BigQuery was designed to handle ‘big data’ reporting and analysis. It’s a storing management system used to bring together a whole host of data from Google Analytics, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, your internal business and much more! It’s also an easy way to integrate and store multiple kinds of data. However, all of this data can seem overwhelming if you’re not sure where to start. 

What are the Benefits of using BigQuery? 

Instead of only being available to paying Google Analytics 360 users, BigQuery is now available to all analytics users through GA4! You do still have to pay for extra data storage if you exceed the Google Cloud free tier, however. 

Let’s explore the ways in which your business can benefit from using BigQuery… 

Allows You To Visualise Your Data 

BigQuery allows you to store your data in Google Cloud, or send it to other cloud-based warehouses such as Azure, Snowflake or AWS. 

You can pull data from BigQuery into Google Sheets or Google Data Studio, allowing you to visualise your data in a way that makes sense to you. You are also able to visualise your data in other tools such as Tableau, Looker or PowerBI. 

Makes Advanced Data Manipulation Possible 

Using BigQuery allows for advanced data manipulation that is not possible through GA4 alone. 

For example, sometimes dimensions and metrics can’t be used together through GA4. However, with BigQuery there are no limitations! Advanced data segmentation and analysis are entirely possible.

Allows You To Remove Incorrect Data 

When using the GA4 interface alone, there is no option to filter out any data anomalies, and you cannot rectify the data either. With BigQuery, both of these things are possible. 

You can filter out any incorrect data from your reports and even modify incorrect data in the data stream. 

Control Who Can See Your Data 

With so much data at your fingertips and so many people looking at it, as a business owner, there may be data that you don’t want other people to see. As BigQuery can integrate with Google Cloud and Access Management, you can control who accesses your data. You can give certain users either ‘read’ or ‘write’ permissions, allowing you to keep data private if you wish. 

Google Cloud also allows different teams within your organisation to look at different data sets. When data is being analysed by different teams, it can cause issues with data version control. With BigQuery, you can assign specific data sets to specific teams to navigate these issues. 

Saves You Setting-Up Time 

There are 3 parts to data with BigQuery: storage, ingestion and querying. Everything else is dealt with by Google handles, so you will spend less time setting up the more intricate structures! All you have to do is log in to your account. 

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How Do BigQuery and Google Analytics 4 Work Together? 

We know that Google Analytics 4 has a wide range of features that provide us with deeper insights into our data. However, when working in tandem with BigQuery, GA4 can produce even more effective reports. 

More Advanced Analytics 

Allowing an export of raw event data from GA4 to BigQuery means that you can perform deeper analysis.

You can really get to know your audience and what they are looking for on your site. You can also perform pinpoint accurate marketing by analysing this data, setting you ahead of your competitors who are not making the most of BigQuery. 

How Do I Link BigQuery and Google Analytics 4? 

It’s best to set up BigQuery as soon as possible, as there is no way for it to collect historical data that has already been collected in GA4. 

Screenshot taken from ga4bigquery.com, August 2022 

Setting up BigQuery is fairly simple. 

1. Log in to the Google APIs console. 

2. Create a new project, or select an existing one. 

3. Head to the APIs table. 

4. Activate BigQuery. 

5. Sign in to your Google Analytics account. 

6. Navigate to the Property column, under Product Links, click BigQuery links. 7. Click Link and choose a BigQuery project from the list. 

8. Select configure data streams and events to choose what you’d like to include in the export. 

9. Choose either a daily or streaming export of data. 

10. Check over your settings and submit!

Screenshot taken from ga4bigquery.com, August 2022 

For a full run-through, read Google’s guide on setting up BigQuery. To avoid being charged, ensure that you set up your BigQuery sandbox, but bear in mind that there is a limit for storing your data! 

For further help integrating BigQuery into your GA4 account, or Analytics as a whole, discover CTI Digital’s award-winning digital marketing services. 

How Do I Create Datasets in BigQuery? 

Creating datasets is a fairly easy task. Click on the 3 dots to the right of your project name and click ‘open’. 

This should open a pop-up window where you can configure the settings for your dataset. Name your dataset, where it says ‘Dataset ID’. Next, you can choose a ‘Data Location’, which is where you’ll select where your data is stored. Selecting the ‘Default’ option means that Google will send your data to the US multi-region.

