Google Analytics 4 is not just an update of the popular, free web traffic tool. GA4 is an entirely new platform. Since Google has not made major changes in its analytics in 10 years, this is kind of a big deal. For many marketers, Google’s current version, known as Universal Analytics, is all they know. The Industrial Marketer Podcast breaks down what you need to know about this important transition.
Google Analytics 4 is not just an update of the popular, free web traffic tool. GA4 is an entirely new platform. Since Google has not made major changes in its analytics in 10 years, this is kind of a big deal. For many marketers, Google’s current version, known as Universal Analytics, is all they know. The Industrial Marketer Podcast breaks down what you need to know about this important transition.
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the industrial Marketer Podcast the workplace for the tips, tech trends and tactics for industrials who care about driving leads and money revenue to their businesses. It's exciting to be back I missed every one of you since our last episode, I have one of your hosts industrial Franken marketer, Joey Strawn and as always, I am here wishing you a happy Nelsoween week with Nelson. How are you now else?
Nels Jensen:I promise not to scare anybody this will be a very, very, very safe ground to the to try to.
Joey Strawn:You know what now I'm gonna stop you right there because that's not a promise that you can keep this week because oh no, but superduper doop doop de doop doop doop doop doop, we're having a special episode a full on industrial marketer special report because we are in we're recording this around Halloween, if you hadn't picked up on the theme so far, it should be released around Halloween. But here's the thing, What's scarier to industrial marketers than data and proving ROI? Nothing. Nothing is scarier than those numbers in those spreadsheets and those percentages and trying to prove ROI in the industrial marketing space. So we decided to dedicate an entire episode to analytics, but specifically Google Analytics for GA for the rollout that is coming. If you haven't heard about it, you've probably heard about it. And if you haven't, you need to hear about it because Google Analytics is going away. And there's a new one coming. And Nelson That's terrifying. Isn't it terrifying? You're, you're I can tell you're shaper to the core?
Nels Jensen:Well, as long as I don't have to build any custom dashboards or anything like that, I'll be fine.
Joey Strawn:Oh, no. See, it's like, it's like foreshadowing, okay, I can't I can't handle it. My my goose my goose bumps are up all over the place we're diving in. Because this is our special episode special report on Google Analytics for and the upcoming changes in the data sphere for all industrial marketers. Now, this is a heavy topic. And there's a lot that's going into the GA for switch, you know, it may everyone's thinking, Oh, we got Google Analytics and Universal Analytics that was all the same. This is not the same. This is a big, big change. And so we are bringing in the big guns. So this episode for our special report, we have the new director of analytics and industrial Nate Griffin, here to talk to us specifically about the importance of data, the importance of analytics, and really making sure that everyone in this sphere is ready for this because this is a big change. It's a big stuff coming. Nate, thank you for being on the show with us today.
Nate Griffin:Oh, thank you for having me on your special War of the Worlds Halloween episode. I promise? Well, I can't promise the people will tune in. And then like go out in the field looking for little green men who have invaded Broadway expected to be this scary.
Nels Jensen:Okay, good.
Joey Strawn:Now, listen, I are thrilled to have you here. Because when we were talking analytics, we're like, Okay, we gotta get the guy and talk to the guy who was actually helping us understand all this from our end as a professional. And so I mean, we're thrilled. But honestly, the real, the real importance here is for our listeners, and these, you know, the industrial marketer audience are people who are on the ground level, Nathan working in the fields of the industrial marketing footsteps, all the way up to managers, and C suite who are trying to understand how all of this makes a difference for their business. Like they haven't invested in marketing infrastructure like this was, you know, their grandfather, great, great grandfather started these businesses, you know, so we're really talking the spectrum of industrial marketing here. I mean, let's just start off with an easy big question is data and collecting it as important as we say and why why is it important for marketers to collect data?
Nate Griffin:If you are using the internet to generate leads or to generate revenue? Your customers will leave a string of data along. Now, whether or not you choose to collect that data or not, that is up to you. But if you're not collecting that data, if you're not analyzing the data, you are flying blind at where your biggest opportunities for sales and leads are.
