With the evolution of e-commerce and the increasing pressure on companies to make every marketing dollar count, the information provided by digital analytics tools has become even more crucial.
To help you get a better Return On Investment (ROI) from your long-term marketing strategy, Google Analytics has just launched a new and smarter version of Google Analytics based on machine learning. It automatically displays useful information and gives you a complete understanding of your customers across all devices and platforms.
What are the innovations and improvements of this new version of Google Analytics? Eminence’s digital experts outline the latest updates of the Google Analytics 4 platform in the article below!
Smarter insights for better marketing decisions and ROI
By applying Google’s advanced machine learning models, Analytics 4 automatically alerts you to important trends in your data, such as products that are experiencing increasing demand due to new customer needs. It can even help you anticipate future actions that your customers might take. For example, by calculating the probability of churn so you can invest more effectively in customer retention at a time when marketing budgets are under pressure.
There are new predictive metrics that have also been introduced, such as the potential revenue you could earn from a particular group of customers. This allows you to create target audiences so as to reach higher-value customers. From this you can analyse and better understand why some customers are likely to spend more than others, so you can take appropriately take action and improve your results.
With these new integrations into Google’s marketing products, it’s easy to use what you have learnt to improve your company’s ROI. Further integration with Google Ads, for example, allows you to create audiences that can reach your customers with more relevant and useful experiences.
This new approach also gives you a holistic overview of your customers. It also allows you to meet the demands of advertisers in the long term. Because the new Google Analytics can measure both application and web interactions, it can also include in reports the YouTube engaged view conversions that occur in apps and on the web. Seeing YouTube video conversions alongside conversions from Google’s paid and unpaid channels and organic channels such as Google Search, social media and email, can help you understand the combined impact of all your marketing efforts.
How to configure Google Analytics 4 using Google Tag Manager?
Companies participating in the Beta Program are already seeing the benefits. Vistaprint responded to the rapid changes in its business at the start of the pandemic. They were able to quickly measure and understand customer responses to their new range of face masks. Jeff Kacmarek, Vice President of Domino’s Pizza Canada, noted, “Linking the new Google Analytics to Google Ads allows us to optimise the actions that matter most to our customers, no matter how they interact with our brand”.
A more complete understanding of how customers interact with your business
The new Google Analytics 4 allows you to get customer-centric metrics instead of fragmented metrics by device or platform. It uses multiple identity spaces, including IDs provided by marketers and unique Google signals from users who have opted for ad personalization, to give you a more complete view of how your customers interact with your business. For example, you can see that customers find out about your business from a web ad, then install and make purchases from your application.
You’ll also have a better understanding of your customers’ journey, from acquisition to retention. This is critical when consumer needs are changing rapidly and you need to make real-time decisions to win and retain your customers.
→ What will be the impact of Google Analytics 4
Taking into account users’ feedback on Google Analytics, the new version simplifies and reorganises reporting. Now you can intuitively find marketing information based on the part of the customer journey that interests you. For example, you can see which channels are attracting new customers in the User Acquisition report, and then use the Engagement and Retention reports to understand what those customers are doing and whether they stay after being converted.
Built for the long term
It’s time to invest in the basics of digital marketing with intelligent analytics. This will help you meet growing consumer expectations, changes in technology and any shifts user privacy standards. With a new approach to data control, you can better manage the way you collect, store and use your analytical data. More detailed controls for ad personalisation will allow you to choose when to use your data to optimise your ads and when to limit the use of your data.
As the technology landscape continues to evolve, Google Analytics is designed to adapt to a future with or without cookies and identifiers. It uses a flexible approach to measure data and, in the future, Google will use modeling (Google Signals) so as to fill in information when you cannot use cookies. Meaning that you will be able to rely on Google Analytics to help you measure your marketing results and meet customer needs.
What is the next step?
The current version of Google Analytics will be kept. However, it should be noted that all these new features and enhancements will only be available in Google Analytics 4.
The transition to Google Analytics 4 is likely to be a major shift, which is why we recommend using two versions of Google Analytics to ease the transition. This will allow you to create a database and get used to the new reporting method. Then, when you are ready, you can further customise your new Analytics 4 property.
In conclusion, the most important new features of Google Analytics 4 are:
- That the learning machine will be at the heart of the new Google Analytics 4 approach. This should lead to a better ROI of marketing efforts: by applying Google’s advanced learning machine models, the new Analytics can automatically alert you when there are important new trends in your data, such as products that are experiencing an increase in demand due to new customer needs. It can also help you anticipate future actions that your customers might take.
- Google Analytics 4 will allow you to have a better understanding of how customers interact with your business on the platform: Google Analytics 4 will work across all websites and applications to give you a more complete view of how your customers interact with your business. For example, you can see if customers first discover your business from a web ad, install your application and make purchases there.
- The new Analytics has been designed with privacy in mind and will work with or without cookies or identifiers: Google will use modeling (Google Signals) to fill information gaps where you cannot use cookies. Essentially, future analysis will be possible whilst still being compliant with GDPR laws.
- The new features, previously only available on Analytics 360, will now be integrated into the free version of Google Analytics.
- Weaknesses in the Analytics application and website have also been addressed. E-commerce reports and a Data studio connector have been added.
At Eminence we are here to help you implement your new Google Analytics 4.
Get in touch with us by clicking here: https://eminence.ch/contact-agence-marketing-geneve