The next step is ‘Table Expiration’, which allows you to decide how long your tables are stored before they are automatically deleted. Choose a number of days, or ‘never’ if you prefer. 

The final step is the encryption settings. This allows you to choose between customer-managed or Google-managed keys. Once you’ve filled in all these components, you can create your dataset! 

BigQuery Tables 

BigQuery gives you the ability to see all of your data in tables, of which there are 3 types:

● Native Tables 

● External Tables 

● Views 

Setting up these tables is relatively easy. All you need to do is choose the source of your data (unless you’ve already linked BigQuery using the steps mentioned above, where this will be done automatically). Then, you just have to name your table and choose a table type, select a scheme type and choose the way you want your data to be clustered. Then, you’re all done and can explore the wide range of data shown by BigQuery! 

Your data table will be saved underneath your project, where it’s easy to find and refer back to. 

Getting familiar with Google Analytics 4 and BigQuery is a lot to take in, we know. If we’re honest, this article has barely scratched the surface of what’s capable with BigQuery. However, we believe that it’s an essential tool to help you make the most of the data that you’ve collected and help to elevate your business goals. 

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With the well-loved Universal Analytics changing to Google Analytics 4 permanently as of July 2023, it’s a good idea to get you and your team to grips with the new interface. By doing so, you’ll avoid any nasty surprises and supposed missing data when Universal Analytics becomes obsolete. 

Screenshot taken from virendasingh.me, July 2022 

What New Features Should I Be Aware Of? 

Along with an entirely new interface, GA4 also brings new features that have not previously been available to analytics users. 

Insights Provided by Artificial Intelligence 

Machine learning-powered insights have been available for analytics users for a while, but with GA4 artificial intelligence can highlight upcoming trends. This includes increasing demands for a particular product or service.

Deeper Audience Insights 

A huge benefit for Google Ads users is that you can now build audience lists in further depth. You can reduce unnecessary ad spend by setting up user goals. This means that if someone has triggered an action that qualifies them for ad engagement, they can automatically be removed from remarketing campaigns once they have reached said set goal. 

Track Up To 300 Unique Events 

We no longer need to rely on niche knowledge to track events in analytics. With GA4, we now have the capability to track up to 300 unique events, we’ll go further into detail later on in this article. 

Track More Conversions 

With Universal Analytics, we had the capability to track up to 20 conversions (goals) at a time. Once these were tracked, these were permanent. 

However, GA4 allows us to track up to 30 conversions, with the capability to delete them once they are no longer needed! 

Spot Data Anomalies Faster 

With its advanced machine learning, GA4 highlights any anomalies in data when shown on a line graph. This makes it easier to work out whether something was significant or not, as we can clearly see when Google has predicted something incorrectly. 

Track Apps and Websites Together 

Some great news for app optimisers, is that Firebase is no longer needed to analyse data from your business’ app. With GA4, both properties can be analysed and managed together! 

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Where Can I Find All My Data in GA4? 

When you first open GA4, you may look and think “Oh no! Where is all my data?”. The new interface is a bit different to what everyone in the marketing world is used to, with Universal Analytics. But, don’t worry! With a little digging, you’ll see your important data is still there. 

Screenshot from support.google.com, July 2022 

GA4 is event-based, so all hits like ‘page views’ are now classed as events. Here, we’re going to explain where you can find your most important data and how to make sure you’re keeping track of everything you need to see. 

Site Traffic 

To measure your site’s traffic, you can look at users and sessions. In Universal Analytics, we’d head to Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels, where you can see users, sessions, bounce rate and conversions by each marketing channel. 

To get this report in the new GA4 head to Life Cycle > Acquisition > Traffic. This report is also grouped into marketing channels. 

User Engagement 

GA4 provides a new set of engagement metrics that track user engagement much more accurately across your website or app.

These include: 

● Engaged sessions 

● Engagement rates 

● Engagement sessions per user 

● Engagement time 

Bounce rate is a metric that has been used in Universal Analytics to understand whether content has met a user’s search requirements. However, bounce rate doesn’t actually tell us the percentage of users who landed on a page and then immediately left. Instead, it shows us visitors who did not trigger a secondary hit recorded by Universal Analytics. 

There is no bounce rate in GA4. Instead, user metrics are based on engaged sessions, provide you with more context and help you to better understand your users’ behaviour. By default, an ‘engaged user’ is defined as any user that has spent at least 10 seconds on a page. 