Joey Strawn:It Okay, so that sounds pretty important to me. So like if you're, you said flying blind, it'd be like if you didn't have sensors on an airplane, and you're just hoping that you're pointing towards Baltimore. would be lying,
Nate Griffin:it would be going to a conference and having your booth put up and absolutely no signage. Oh wow. And then you hand out your business card and, and then you hand out your business card. And it's just an it's just a blank piece of paper. And there's no, there's no contact back. And you don't know and you don't know who you gave it to. So there's no there's nothing to there's no follow up. There's nothing you don't know where the person is gone. You don't know, if the person has come back, you just hope you hope they're interested because they added, they they showed up?
Joey Strawn:Well, nails loves trade show analogies. And so you just use one. And so I'll extend that met Alex in that metaphor a bit. So if you're spending a whole bunch of money to go to a trade show to do that, the way that you just described, that money is not put to good use. So if I'm hearing you correctly, one of a will, a major benefit of having an analytics infrastructure or understanding the data around you is to make sure that the money that people are putting towards sales, marketing, and branding activities, is actually being put to good use, that it's not just being thrown asunder, or tossed into a jacket lantern to keep the that seasonal theme alive. I mean, I mean, else is that, is that what you're here.
Nels Jensen:Well, right? Right. And we haven't even brought up the idea of actionable insights. Right? It's like, it's not, it's just, it's just starting with the foundational information that allows you to do something next also tells you, right? So how many people found us? Who are they? Where do they come from? Anyway? Yes.
Nate Griffin:I, you know, and it's a lot of people are hesitant to get into the data and analytics game. I mean, you you there's a big sports pushback about, you know, baseball, and football teams are using too much in analytics, and I know what's best for my, for my business, or my team, or my situational, pinch hitter, or my relief pitcher, or when to go for it on fourth and one, I know what's best, I don't need, I don't need numbers telling me what to do.
Joey Strawn:Mind. My gut tells me how to do that I've been in this business long enough to know, et cetera, et cetera, et
Unknown:I know what it is, I know who's buying what I know, all of this stuff. Data is not a predictor of outcomes. It's not going to tell you this is going to work every time. It's a roadmap of what did work. And so if you have a better opportunity to go through that roadmap, and say, All right, these people came from here. And I know that a person coming from this area of the country looking for this particular service or upgrade or product that we have came from here, how often has that happened, how easy it is to repeat that. Or easily, you repeat that I'm sorry. And so it's yeah, it's not it's not a predictor. It's the meaningful insights kind of come in from the roadmap that it provides you.
Joey Strawn:I like I like the roadmap, picture that metaphor, because as I'm thinking about, like, someone could give me a map of the United States and say, Hey, I need you to get from New York City, to Los Angeles. And if I just have the outline of the country, I might can get there without falling into the ocean, but it's not going to be quick, it's not going to be efficient, I'm going to get lost, I might die. If you add in the state lines a little bit more detail, then I know a little bit more about what I'm doing with the states and the interstates, then, well, that makes my trip a whole lot easier, I can actually get there without wasting a lot of time, I know which roads I should take and what signs I should be looking for. But if you go even deeper, and you start adding in like which truck stops strong on which roads and where restaurants are and the more detail I get on county lanes and streets and oh no, there's construction on this, you know, talking like ways level data information, then my trip can become not only quick and efficient, but optimized along the way as Oh, no, this bridges out go a different way. It'll save you a day's journey. And that to me, as you're talking about this roadmap, you know, having a lot of data isn't telling you where to go. It's giving you the map, so you know how to get there the right way. You know, it's almost that like, I've heard you talk to clients about this. Nate specifically is saying, Well, I want to build something that gives us a direct Sure no idea of what to do not the answer, but which direction the answer is in. And I've always, I've always thought that's a fun approach to saying like, well, this doesn't give us the answer it gives us how to think about to get to the answer in which direction, we need to be focusing our efforts. And that, to me, has always been a fun, ongoing kind of kaizen esque thought process around data analytics.
