Google Analytics Is Changing – What You Need To Know
Act now to ensure your dental website data collection and reporting is preserved – GA 4 is here
Knowing how your dental practice website is performing is essential and one of the key tools to help manage this is Google Analytics. We have Analytics installed for all clients where we carry out monthly marketing and we integrate this with other Google tools to provide clear and concise monthly reporting. Transparent, accurate data of this nature is essential for dentists to help them manage marketing budgets and assess how campaigns are running.
However, Google Analytics is changing and the current version known as Universal Analytics will cease to work as of July 1st 2023. Data collected via Universal Analytics will be available for 6 months following. The new version of Analytics ‘GA4’ is actually available now and whilst you might be thinking that July 2023 is a long way away and you have plenty of time to act, you actually need to start moving to the new system now. This is because you need GA4 in place to start collecting data as soon as possible so you have something to analyse – the legacy data from Universal Analytics cannot simply be ported across.
Moving to Google Analytics 4
Having established that you need to move quite quickly to start building website data in the newly formatted system, what do you actually need to do to go about it? For our marketing clients we will handle this as part of the ongoing service; however for dentistry website owners who are independent, this is a short guide about what you need to do.
Set up a new GA4 property in your Analytics account – there is a GA4 set-up assistant which will help you complete this and you also have the option of setting up using your existing tracking code to avoid any website coding changes.
If you don’t already have a Google Analytics account or perhaps have lost access to it, you can always set up a new account and create a new GA4 property there. However in this case you will need to add new tracking code to all pages of your website. We offer this as a stand-alone service to our website clients who want to know how their websites are performing but aren’t part of our monthly marketing and management service.
Integration with Google Ads – if you run Google Ads, you will want to integrate this with the new GA 4 data collection. Please see the Google instructions linked below on how to achieve this. Again we will cover this for our monthly marketing clients and as a stand-alone service for others on request.
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10759417
Import/set-up conversion tracking – if you have conversion tracking set up (you should) then you can import existing conversions from Universal Analytics into GA4. You can do this in the Tools > Settings > Conversions section of the admin console.
Export historical data and reports – Google advises that you will be able to export legacy data and reporting for around 6 months after Universal Analytics is sunsetted. This is well worth keeping in mind so that you can track back on historical trends etc.
Re-configure your Data Studio reporting – if you run reporting from Google’s excellent Data Studio suite, you will need to re-link all of the data sources to the correct fields in GA4. This is not trivial and something we will handle as a matter of course for monthly marketing clients. However if you would like this set up as an independent service, just let us know and we’ll be pleased to help.
Do I have to switch and what are the benefits?
Unfortunately you have no option but to switch as Google will sunset the existing service as of July 1st 2023. However, whilst there will always be a learning curve and period of familiarisation, GA4 is said to offer a host of new features such as better integration with 3rd party services and artificial intelligence to surface useful insights into your account and website performance.
So please don’t delay! Google Analytics 4 is on the horizon and the sooner you get the new tracking in place, the sooner you’ll start to accrue data in the new format, ready for new reporting down the line.
Need assistance? Please call the marketing team at Dental Media on 01332 672548 for help with Analytics or any other aspect of your digital marketing requirements.