Blog / A change that’s better than a holiday:

People love to watch deadlines lapse: tax submissions, college essays, even the expiry date on the milk in the fridge can be up for debate. What isn’t up for debate though, is the sunsetting of Universal Analytics in favour of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) on 30 June 2023.

“What few people realise is that GA4 is actually a brand-new product,” says Magesh Ramsammy, Head of Analytics at Somebody Digital. While GA4 has been around for several years, it’s finally reached a point where it has eclipsed all previous analytics versions, and with good reason. However, for those who miss the pending 30 June deadline, failure to migrate will have serious consequences.

“Your data will come to a complete stop on 30 June if you fail to migrate,” says Magesh. “Everything you’ve collected over the past years, everything that you would collect in terms of users, why they’re converting, any audiences that you’ve built, any linking to dashboards, any reporting, any insights, all of that automatically stops. The moment you stop collecting your data, you don’t have data. Everything’s a knock on effect. The moment you have zero, everything is zero after that.”

A future without data is a scary one

Many businesses have come to depend on analytics without even realising it. “All marketing efforts are driven by the backbone that is analytics,” says Magesh, “whether that’s paid marketing, PPC, SEO, you can’t measure your efforts without analytics running on the backend.”

He also flags that there is no way to restore any historical data after the 30 June deadline. “It has a major impact in terms of if you’re an e-commerce business, you won’t be able to effectively report on your revenue that you generate off your website. If you don’t migrate before 30 June, it’s going to impact you as a business owner.”

Data-checking, future-proofing.

“Part of our unique offering to clients who we are helping with their analytics migration is data validation and reconciliation,” says Ramsammy. This is the sixth step in a clearly defined migration process put together by Somebody Digital.

What this unique sixth step entails is contrasting and comparing historical data to ensure that the migration has taken place smoothly, that no new or historical data is missing, and that the new GA4 setup is firing as it should. Essentially, it’s taking a basic migration from something that is good, to something that can really help make a business great.

“This is our way of taking something everyone is doing: migrating to GA4 and offering our clients an even better service. Not only that, but we take care of them in terms of saying that if anything goes wrong during this phase, it’s 100 % on us, we will go in, we will fix it at no cost to the client and for the next however long that validation period runs, we’ve got your back.”

More than just zero data

Fear of data loss shouldn’t be the only factor to consider migrating to GA4. Yes, you will lose access to years of customer information that has been collected on your account. But GA4, as a new product in the Google suite, is a better analytics offering than the megalith has ever put out.

“What truly sets GA4 apart is that it is AI, it’s Machine Learning, it’s giving your business the ability to pull immediate insights and allows the data to speak on its own, it can tell you what’s trending on your site, what’s wrong on certain pages, what content is spiking and so much more,” highlights Magesh.

Greater insights ultimately mean greater business decisions backed by the power of good data.

Above and beyond better insights, the new tool also offers cross-device event tracking, allowing a business to gain a holistic view of the customer journey, along with greater compliance in terms of privacy laws as more and more countries and regions solidify their stance on data tracking.

Check your migration health.

“As a special offering, our analytics experts are offering free website health checks for those looking to migrate,” says Magesh. “We run a quick website audit which allows us to see whether you’re ready to migrate to GA4 or not. So, whether you choose to use our services, we can help you flag any potential issues that might prevent a smooth migration,” he adds.

For businesses looking to migrate, the clock is ticking down faster than many realise. Starting from scratch with zero data is a much scarier reality than partnering with analytics experts to ensure the best possible migration outcome for your website.

Talk to Somebody Digital about getting your free health check today.