Nate Griffin:Yeah, I always Oh, you know, a lot of a lot of web analytics, a lot of expectations on web analytics kind of fall into the soothsayer like, look at the tea leaves and predict the outcomes for us and tell us, tell us give us the answer. Which doctor following and, and that's not how I like to approach it, I like to approach it as this is my goal, I know that this is going to make me money, this is going to save me money, or this is going to improve customer sentiment. So now, what is that roadmap that gets that gets a visitor to the website? Or a potential customer? From there, to this point? And can we see that? Can we replicate it? Can we make it more efficient? And if we can do all those things can we do.
Nels Jensen:So I also like to think about analytics really allow you to play, you know, they show you what works sometimes, or what has worked in the past, but they also show you what often doesn't work. So I like to think one of the benefits for manufacturers with analytics is it allows you to play offense and defense at the same time, it allows you to adjust the dials so that you spend a little bit less than this, because it's not producing as much results. And you spend a little bit more on that, because it has been. So let's let's talk now more about the changes in the app in the landscape here for analytics. You know, we've come up on this key juncture, Google Analytics has. I've seen the estimates around 86% of market share for b2b marketing. Obviously, it's free, but it's very powerful. So get us up to speed on where we are in the b2b analytics picture with this Google Analytics for platform.
Nate Griffin:Well, Google Analytics for is a brand new codebase brand new library. It's and it is going to be a complete overhaul of an web analytics implementation. There should be no
Joey Strawn:stuff people have installed, you know, Google Analytics. Now they're fine, right? They're totally
Nate Griffin:No, no, no, no, this is, this is a completely new update. They've had your Google Analytics has been working on using or they've been using what's called Universal Analytics for the past 10 years. But if you think about it, Google Analytics, as a property as a product has only been around for about 15 years. And in that first five years, there was a lot of changes. They had at least three major platforms between 2007 and 2012.
Joey Strawn:So like Google Analytics, one, Google Analytics two, and then Google Analytics three, which, if correct me if I'm wrong on this, Google Analytics three is essentially what we know of as Google Analytics, prime, Google and Lidice, universal 360. The current what everyone uses is essentially Google Analytics. Three,
Unknown:Yes. And in the first in the first five years, there were, you know, they made three updates. And in 2012, it rested on Universal Analytics. And that's what we've been using for 10 years. And so there's a there's a whole generation of marketer of online marketers that doesn't know anything but Universal Analytics. Where have you been there since 2007? You've already been through these these types of updates before but if you haven't been there, if you haven't, you know, you just started if you've only been working in online since even 2012, so 10 years. You've never gone through this type of drill before.
Joey Strawn:I'll say that even even for me personally, Google Analytics two was the one that was launching when I was first getting into the professional side of this Google Analytics. One is what we used like in school and and internships and things of that nature. But like Google, the current version is ultimately the only one that I functionally have used as a professional for a decade. So it you know it is a really big change and Mel's, I laughed so hard because I know you did This on purpose, but your foreshadowing bit of, well, thank goodness, I don't have to write code or anything. That's what one of and Nate, I want to go into some of the differences between these tools and why we're even talking about GA four. But one of the main differences is Google Analytics, three, the one we know and love, came prepackaged with a bunch of reports and dashboards and elements, custom built, which is normally what people think of. So like the time on site, the visitor, the the bar graphs, and the charts, all that was pre baked in, that's not gonna be the case with GA fours, they will have to build dashboards from scratch from using some elements of code implementation knowledge, like, it's not just a plug and play wiziwig, like, kind of used to be.
Nate Griffin:Yeah, one of the things that, you know, I've, I've even heard, you know, analytics practitioners, people that I trust, and I've followed. For years, I would consider colleagues, one of the big problems, one of the big issues they have with GA four, is that they can't find what they're used to finding. And they have to go in and build it themselves. The other one is, there's a lot of stuff that they're not, they're just gonna drop, bounce rate. In particular, that's, you know, a metric that everybody you know, if you're in the online space, you know, what bounce rate is, and you might plan entire campaigns around if your bounce rate is super high. You're not? Well, we're going to stop this one. And we're going to use this page.
