Deadline day: GA4 auto-migration is upon us

With Google set to retire its Universal Analytics (UA) tool on July 4 in favour of its cookie-less website traffic measurement system, Google Analytics 4 (GA4), the deadline to opt-out of the auto migration is 28th February.

For those who fail to opt-out ahead of the deadline, Google will transition their UA accounts to GA4 without any custom strategy and to maintain accurate tracking and analysis, it is recommended that the switch to GA4 be made ahead of time to allow for customisation of the setup.

The migration from UA to GA4 is one considered to require in-depth strategic planning and expert implementation, so neglecting the deadline and losing the opportunity to create a custom strategy could be costly for users.

GA4 is Google’s newer measurement model and was introduced in 2020 as a wakeup call for marketers who have been slow to upgrade their analytics tools. It provides a cookie-free website traffic measurement method and possesses a deeper integration with Google Ads and additional data such as predictive insights.

Unlike UA, GA4 operates across platforms and uses an event-based data model for measurement. To help brands stay on the right side of privacy regulations, it also does not store IP addresses.

To help facilitate a smooth transition, Google has put together a migration guide with some essential steps for the successful implementation of GA4.