This can be changed manually to anything up to 60 seconds, by heading to Data Stream > More Tagging settings. 

To view this information, head to Life Cycle > Acquisition > Traffic. 

Types of Events 

An event measures a user’s interaction with your website. These include: ● Automatically-tracked events 

● Enhanced measurement 

● Recommended events 

● Custom events 

Your GA4 properties have a feature called ‘enhanced measurement’ that allows certain types of events to be automatically tracked, including video tracking, scroll tracking, site search tracking, and exit tracking. This can all be done without having to add any extra coding or tagging! 

Enhanced events you can manually enable include page views, scrolls (more than 90% of page height), outbound clicks, site search, view engagement and file downloads. Head to the gear icon in the bottom left of the screen, and select Data Streams underneath Properties. Then, toggle on/off the data streams that you want to track.

Screenshot from optimizesmart.com, July 2022 

In GA4, to view user event reports, open Life Cycle > Engagement > Events. This report will show any enhanced measurements events that you’ve added, along with automatically collected data. 

Google also recommends particular events that all business verticals should track, alongside custom events. 

Conversions 

‘Goals’ in Universal Analytics, track conversions to ascertain whether marketing efforts are reaching business objectives. 

GA4 has 5 pre-defined conversions that are automatically tracked, but most of these only apply to apps. This means you have to set up what you consider to be conversions by marking them as an event. 

To do this, click on Configure > Events and toggle the desired conversion on.

If you’re still unsure on why Universal Analytics is updating to GA4, discover our blog on Understanding GA4 and its impact on your business. 

How Do I Report My Data – Has Reporting Changed? 

Previously, specialist reports were only available to GA 360 users, but with the GA4 update, these new reports will be available to everyone! Now called ‘Explorations’, the reports allow you to do advanced analysis. 

Google Analytics 4 uses pre-built reports and also allows you to build your own for the exact data you want to show using Google Data Studio boards. GA4 includes reports snapshot, real time reports by default. It also allows you to analyse further data by using Exploration and BigQuery. The free subscription was previously only available to GA 360 customers. 

Screenshot from Optimizesmart.com, July 2022 

Underneath Exploration > Reports you’ll find a list of default reports available to you. These reports include: 

● Realtime 

● Acquisition 

● Engagement 

● Monetisation 

● Retention 

● Demographics 

● Tech 

● Games 

● Firebase

All of these reports will provide you with in-depth information at the click of a button! It’ll save you time by putting the information together for you, too! 

GA4 can give you a more complete picture of how users engage with your site across multiple devices and channels. You can allocate User IDs and enable deduplication for users visiting across multiple devices. This allows for better reporting and data analysis. 

For more information on GA4’s reporting capabilities, read Google’s support hub. 

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As a business owner, having insight into your customers and their needs is paramount in order to grow. With GA4, you’ll have the opportunity to collect more flexible and detailed data to improve your business. 

What is GA4? 

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest version of Google Analytics that combines data from both apps and websites, using an event-based system over cookies, allowing you to amalgamate your data into a single property. All Universal Analytics (UA) can now be upgraded to GA4, meaning that a new analytics property will be created for collecting the new data. Your current GA account will not be affected. 

Screenshot from Google’s blog, June 2022

It’s currently recommended to set up a GA4 account alongside your UA account and run the two in tandem, so you can begin to collect data to feed the machine learning of GA4 whilst still having historical data to look back on once UA has been deprecated. 

Google announced in January 2020 that they would begin no longer supporting the use of third-party ‘cookies’ on their Chrome browser, with the aim to improve privacy concerns for individuals who were being advertised to based on their browsing behaviour of websites. The deprecation of cookies has been delayed until July 2023 – the end of cookie tracking brings forth a need for a new tracking solution that uses a ‘predictive model’ to essentially fill in the gaps in tracking. 

First-party cookies vs Third-party cookies 

When cookies are used to only track you on the website that you’re on, these are known as first-party cookies. These cookies keep your cart active and passwords stored, they’re also what GA4 will use to track your data. 

Issues tend to arise when websites use cookies to track you across multiple websites. These are known as third-party cookies and when given time, they can learn a lot about your user behaviour and put together your personal data. These cookies are used for remarketing campaigns, meaning they may bring up issues for GDPR. 

