What You Need to Know About Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

Your B2B marketing strategy can only succeed with accurate data capturing your efforts and how well they worked for you—and all that information needs to be stored and analyzed somewhere. That’s where Google Analytics 4 (GA4) comes in.

As the replacement for Universal Analytics (UA), GA4 offers new features, including better data collection, upgraded privacy controls, and predictive capabilities. This update is essential for B2B marketers tracking ads, lead generation, and more who want to be able to make data-driven decisions on marketing tactics in the future.

Ready to get started with more advanced tracking and more accurate marketing analytics? Whether you’re migrating to GA4 from another analytics tool or starting your metrics tracking from scratch, learn about GA4 and how to use this vital tool for your marketing efforts.

What is GA4?

GA4, short for Google Analytics 4, is Google’s analytics platform. It uses AI to help marketers predict user behavior, allowing for better ads and an improved customer experience. While marketing automation is well-known in the industry, its application in GA4 is a new feature that improves the quality of the data you get when you use it.

Users transitioning to GA4 from UA had a few years to do so between the former’s launch in 2020 and the latter’s complete replacement on July 1, 2023.¹ Now that UA is gone, GA4 is Google’s only analytics tool. Whether you’ve been using Google’s analytics tools for B2B marketing in the past or just beginning to look into your options, it’s not too late to get on board and benefit from the significant upgrades GA4 offers.

Differences Between GA4 and UA

Former UA users certainly wondered what GA4 could offer that UA lacked. According to Google, those new features that are exclusive to GA4 include:²

• Website and app data collection to better understand the customer journey
• Event-based data tracking instead of session-based data tracking
• Privacy controls such as cookieless measurement and behavioral and conversion modeling
• Predictive capabilities for guidance without complex models
• Direct integrations to media platforms that can drive actions on your website or app

One of the most important new features in Google’s switch from UA to GA4 involves event tracking. While UA could only track pageviews, GA4 can be customized to give you more information about “events”—what they now call user interactions with your website. Events can be automatically collected and tracked, and marketers can also opt to view enhanced measurement events (like scrolls, site search, video engagement, outbound clicks, and more), recommended events based on your industry, and custom events that you can set up yourself depending on your needs.¹

The Importance of Metrics in Marketing

As a B2B marketer, you certainly have goals you’re trying to reach and key performance indicators (KPIs) you’re tracking to ensure you’re on target. Metrics are essential to marketing success, and carefully following your analytics lets you see if your ad and outreach performance aligns with your marketing goals.

Metrics help you make the most of your B2B company’s online presence to generate qualified leads, show relevant content to your audience, and earn more sales on your products and services. When you know what your customers and potential customers are looking at on your site and for how long, you can better tailor your content and your ads for success.

How to Use GA4 in B2B Marketing

One of the most critical aspects of B2B marketing is knowing how to target your audience. Unlike the broad world of B2C, B2B audiences—from possible leads to existing customers—are incredibly specialized. B2B marketing focuses on niche business segments within your industry, which, while smaller, actively seek the specialized products or services you offer.

That’s why GA4 and other analytics tools are essential in B2B: they let you use your resources as effectively as possible to target the specific audiences you need to reach with your marketing efforts. The feedback you get when you review your metrics will help you better communicate with your B2B clients and customers.

How can you harness the power of GA4 for your B2B marketing efforts? For most companies, starting with GA4’s event-based data tracking makes sense, which lets you track individual user interactions separately to measure things like conversion rates, click-through rates, and other user behaviors. The insights you get from this information will be crucial as you develop, change, and perfect your B2B marketing strategy. Tailor your marketing plan to your specific B2B needs, but the more information you have—and the more detailed it is regarding your audience’s behaviors on your site—the better for your marketing outcomes.

Are You Ready for GA4?

UA is gone, and GA4 is here—make sure you’re on board to you don’t miss out on these crucial metrics for your business. An important note: Although UA stopped gathering new data earlier this month, the data will be available for you to collect and save until the end of 2023.

Download our checklist to confirm that you’ve successfully created your GA4 property and migrated the data you need from any previous analytics tools you may have used.

Getting Started with Digital Analytics

Whether you’re migrating your analytics to GA4 from UA or setting up your metrics for the first time, you don’t have to make the transition alone—learn how Sagefrog Marketing Group can help. Our B2B marketing services include extensive digital advertising expertise to help you set goals and track metrics using GA4 and other tools, all working toward maximizing your company’s success. Contact us today.

1. CXL, “The definitive guide to Google Analytics 4: What you should know”
2. Google Analytics Help, “Introducing the next generation of Analytics, Google Analytics 4