What Google Analytics 4 Means For Your School Marketing – UPDATED

It’s roughly six weeks until Google sunsets standard Universal Analytics and its properties will stop processing new hits. No doubt you’ve already migrated Google Analytics 4, but do you know the key differences?

If you’ve not have had the time (or the headspace!) to read up, we’ve summarised the key metric changes. If you’ve not made the switch at all, then click here to watch our video.

What is Google Analytics 4? In brief.

Google Analytics 4 is the fourth major release of Google Analytics and is the newest iteration of the free website tracking software.  It’s much more sophisticated. If we could summarise the changes in one sentence it would be ‘how they measure and model your data to provide deeper website user insights’.

It’s also worth noting that this version is also a game changer for those with websites and apps. It can be used to track user interaction and journeys across both. Something which Universal Analytics was unable to do and marketers have been crying out for.

Essential changes that you need to know 

There are many new aspects of Google Analytics 4 that will be very useful for reporting. Having dived into this ourselves, we’ve chosen four key fundamental differences that you can use as a framework for knowledge building. So log-in to GA4 while you read this and have a look around!

#1 – Events based rather than Page View based.

Here’s the big change. Universal Analytics has always collected data based on page views. i.e. it recorded data based on when a new page was loaded, rather than how someone interacted with that page. For example, if you wanted to track how many people filled in your form, you would either need to manually set up a goal based on redirecting users to a ‘/thank-you’ URL or create this in Google Tag Manager.

In GA4, everything is event based. You can automatically track a lot more page actions without manual set up, such as:

• Scrolling – how far they go down a page.
• Outbound links – point to third party websites.
• File downloads.
• Video plays.
• Button clicks.

Event based tracking means that you can dig much deeper into how your audience interacts with your page. All this will be music to the ears of any data-driven education marketer, looking to optimise conversions.

#2 The introduction of active users

This is another change in GA4. In UA there are three user metrics: New Users, Returning Users, and Total Users. By adding “New Users” to “Returning Users” you’d get “Total Users.” Returning users were those that Google recognised via a tracking cookie in their web browser. So essentially, in UA you are likely to have measured total users.

In GA4, there are technically four User metrics: Total Users, New Users, Returning User and Active Users.

• GA4 Total Users – Total numbers of unique users who logged an event (for UA this was just total users).
• GA4 New Users – Total number of unique users who used your website or app for the first time (in UA, it didn’t measure app users).
• A Returning User is a user who has been to your site (or app) before. There is limited data on Returning Users in GA4 standard reports, so you’d need to head into ‘Exploration’ mode (more advanced) to set this up.
• GA4 Active Users – Total number of active users who have engaged in a session – this is the primary user metric (not in UA).

Out of the four above, your primary tool for measuring users is Active Users, so there is a distinction. You need to bear this in mind if you are trying to replicate previous reporting, as the figures will be different.

#3 Engagement is measured differently. Bounce rate and user sessions are replaced with ‘Engaged Sessions’.

Historically, UA would measure your engagement based on two metrics: bounce rate (a percentage of how many people visited only one page of your website before exiting your site) and user sessions (the length of time spent on a page). You would then use these to glean how engaged users were with your content. Logic would say that the higher the bounce rate and the shorter the user session, the less engaged a user is with your content.

With GA4, traditional bounce rate and user sessions are replaced with new engagement metrics called Engaged Sessions. An Engaged Session is measured by one of the following:

1. The session lasts for 10 seconds or more (if you think this is too short, you can change this in settings).
2. They have viewed at least 2 pages.
3. At least one conversion has happened, such as filling out a contact form.

The benefit of Engaged Sessions is that it only counts when users are actively interacting with your site in the foreground.

GA4 will also give you an Engagement rate. This is simply the percentage of how many engagement sessions have taken place in a particular timeframe. For example, if you had 1,000 sessions in 1 month and 562 are engaged sessions, you would have a 56.2% engagement rate for that month.

For bounce rate, GA4 uses a new figure. This is very simply the inverse of the engagement rate – i.e. those who were not engaged. So using the example above, our bounce rate would be 43.8% (1,000 sessions minus 562 engaged sessions = 438 or 43.8%). If you’d like to set this up, contact us and we’ll send you the set-up, as it’s not a pre-defined metric.

So to summarise, GA4’s reporting means that your bounce rate should be more accurate and a better indicator of engagement. Someone only needs to be on your site for 10 seconds to count as an engaged session. Whereas previously, UA would count a bounce even if someone just visited one page.

#4 Less predefined reports, but more data and AI to help fill in the gaps.

GA4 has less pre-defined reports than UA, but has many more metrics to play around with. Plus, its Lifecycle reporting of Acquisition, Engagement, Monetisation and Retention stages are likely to match your own sales funnel. This will help you get a better picture of how customers coming from different sources/mediums use your website as they move through each stage.

GA4 also uses AI to fill in some of the gaps in your reporting. For example, if you’re a boarding school marketing to certain countries and get a spike in hits from a particular country, GA4 will show you this, rather than you having to sift through the data. GA4 also allows for much richer data collection by giving you a wider view of all the real-time data in just one glance.

Final thoughts

So there you have it, four key things you need to know about GA4. There’s lots to learn and it does take some getting used to. Overall, it’s a far more intelligent product that is much more aligned with the need for more detailed user analysis. This in turn helps to shape marketing decision making.

If you need any help with your website’s transition to GA4, contact us and we can help you make the switch with ease.