recalibrated. Tactically, this means the metrics you are using to understand B2B interaction rates, viewership, etc. will need to be readjusted. Secondly, I’ve been recommending to clients to run UA and GA4 tags side-by-side to identify the discrepancies in measure / metric outputs and identify how these changes impact the math and reporting.
Item #2: Sessions, Bounces and Engagements
This is a definitional change on how Google defines engagement. This is also impacted by the change of definition of what represents a session. In UA, 30 minutes of inactivity forced the end of a session, while in GA4 a session is defined only by a start time. And the duration of a session calculation is redefined as the time differential between first and last event. Thus, you will have lower session counts in GA4, but your screen time may go up.
Additionally, in GA4 we go to a defined engagement rate model. An engaged session, as defined in GA4 is: a session that includes greater than 10 seconds, or 1 conversion, or 2 unique page views. Otherwise it’s counted as a bounce.
The impact to B2B analytics is two fold. First, all measure and metrics that use sessions as part its mathematics will need to be adjusted and the underlying math must be based upon calculated time NOT sessions. Second, all your reporting will need to reflect this fundamental change. Third, all your other B2B marketing systems that rely on Google’s Analytics to deliver page view metrics, etc. will need to be evaluated as to the voracity of their reporting mapping to GA’s changes. This will include various marketing systems that rely on GA for data and reporting. Make sure you audit those systems as well as your GA instance.
Item #3: From Page Views to Screen Views
In addition to the definitional changes in GA4, there is a major scope change in terms of scope of what’s being defined as a page view. Under the UA model web and mobile were considered separate. And this had differing view definitions. In GA4, the web and mobile are unified under a “screen view” definition. The key change here is two-fold. One, views on mobile and web are considered equal by definition (even though they might not be of same value in reality). Two, the new “screen view” definition adds a page referral attribute to align “views” with referrers.
The big problem with this change is that a page view on mobile is likely NOT equal to a page view on a desktop or larger screen experience. One is more valuable in terms of attention. Mobile is a much more intimate experience that a lean back experience like a tv screen view. You will need to adjust your digital engagement analytics to reflect this change. In B2B this is material since mobile and tablet traffic make up 17% of all web traffic in B2B (source) and is the fastest growing segment as desktop experiences become less important.
The net, net here is that the changes for UA to GA4 are material and if you haven’t discussed this with your web and analytics teams. And prepared your bosses for the change in analytics / reporting and ultimately the way you measure your B2B marketing success, you need to do it now. As I said before, make sure you audit all your B2B go to market systems as well as your GA / web analytics platforms to understand the impact to your performance analytics and measurement.
Want to learn more, we added 3 more changes in our UA to GA4 Cheat Sheet? Share your feedback on The Buzz Community.
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