Nels Jensen:Yeah. No, no, I was gonna say that. Let's talk about the fundamental differences, because there are still ways to evaluate what are effective landing pages. They're just different. Right? Yeah.
Joey Strawn:So theoretically, like, code in the equation to come up with bounce rate, but it's not good. It's like these pre baked dashboards, these metrics that Google has decided are these ones to to visualize, won't be readily available. But yeah, to your point, like it's going to give marketers on our end a lot more control over what we're seeing what we're looking for, and what's unique to each customer and client experience. Because a lot of this is based on user activity, as opposed to website session activity, as I understand it. Now, you were about to say so yeah.
Nels Jensen:That's, that's what it was. So Nate, yeah. Walk us through a little bit about the fundamental differences with GA four. And how that can benefit marketers?
Unknown:Well, the biggest thing is going to be it's going to be focused on engaged users or engaged sessions sessions. What that means is people that are actually taking action on the website, how long they've been around, how long they come? How often they come back. One of the things, one of the things that they've built in automatically is scroll tracking, scroll tracking.
Joey Strawn:Oh, nice.
Nate Griffin:And like PDF download link clicking like, this is stuff, they've automatically included in the updates, because there was a lot of things. They were building stuff that a lot of people built into GA, or to use
Joey Strawn:Those types of things all the time. Yeah, that's, that's actually I'm happy to hear those will be baked in the new round.
Nate Griffin:Yeah. And they're, and they are. Yeah, they're events, but everything's going to be instead of hit based tracking, everything is going to be event based. So that's why the scroll tracking is important. That's why those outbound clicks, as events are automatically being tracked. And why bounce rate is kind of going away, because they want to focus more on what people are doing, and less so much. What they you know, trying to prove a negative by right people didn't do
Joey Strawn:well. And as I you know, and one of the things I've been thinking about and you know, you and I have chatted about this off to the side, but you know, the element of tracking or is just seeing what's happening on a site, you know, the world we live in, we've got, you know, voice activated devices on our desks that we can ask questions to that will pop us audio answers, we have phones that are connected to our profiles across seven devices and we can send notes to ourself on Evernote and links to ourselves from a phone to a laptop and you know, a bounce may not be me bouncing off of the site because I'm not interested in the page. It could be me bouncing from my phone to my laptop because the video is experience is better. And so you know a lot of the things that I see them implementing in GA four seem to be around that realm like for Like Inanna thinking in a manufacturing space, like, you know, how often are people jumping from their phone to their laptop to their tablet, when they're on the factory floor, or, you know, they're researching something at work, and then are researching researching something at home, and then buying it at work on a different computer, because they have their work payment information and POS connected there, I mean, some of the changes, it feels like it's really about connecting with the people and the individuals that are searching and their habits as opposed to just like what's happening on an app or a website.
Nate Griffin:No, and that's, that's a good point, the the big thing they're trying to do is make cross device attribution, alive here. Universal Analytics actually had, it was kind of the first instance of this, the point of Universal Analytics is, wherever the library was called fraud. It was going to fire. So you could put it anywhere you want it, you could put it behind, you could you could put it on, you could put it in a CRM, if you wanted, it could fire and send information back. And it was also the first time it allowed you to tie a user ID together. So if somebody does something on one device, like logs in, that you could tie logged in sessions together. But for Universal Analytics, and for privacy reasons, you had to have those two separate profiles. Yeah. Yep. Ga for is actually trying to stitch a lot of that stuff together on your on their own. And there's still a couple of things you can do to make it easier for them to do that, like the universe, like the user ID, if you wanted to build in your own user ID. But now it doesn't have to be separate profiles are separate properties, you can track that all in in one thing.
Joey Strawn:See, that's helpful. And some people who haven't set up Google Analytics properties or views or instances before may not understand how helpful that is. But it's very nice that what you just said is very nice.
Nate Griffin:Yeah. Part of its going to be part of it's a little black box. And so it's like weird, like, what are they what are they deciding is going to stitch those users together? My, I've heard some rumblings that it's actually based on, like your logged in Google account, right? I've heard that. And there's some other stuff that I'm not absolutely sure of without like digging, digging, you know, doing some, like heavy, heavy digging. But yeah, there are other things, there are other things we can do to kind of help that along. And it all it can be fairly property.
