Category - Google Analytics 4

This article, like many others on this blog, appeared by chance — thanks to a question in the chat. Last week, in our private PRO ANALYTICS course chat, Lena Kolisnyk asked: “Is it possible to export annotation data from GA4 into Google Sheets so that it can later be used in custom reports?” Neither I nor the students recalled a ready-made solution. However, about a month ago on LinkedIn — and later in our internal ProAnalytics.Team chat — I came across a solution by Tamás Geiger that allows you to automatically create annotations in GA4 when publishing versions in GTM using Google Apps Script.

There are many reasons to love Google Analytics 4: a new approach to data collection, new metrics, the ability to combine website and app data — and more . Among all these features, I want to highlight two in particular: Explorе and BigQuery Export. Each of them deserves its own series of articles. I’ve decided to begin with Explorations, since this functionality is more accessible.

When reading the title of this article, some of you might think: “Oh, it’s just another guy telling me to flip the switch and the event becomes a key one.” If that’s the case, I recommend reading this article to the end — I’m sure you’ll discover some unexpected ways to mark an event as a key event in Google Analytics 4.

You’ve probably heard it a lot lately: ‘Google Analytics is outdated.’ Many have already seen this message in their account from Google: "We’re excited to announce the new Google Analytics, designed to give you the essential insights you need to be ready for what’s next. You can access the new Google Analytics experience by setting up a Google Analytics 4 property, formerly known as “App + Web” property. " Yes, even Google admitted that our beloved Google Analytics is outdated — and it’s time to move on to something new. There are many reasons for that, but the main one is the approach to data collection, which hasn't changed since April 2005, the moment when Google acquired Urchin Software Corp.

The last article on this blog was published almost a year ago — on July 30. It’s not that I didn’t have anything to write about, but somehow I just never got around to it. Meanwhile, the desire to share knowledge has been building up all this time, and in early April, I finally sat down to write a new post. It’s still in drafts. It can wait. But today’s topic? It can’t wait. In my opinion, it’s high time everyone dove into it — because this is where the future of analytics is headed. I’m talking, of course, about the new version of Google Analytics 4 (formerly App + Web) and the setup of Ecommerce.