When GDPR became important in tracking, websites needed users to consent to the site’s cookies before they could track the performance of the website. Instead of relying on cookies, GA4 will use machine learning to ‘fill in’ gaps in data across platforms and devices, where user consent has not been given for tracking. More focus has been put into the whole user journey, rather than sessions, devices or platforms. 

Why is Google Analytics Reforming? 

Universal Analytics has always been built for desktop users and has focused on page views and sessions. However, over the last few years more and more users are using their mobile phones as their method for internet browsing. According to Oberlo, as of May 2022, 58.26% of all web traffic comes through mobile devices.

Screenshot from Oberlo.com. June 2022 

As technology evolves, so do Google’s reporting methods. GA4 has been built to not only help businesses like yours respond to user expectations, whilst keeping in line with privacy standards, but also improves cross-device reporting to give you a more representative view of your customer journey. 

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GA4 vs UA: What does this mean for my business? 

GA4 has put more focus on events rather than sessions, allowing for more accurate reporting. When comparing the 2, UA uses cookies to collect and report on data and groups users within certain timeframes. 

On the other hand, with an event-based model, each user interaction counts as its own event rather than a user session. This means that you can set up 25 additional parameters with each event, compared to only 4 that UA accounts for (Action, Category, Label and Value). With GA4, you can collect up to 500 events, which will give you a much larger set of data to explore. 

Previously in UA, you would have to use Google Tag Manager to access further customisations, such as file downloads and scrolling. However, GA4 has the capability to track scrolling, file downloads, video engagement, site searches and outbound clicks

instantly! Everything is in one place and you can replicate your existing goals to ensure your business does not lose the insights you may currently be gathering. 

Along with all the data improvements, GA4 has also made it easier to actually see your data. UA was very table heavy, with data split into separate tabs for each reporting session. GA4 has combined all your data into one overview section, with widgets displaying important information. You can delve further into your data by clicking on to scorecards, where you can compare parameters too. 

Screenshot from Search Engine Journal, June 2022 

This new interface aims to make spotting any anomalies easier, as well as any key trends. Your homepage is also entirely customisable, allowing you to focus on the data you really need in order for your business to grow. 

How To Prepare Your Business for GA4 

Using GA4 is not currently mandatory, however, it is becoming the new default. From 1st July 2023, Universal Analytics will completely stop recording new data. Google is constantly evolving the features available, so the GA4 we see right now may not be the one we see when UA is turned off next year.

In order to be able to compare data to the previous year – we recommend setting up GA4 as soon as you can, ideally before the end of July 2022! Setting up GA4 ahead of time will also give you a chance to get used to the new interface, whilst still collecting data from UA, making the transition a little easier. 

How to Set Up GA4 For Your SMB 

If you are currently a Firebase User, your account will automatically upgrade to GA4 and your past data will transfer across too. 

This is not the case for Universal Analytics as they operate on different systems. It’s best to set up your account as soon as possible to avoid missing out on any important historical data. 

In order to do this, the process is simple. 

1. Head to your Admin Settings 

2. Then, go to Property Settings 

3. In the property column, click on GA4 Setup Assistant 

4. Follow the instructions and enable data collection 

5. The last step is to Create a Property 

When GA4 comes into full effect, you may feel that the features you rely on are missing. But don’t worry! There are plenty of tools at your disposal. Familiarise yourself ahead of time and learn what you need to collect your data and you’ll be fine. If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably already ahead of the curve! 

For help growing your SMB, discover Adzooma’s platform. For more information on CTI’s award-winning digital marketing services, explore their services.

If you would like to know the answer to this, read on below. If you haven’t heard of it yet, then you should find this article all the more interesting and educational. We will be discussing what GA4 is and also what makes Google Analytics version 4 different from the current analytics you have.

What is GA4?

Since its initial release date back in 2005, Google Analytics has had significant updates to improve its functionality and usability and is one of the most widely used analytics platforms on the web.

The release of Google Analytics 4 offers a range of new features including many that were previously available only to customers who paid for Analytics 360.

The most noticeable changes, compared to older versions is that GA4 places a heavy focus on overcoming regulatory changes such as GDPR, can work with or without cookies and makes tracking users across multiple platforms much easier to achieve. 