Nels Jensen:So one of the things reading about on the surface level that I do, I'm certainly not in the weeds on this. But, you know, I've read a lot about first party cookies and third party cookies, and the sort of change in sort of structure or change in philosophy, if you will talk about cookies, and what manufacturing, marketers really need to know, we don't need to get super in the weeds. But what is what is really the key difference here in terms of the privacy and cookies aspect.
Nate Griffin:So as our, as our online world evolves, you know, browser, cookies, browsers, or just kind of little bits of data, that are metadata that kind of like associate your browser to something you've done. So like
Joey Strawn:It's validating the fears that everyone's like, every website I know is following me around. It's like, yes, every website you've been to kind of follows you under a little bit. Because of these cookies.
Nate Griffin:Right? I mean, it started out as like just like a bit of like you know, so when you click on a link and go back to a page and that and or and leave but then go back to that page and that link is purple, saying right like that. That's the cookie working now from an online marketing standpoint. People have used cookies to start you know, serving ads that go hey, finished shopping. You know, you looked at this product now it's gonna follow you around even if you bought it you went to you looked at a mattress review. Are you interested in this mattress forever?
Joey Strawn:Casper? Yeah, Halloween Halloween
Unknown:Yeah, there we go. And so so as this is going on, there's been a ton of privacy privacy concerns with cookies, specifically coming out of the EU. That's where the GDPR Yeah, yeah. originated and so trying and I'm always of the mindset that it's just a weird thing that a lot of times Google goes through these exercises, these like privacy exercises to make sure that EU type legislation doesn't end up happening here. The other part is they're just trying to get in front of stuff. Another thing that's kind of big going on right now is your iPhone. And the iOS operating system. They've recently allowed you to disable tracking on apps. You know, it'll ask you, Hey, do you want this app to track you? Nope. You know, I do that. The, the other thing is, more and more people are using content blockers, and ad blockers. And if they're using an ad blocker, it's not going to fire any JavaScript or Google Analytics, and therefore, nothing gets stored. With that. So the, you know, online marketing, essentially has based itself on those user cookies. And once people start walking them and disabling them, what's, you know, how do we gain visibility? So GTA four is Google's first attempt at trying to move away from cookies. And they're trying to base it on user sessions. And again, stitching that together any kind of any way they can. But again, removing cookies from the equation of venture, it's not one or 2% there yet. But this is their first attempt, I don't know if there's gonna be like a fifth generation that will do that. Or if like, that will be an update in
Joey Strawn:Oh, you know, a fifth generations come? And gee, well, it's gonna be a hard thing. It's both years.
Nels Jensen:Yeah. But there'll be there'll be updates throughout. I mean, you know, and we've talked a little bit about the learning curve. And we've talked a little bit about the change, but there's a, there are some potential elements of this, that sound pretty exciting to me, the sort of predictive nature, you know, if you do a better job of tracking these custom, I'm tracking these actions on a site, you can build a more robust pattern of behavior from your users, you know, even to the point Google is promising sort of a artificial intelligence predictive basis for setting up future campaigns and, and even within, you know, helping you determine which segments perhaps you want to market to. I mean, what is is the Are we at the age of, of artificial intelligence here with this? Is this just a bridge to what's next? What do you think about the ability to do a lot of these sort of non futuristic but I mean, people can apply data visualizations and things now but they're certainly they're promising a bit a much better look into the future.
