As a advertising and marketing specialist who has gone by way of the transition from Common Analytics to Google Analytics 4 on numerous initiatives, I can confidently say that no platform migration has divided the advertising and marketing neighborhood fairly like GA4.
5 years after the preliminary launch of GA4 in October 2020, and greater than a yr because the full Common Analytics shutdown, it’s time for an sincere evaluation of the place we stand with Google’s flagship analytics platform.
Desk of Contents
- 1. The Nice Migration: A Bumpy Street To The Future
- 2. The Promise Vs. The Actuality
- 3. Indicators Of Progress: Current Enhancements
- 4. The Broader Affect On Advertising and marketing Analytics
- 5. Sensible Suggestions For Advertising and marketing Groups
- 6. Trying Ahead
- 7. The Backside Line
The Nice Migration: A Bumpy Street To The Future
When Google introduced in March 2022 that Common Analytics would cease processing information by July 2023, the advertising and marketing world was in shock. The quick window between the announcement and the sundown date caught many entrepreneurs off guard, inflicting gentle panic amongst corporations and web site homeowners.
What adopted was one of the vital contentious platform migrations in digital advertising and marketing historical past.
Beginning July 1, 2023, customary Common Analytics properties stopped processing hits, with Common Analytics 360 properties receiving a one-time processing extension ending on July 1, 2024.
For many people who had spent over a decade mastering Common Analytics, this wasn’t only a platform change; it was the tip of an period.
The elemental shift from UA’s session-based mannequin to GA4’s event-based structure represented greater than a technical improve. It was a whole reimagining of how we measure and perceive person habits.
Whereas Google positioned this as future-proofing for a privacy-first, cross-device world, the fact on the bottom was far more difficult.
The Promise Vs. The Actuality
Google’s advertising and marketing pitch for GA4 was compelling: enhanced person journey monitoring, privacy-compliant measurement, superior machine studying, and extra intuitive reporting.
As somebody who eagerly adopted GA4 early, I used to be enthusiastic about these potentialities. Nonetheless, the execution has been a combined bag at finest.
The Person Expertise Disaster
Maybe an important criticism of GA4 has been its person interface, with widespread detrimental suggestions from the advertising and marketing neighborhood.
The interface complaints aren’t nearly aesthetics; they’re about productiveness. Duties that took two clicks in Common Analytics now require six or extra steps in GA4. Filtering for a single web page, one thing entrepreneurs do dozens of instances day by day, has develop into an train in frustration.
Knowledge Reliability Considerations
Past usability points, GA4 has struggled with information reliability issues that strike on the coronary heart of selling decision-making.
In response to Piwik PRO’s evaluation, conversion monitoring discrepancies, inaccurate visitors reviews, integration issues with Google Adverts, and discrepancies between GA4 information and BigQuery exports have been persistent points since launch.
These aren’t minor technical glitches; they’re elementary issues that have an effect on how we measure marketing campaign efficiency and allocate advertising and marketing budgets.
The shift from UA’s goal-based conversion monitoring to GA4’s event-based system has created confusion round what we’re truly measuring, notably when evaluating year-over-year efficiency.
Indicators Of Progress: Current Enhancements
To Google’s credit score, it hasn’t ignored the criticism. The previous yr has seen a number of significant updates that tackle a number of the most urgent issues.
Google Analytics has launched a Generated Insights characteristic that summarizes developments and adjustments in information, serving to customers make faster choices. These insights are displayed on the prime of element reviews and embrace motion buttons for report modifications. This AI-powered evaluation is genuinely useful for figuring out patterns which may in any other case be missed.
The addition of Anomaly Detection intimately reviews mechanically flags any sudden spikes or dips in your information, represented as circles in your charts. For busy entrepreneurs juggling a number of campaigns, this proactive method to information monitoring is a welcome enchancment.
Maybe most importantly for companies and enterprises, as of March 2025, GA4 lastly helps the power to repeat reviews and explorations from one property to a different. When you’ve ever needed to manually rebuild the identical customized reviews throughout a number of consumer accounts, you’ll recognize how a lot time this protects.