The benefits and improvements rolled out with Google Analytics 4 include:

• More robust cross-device and cross-platform tracking
• Accurate reporting on unique users across platforms
• Advanced analysis reports available to all, not just 360 users
• Free BigQuery connection
• New metrics for more accurate tracking on your website
• Robust cross-platform insights
• Debugging within the interface
• No limits to data
• Automatic event tracking

What new features are there for Google Analytics version 4?

GA4 has some handy new features that are available to all users. Here are five of the key changes that have been released.

1. New Funnels

With GA4, all users will now have access to funnels, a feature that was previously only available to certain subscriptions to Google Analytics. The new funnel features are much more customizable, allowing you to create retroactive and easy to segment funnels.

Are you new to GA? You can also use the templates for funnels to get you started.

2. Debugging Improvements

Debugging issues with the present Google Analytics environment are often a cumbersome task. With GA4, Google has added several improvements to streamline this activity with the live debugging view. This enables you to debug directly within the interface.

3. Time-based actions upgraded

When someone makes a sale at your store and you would like to prevent displaying ads, you’ll be able to do this permanently or temporarily by excluding users based on supported behaviors and conditions. Additionally, Google Analytics 4 has made time measurements more useful.

In the current version, we only consider time for pages or sessions. If you would like to answer questions on how long it takes your users to look at a video or complete a survey, for instance, it is rather difficult to measure.

Using the elapsed time feature you’ll be able to now measure how long it takes your users to finish an outlined set of steps. For instance, you might want to check how long it takes a user to complete a survey, or how long they read your blog before moving to a product page.

4. Web and Mobile together

Another major difference is the focus on combining both mobile and web data—you can view, track, and manage this all from one platform. Previously tracking mobile and app data relied on integrations with Google Analytics, and it had been difficult to grasp how your web and app data fit together.

GA4 is built on the back end of Firebase and allows for a seamless app and web tracking all in one place.

5. Event Tracking made easy

By default, Google Analytics tracks only page views. Events in Universal Analytics have a category, action, label, and sometimes a value, and are displayed with these fields in your analytics reports. Whilst you’ll be able to customize it to track additional interactions, this sort of work needs in-depth knowledge of GA and GTM to configure correctly.

Events in Universal GA are measured independently from a web page or screen load. Downloads, link clicks, forms filled in, and the number of video plays are often measured as events. With GA4 you can gather additional data and measure numerous events.

Events are user interactions with a website or application that will be measured concurrently or independently from a webpage/screen load. You automatically collect data on scrolling, outbound clicks, video views, time, downloads, and more.

Additionally, you’ll be able to still customize your event data based on your specific needs. Events fall under four categories:

• Enhanced Measurement events
• Automatically collected events
• Recommended events
• Custom events

How do I add GA4 to my sites?

If you already have a website with Google Analytics attached to it, you may well have seen the header banner Google has been displaying regarding the switch.

They have also added a G4 Setup Assistant to make it as straightforward as possible. When you click on the GA4 Setup Assistant, you create a Google Analytics 4 property that collects data alongside your existing Universal Analytics property.

Your Universal Analytics property is left unchanged and continues to gather data, you’ll always access it via the property selector or on the admin screen.

Do I need to change to GA4 now?

GA4 remains very much in its infancy. While it’s “live and in the wild” ready for you to tinker with, GA4 isn’t yet able to replace your trusty Universal Analytics. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore it.

For many business and marketing professionals, it would make sense to start setting up your GA4 whilst working alongside your current Universal GA set up. 

According to Google, “If you utilize Google Tag Manager or the global site tag for Google Analytics today, there’s no re-tagging required for your website.” However, it’s still lacking in some priority functions like eCommerce reporting and attributions models.

Automatic event tracking will make it easier to capture more aspects of user behavior, and customizable funnels and BigQuery exports should excite analysts who have been envious of those with access to the paid version.

GA4 is still some way off from becoming the default Google Analytics platform, but it’ll get there eventually. Now’s the perfect time to start learning more about GA4—and collecting the information you’ll need to make comparisons in the future.

Putting GA4 in place now will mean you’ll start collecting data from the day you set it up, which can provide deeper insights as the platform improves and includes the key metrics it’s currently missing. It’s never too early to begin learning or collecting data.

If you would like further support and advice on how to set up GA4 for your websites, apps, and more, please get in contact with our team at Website Energizers today. You can also check out Website Energizers on the Adzooma Marketplace.