Nate Griffin:It's a double edged sword. I so I think this has given them a lot more capabilities than then UAE had, I will go to say that. So Facebook, look alike audiences on Facebook ads, is probably one of the strongest marketing tools I've ever used. Ever, like just I was I was printing money with that. And I think this actually, this upgrade for Google Analytics, gets it. You know, if we're talking about predictive capabilities, and being able to like figure out how to define segments, actually gets it closer to on par with Facebook's look alike audiences. If you don't know what Facebook look alike audiences are, that's where you can upload an email list into Facebook, Facebook will find will try to find those people, whether it's by name, email, phone number, zip code, address, whatever, they will try to find those people. And then they will say, All right, what do all these people have in common? Turn that into an audience. Yeah. And those things are powerful when you really dial them in. I felt like especially
Joey Strawn:I mean, we give we give Facebook so much more information about us than we do Google because you know, people are liking pages and interacting with content and sagging. They like things where you have so much information Yeah, so to your point, like If Google can take that mindset and start connecting the universe of dots behind what they know as well, that can be a really powerful tool that
Unknown:It is a very powerful marketing tool it, it also, you know, it. Facebook is cookie based still. So and Facebook is kind of running into that thing where, you know, iOS turned on the thing that said, don't track me while I'm from this app. So unless Facebook can kind of make an update, they might be. They might be in a jam. But Google Analytics is kind of paving the way to say things get around, get around. Yeah,
Nels Jensen:I mean, my understanding is that with GA four, you can define which events, which of these user events are most important to your particular business. So it makes it a little easier to customize what you're looking for in, in your analytics. So you know, if that's the case, the predictive insights should come more, more of them and faster, because you're able to define what's a great experience from the start. Right? Manufacturers are different than, you know, a lot of consumer facing retail products, right? So the idea that down, it's almost like built in and correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm probably wrong. But it just strikes me is it's almost like you're building in lead scoring from the start.
Nate Griffin:Yeah, yeah, it really is. It can, you know? It really Yeah.
Nels Jensen:Yeah. And that could be, you know, Joey, doesn't that sound, you know, enticing to you. I mean, I get it, there's going to be learning curves and, you know, changes heart and everything like that. But, you know, it does strike me that for manufacturers with these long buying cycles, and these buying committees, and, you know, it makes it easier to connect the dots, if you got multiple people from the same company, you know, almost like the Account Based Marketing approach makes it Yeah, to me, it sounds like it could make it easier to get into ABM.
Joey Strawn:Here's, here's what I think ultimately, and I'll pull back the curtain and the veneer of tell you my true personal opinion on this. I think that GA four is going to be so powerful for exactly the thing that you said nails, but it's going to require that people be more engaged with it, be more knowledgeable about it and use it. I think Universal Analytics became a crutch for a lot of people because it has, oh, behavior and conversions and the things that became easy and repeatable. And they didn't have to think too hard or be too involved with their own data. I think GA four will be powerful in all of those ways. But it will require more of people. And so it may not be as used. But we'll see I hope I hope time will tell and I hope time will will make me more of an pessimists on this. But you know, again, as they mentioned, I've seen this happen a couple of times. And that was the thing about Google Analytics three or universal that that was so appealing was Oh, my goodness, anyone can use this, and that they're taking a little of that of that back. And that's okay, that's not you know, like the end of the world. We're all marketers, we can all figure it out. And there are other tools like a bunch of us have worked and things like Supermetrics and other platforms that do a lot of the same machinations if you've had to build a Facebook tag or a Facebook event to make their advertising work. You've done some work. So it's not like you're learning a new sale entirely. But I do think it's going to require more of its users. I mean, Nate thoughts,
Nate Griffin:I think what's happening is because Google is building in some of the stuff that like, people would build in Universal Analytics for custom, like custom, you know, custom events for scrolling custom events for downloads. And also, while also taking out like making making generic reports that they used to have custom. What I think is may be happening is they may be moving towards more of a business intelligence vibe than they are. Yeah.
Nels Jensen:That's a really good way to put it. I like to
Unknown:Because I think Google Analytics is realizing that the power users are not necessarily just leaving the Google Analytics data, you know, not just using Google Analytics on its own but using Google like pulling data out and and making their own displays.
Joey Strawn:Yeah, and then pointing people to those analytics displays and using them as ongoing informational pieces that they can use in their daily marketing activity. He's No, I agree. I think, you know, we've talked a lot about how it's going to look and how that's going to transition, you know, in, in the time we have left, what is it going to take for people to change over? I mean, like, you know, we're talking to people who may have Google Analytics instances right now. And they're thinking that it's just going to update on on its own. And they may be learning with listening to this episode, that that's not the case. Like, for people who just have no analytics, or just have Google Analytics set up on their on their sites, what should they prepare for when it comes to changing over.
