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Migration from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4

Updated

We made a significant improvement to our platform by migrating from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4. This transition will enhance your ability to analyze and understand your customer's behaviours and shopping processes, providing you with deeper insights into the ecommerce structure of your TronShop.

On This Page

Create a new GA4 property in your Analytics account

Click on the Admin icon.     

From the Account column, go to Property and create your new property.

From there, give it a name and select the reporting time zone and currency.

After this, select your industry category and business size before finalising the creation process.

You can also choose your business objectives.

Now you should choose if your property belongs to a website or a mobile application.

Add a data stream

During the property creation, you will be able to create a Data Stream as you can see in the image below, or you can simply click on the Property column, click Data Streams and then Add stream. The Data Stream can be added from an iOS app, Android app or Web.

Web Stream Details

The following step will route you to Web stream details and the first pop-up will show you the Installation instructions. You can see there your Google Tag script. It is important to add this new external script to your website (specifically to the <head> section of every page you want to collect data from). If you would not add this script to your website, you would not be able to collect data to Google Analytics 4. For customers who use the Google Tag Manager, there is no need to add this new script. The GTM script you are using is connected to your GTM account and will be still working. (More in step 4). The only thing you have to do is connect the GTM to your new GA4 property with a new measurement ID.

If the past setting is done, you can manage some primary settings in Web stream details,

TIP

 Enhanced measurement (you can also modify events, create an API secrets, configure tag settings or manage connected site tags).

You can anytime view your Google tag script by clicking the View tag instructions button on the right upper corner of the window.  Under this button, you can also inspect your Measurement ID.

After these steps, you can see the Data collection is pending message and simply continue by clicking the Continue to Home button.

TIP

For taking the data for a long-time period, do not forget to setup your data retention.

You can manage it in Admin > Property > Data Settings > Data Retention.

We recommend to set the retention to 14 months.

NEED HELP?

Our dedicated support team is just one call away. We're here to guide you through the customization process, ensuring your PromoTron platform is tailored to your exact specifications. The process of customization has never been easier or more accessible. Contact our Support team!

Create your GA4 property from EXISTING UA property.

Simply click on the GA4 setup assistant and Get started in I want to create a new Google Analytics 4 property window.

You will receive a pop-up window below. Tick the Enable data collection using existing analytics.js and gtag.js tags to migrate your existing tags.

If you click on Get started you will be redirected to Setup Assistant page of your new GA4

property. Now you can setup your new property. The UA property will remain unchanged.

Tips for implementing GA4 with Google Tag Manager

Tag types

Universal Analytics has only one tag type, whereas Google Analytics 4 has two tag types: Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration and Google Analytics: GA4 Event

The GA4 Event tag references the GA4 Configuration tag and therefore depends on the GA4 Configuration tag being set up.

At runtime, the GA4 Configuration tag must fire before the GA4 Event tag.

To ensure that the GA4 Configuration tag is fired before the GA4 Event tag, assign a GA4 Configuration tag trigger that is guaranteed to be earlier than the GA4 Event tag’s trigger.

Persist settings across events

Universal Analytics makes use of a “Google Analytics Settings” variable to persist tag settings (e.g. tracking ID, cookie domain, or disable advertising features) that need to be consistent across Universal Analytics tags. You can similarly persist settings across GA4 Event tags using the GA4 Configuration tag. GA4 Event tags inherit the parameters and user properties of the linked GA4 Configuration tag.

Interaction between on-page gtag.js code and Tag Manager GA4 tags

If you have both a gtag.js implementation and a Tag Manager GA4 implementation on the same page, the on-page gtag.js code may have an impact on the Tag Manager GA4 tags. Some settings parameters, such as “cookie_prefix”, or “allow_ad_personalization_signals”, assigned via the on-page gtag ('set', paramName, paramValue) command will propagate the parameters to GA4 tags fired from Tag Manager.

Set up the basic page tag

If you use Google Tag Manager for your UA property, add GA4 measurement by following GA4 implementation using Google Tag Manager.

Install the Google tag (gtag.js)

The Google tag (gtag.js) is a single tag you can add to your website to use a variety of Google products and services (e.g., Google Ads, Google Analytics, Campaign Manager, Display & Video 360, Search Ads 360). Instead of managing multiple tags for different Google product accounts, you can use the Google tag across your entire website and connect the tag to multiple destinations.

Add the Google tag to your website

To start collecting data with the Google tag:

1. Open a Google product you use and access the Google tag screen. How to find your tag ID in:

Google Ads

Google Analytics

Google Floodlight

2. Copy your Google tag ID.

3. Paste your Google tag ID in the code sample below. Place the Google tag snippet immediately after the opening <head> HTML tag on every page you want to measure.

<!-- Google tag (gtag.js) -->
<script async scr="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=TAG_ID"></script>
<script>
   windows.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
   function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
   gtag('js', new Date());

   gtag('config', 'TAG_ID');
</script>

Verify your tag works

To verify if your tag is sending data:

  1. ​​
  2. Enter the URL of the website you want to verify.
  3. Check if your Google tag ID appears in the header Google tags found. If Tag Assistant doesn't recognize your tag, find debug tips in the Tag Assistant help

Set up the basic page tag

If you already use gtag.js for your UA property, either of the following options can be used to install Google Analytics 4:

  • Option 1: Follow Add additional products and configure the tag ID of your GA4 property as an additional product.
  • Option 2: Use connected site tags to add your tag ID without changing the code on your page.

Migrate UA goals and conversions to GA4

We recommend using Google’s comprehensive guide on how to do this.

Validate and bid to conversions in Google Ads

If you’re already bidding on UA conversions, you can replicate those conversions in your GA4 property. Doing this allows you to compare conversion volumes and then import your GA4 conversion into Google Ads.

Migrate audiences

Migrating audiences across from your UA property to GA4 lets you identify the same user groups based on your GA4 data. This can then be exported to your linked Google Ads account to address the same use cases.

You can create up to 100 audiences per GA4 property, and these audiences will automatically update everywhere rather than requiring you to select the destination.

You’ll need to manually recreate these audiences in your GA4 property to migrate them.

NEED HELP?

Our dedicated support team is just one call away. We're here to guide you through the customization process, ensuring your PromoTron platform is tailored to your exact specifications. The process of customization has never been easier or more accessible. Contact our Support team!

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