The Broader Affect On Advertising and marketing Analytics
The GA4 transition has pressured your complete advertising and marketing analytics panorama to evolve. Present information exhibits that over 15 million web sites use GA4, making it the de facto customary for internet analytics no matter particular person opinions concerning the platform.
Screenshot from developments.builtwith.com, August 2025
Trying into historic Common adoption, greater than 21 million web sites used Common Analytics, which leaves a niche to be crammed. So, regardless of GA4 main the analytics trade, it nonetheless has an extended solution to attain the previous adoption price, which creates some form of vacuum.
This shift has had a number of unintended penalties. Many organizations have diversified their analytics stack, supplementing GA4 with specialised instruments that fill particular gaps. There’s an elevated curiosity in alternate options like Matomo for privacy-focused measurement and extra subtle attribution modeling platforms for enterprise customers.
The emphasis on first-party information assortment has additionally intensified. With the tip of third-party cookies and stricter consent guidelines, web site information protection will lower, limiting your leverage.
First-party information will develop into much more necessary than ever. This has pushed advertising and marketing groups to develop into extra strategic about information assortment and buyer relationship constructing.
Sensible Suggestions For Advertising and marketing Groups
After 5 years of working with GA4, right here’s my recommendation for advertising and marketing groups battling the transition:
Make investments In Schooling
The training curve has been steep, however unavoidable.
As former Google Analytics crew member Krista Seiden correctly famous:
“The one solution to study a brand new software is to dive in and really get your toes moist.” Price range time and sources for correct coaching.
Focus On Tendencies, Not Absolutes
When evaluating year-over-year efficiency, give attention to developments and seasonality moderately than absolute numbers. GA4’s completely different measurement methodology means precise numerical comparisons with UA information are largely meaningless.
Complement Strategically
Don’t attempt to make GA4 do every thing. Determine particular gaps in your analytics wants and fill them with specialised instruments.
Many profitable advertising and marketing groups now use GA4 as their basis whereas leveraging extra platforms for detailed attribution, buyer journey mapping, or real-time optimization.
Embrace The Occasion-Primarily based Mannequin
Somewhat than combating GA4’s event-based construction, lean into it. Google recommends implementing new logic that is sensible within the event-based context moderately than merely copying over current occasion logic from UA. This method will yield higher insights in the long term.
Trying Ahead
Cookie deprecation and enhanced privateness rules imply that options like enhanced conversions, consent mode V2, and offline conversion monitoring at the moment are needed moderately than nice-to-haves. GA4, regardless of its flaws, is best positioned for this privacy-first future than Common Analytics ever was.
The platform will undoubtedly proceed bettering. Google has proven responsiveness to person suggestions, and the latest updates exhibit a dedication to addressing essentially the most urgent usability issues. Nonetheless, entrepreneurs ought to count on GA4 to stay extra advanced and technical than its predecessor.
The Backside Line
5 years after its launch, GA4 represents each the promise and peril of recent advertising and marketing analytics. It presents capabilities that Common Analytics couldn’t match: cross-platform monitoring, privateness compliance, and AI-powered insights. But, it additionally calls for a degree of technical sophistication that many advertising and marketing groups wrestle to realize.
The pressured migration was undoubtedly painful, and the criticism of GA4’s usability is basically justified. Nonetheless, the platform is right here to remain, and combating that actuality serves nobody. The organizations that may thrive are people who put money into correct GA4 implementation, complement it strategically with different instruments, and adapt their processes to work with moderately than in opposition to its event-based philosophy.
As entrepreneurs, we’ve weathered platform adjustments earlier than, and we’ll climate this one, too. The bottom line is approaching GA4 not as a substitute for Common Analytics, however as a basically completely different software for a basically completely different digital panorama. As soon as we make that psychological shift, GA4 turns into much less irritating and extra highly effective.
The way forward for advertising and marketing analytics is privacy-first, cross-platform, and AI-enhanced. GA4, for all its present limitations, is our greatest free gateway to that future. It’s time to cease mourning Common Analytics and begin mastering what comes subsequent.
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Featured Picture: kenchiro168/Shutterstock