Nate Griffin:So the first thing they will have to do is create a separate GA for property. Okay, so all the properties every time this happens, a new property has to open up and the property is. So you know, Google Analytics, the number you know, there's the there's that number that's like you a hyphen, there's your Number Number Number Number Number Number Number Number hyphen, one. That's your Google Analytics property. And that's what tells Google Analytics to go, alright, I fired this code, where am I going to put it, I'm going to put it in this property over here, and it shows up. And that's what you log in and to Google Analytics. And you see, every time they've done a library update like this, they've had to create new properties, because it's going to someplace new, it's, it's, it's a new program, calling something new. So create a GA for property, they will next have to if they are using if they have put the code. If they have hard coded the code on their page, they will need to replace the code the the GA and analytics.js code for the G tag
Joey Strawn:The snippet tag that applies,
Unknown:They will need to apply the new Google Analytics snippet. If they're using Google Tag Manager, there will be a you know you there will be a new container. And it will, you'll be able to click new tag, and there'll be a new thing that says Google Analytics GA for tracking, you will add a number in there, that number begins with a G. So it was G hyphen, number,
Joey Strawn:Okay, now you play anymore G hyphen, right?
Unknown:If it doesn't begin with a G, you're adding the wrong thing. And that's, that's kind of the first thing and but the next part is, you know, adding goals, adding events, adding reports that you're used to seeing, you're gonna have to redo all of that stuff. So if you see a, if you see a new goal, or you know, you've got something tagged as a goal, you're gonna have to build all that back in and into the GA for property.
Joey Strawn:So what I'm hearing is that it's basically as if, imagine that your Google Analytics tomorrow got erased, what would you do to start and set up an entirely new one, so you would go to Google Analytics, you would set up a GA for account, you would get the you would put in your domain, and they would give you a little, you know, profile and instance. And one of the first things will be giving you the code or like if I know Google giving you the option to email said code developer. And, and then that's, and that's what you would be adding to your Google Tag Manager, you would add it in the same way you would add any other tag to your Google Tag Manager. And then from that point on, you would work inside GA4 and that login instance, as opposed to the previous one,
Unknown:right. Now, the other thing that's, you know, going into predictive analytics that we're discussing, GA4 for can go, ah, we see this is happening a lot. Is this a conversion? You know, it will it will kind of put those little
Joey Strawn:That's cool, then it'll kind of walk you through how to get that conversion tracked in the system.
Nate Griffin:Well, it may automatically track like, especially if it's like a page view,
Joey Strawn:Like a thank you page or something.
Nate Griffin:Yeah, if it's a thank you page, it'll go does is would you consider this a conversion? And then you go, yes, I would consider this a conversion. So that actually for some listeners, yeah, it actually can find stuff for you on that initial thing. Or now, you will want to, you know, you don't want to rely 100% on
Joey Strawn:Of course, anyone who's used Google Ads knows this. It's like, recommendations for everything.
Nate Griffin:Oh, I do want to bring up you will have to it's easy. If you've got Google ads. ads associated. If you've got Google ads and universal, connected, you can still connect GA for the same exact way. It'll just, it'll email you have
Joey Strawn:You have to connect it again, though.
Nels Jensen:Yes. But it's pretty simple like, like, it's a really simple thing is, you know, you click the connect button and then go. Alright, this is what you're logged into, is this. Is this what you want to connect? You don't have to disconnect. Okay, universal, the Universal Analytics tag?
Joey Strawn:They do that for search console as well, I would
Nate Griffin:Yes, yeah, you can do that for Search Console. imagine.
Joey Strawn:So none of that will be automatically connected in the install, it will essentially like Google universal, will have to be connected on a one by one instance.
Nate Griffin:Yeah, but, and I may be wrong on this, it's been 10 years. So I think it used to be, you could only have one thing connected, like one property. But now that they're letting you now they're letting you do it simultaneously. So you don't have to turn off. You don't have to turn off the connection to Universal Analytics.
Nels Jensen:You can what I've read, you can run them both in parallel until they turn off UA on July 1, of 2023. Right? And you know, so let's just talk about incentives. This sounds imposing, you might need resources, or you can ask for people like us to help. But there is value in doing this sooner than later and starting to build up your, you know, your your historical data, if you will, because yes, you'll be able to save the data that you had from Universal Analytics. But it's not a year over year comparison, because it's a whole new platform. So you know, don't delay, you know, this is something you're you're better off doing sooner than than later. Right. Easy for me to say
Joey Strawn:You messed up the end of that now says don't delay get GA4 for today. Yeah, first kid on your block. Yeah. That's what you meant to say. Yeah. But no, no, I mean, Nate, would you agree? Would you agree that like, even now, like, well, I don't, I have until July 1, to do this, go ahead and get out there and getting a property.
Unknown:Now, if you don't have time, to get the one for one instances, like or take some that's gonna take some heavy lifting. Or if you don't have time to do that, at least get, you know, data flowing into the GA for property now, because then you will at least be able to, you know, have enough of a history, you know, even if you're not reporting on it, you have enough of a history to go. All right, I think I can see where some of the parallels are, won't be, you know, you
Joey Strawn:You only playing catch up as much as there's what I hear.
Nate Griffin:Yeah, or you won't be trapped in the house with a giant stalker. I was trying to really force the Halloween metaphor, I'm sorry,
Joey Strawn:It was really scary. And don't worry, it'll keep coming back to haunt us year after year after year. You know that. And that's how you that
Nels Jensen:I know. I'm a lot older than you guys. But I worked at a movie theater when the very first Halloween came out. Jamie Lee Curtis was a babysitter. So that is sunsetting, as well. So here we it is no, it's just sort of the you know, we're closing a couple of circles here.
Joey Strawn:It's the circle of Halloween. And it's a circle of data. And it's the circle of Google and I donate thank you so much for being here today and chatting through this. I know, we like to get technical and nerdy off to the side. But you know, really bringing this to our listeners attention is is important. And I know that it's out there, but whether or not people have been paying attention to it, I hope they are now so thank you for your insights and time today.
Nate Griffin:They Thank you for having me. I was really trying to rein myself in from going crazy deep dive because this is this has been like my career since you know, since since Google Analytics started, you know, I've been in it and like I can you know, I love to nerd out on that stuff. So hopefully I was you know, hopefully I was a good resource and wasn't too dry.
Joey Strawn:No, you're fantastic. Our listeners are loving it.
Unknown:Anytime you want to have like, if you think your listeners would like a real deep dive and and this stuff, you know and let me
Joey Strawn:You know what you know what I'm gonna put this out there for our listeners who want to test Nate's mettle. Go ahead and email us email us at podcast@industrialmarketer.com. I say this every episode that you send us your questions, send us your topic ideas, things that you want us to talk about on the show. But if you have a question about Google Analytics GOOG, GA4 for implementation had a history, whatever, email us and we'll put Well, if we get enough of them, we'll get Nate back and put his test his metal.
Nels Jensen:Yeah. And if and if the subject matter today is Sunday just a little bit scary, you know, then you know if you're not into Google Tag Manager and and you're not sure that you're capable of doing this then you know what, come by ring our doorbell and we'll have a treat for you. Okay.
Joey Strawn:Yes. And also email us and ask us to help because this is something that we do and we are helping people with these transitions so we're happy to talk to you about it. But as always, thank you so much for listening to the industrial Marketer Podcast you know, subscribe to the episodes if you haven't already. Follow us on social media make all of your trick or treaters listen actually put us on speaker as the trick or treaters are coming around, out. That'll work. It is there'll be horrifying for them. And I and we want to be part of your community as well. So like I said, emails that podcast@industrialmarketer.com If you have questions for us, if you want to be a part of the show, and we are looking forward to the next time that we get to chat about all of this world of industrial marketing and how much we love it and all of the opportunities that it has for us. So thank you guys very much. Happy Halloween, and until next time, have a good one.