Google’s measurement boss on how GA4 supports the company’s privacy vision

The integration aims to ease the transition to GA4 for mobile publishers who already rely on AMP to deliver a reliable mobile experience and measure mobile performance metrics. All publishers must migrate to GA4 by July 1, when Google’s legacy analytics platform Universal Analytics (UA) will be phased out.

“AMP has helped publishers of all sizes achieve great user experiences for their readers and this integration is critical for publishers who choose to use AMP to help continue to track their metrics within GA4,” says Karen Stocks, Google’s vice-president of global measurement solutions.

She goes on to say she hopes that the integration “helps publishers make a seamless transition” to GA4 from UA – especially since AMP is already integrated with UA.

The development is the latest move by Google to help simplify the switch to GA4 – a major change that will disrupt many businesses‘ marketing operations, but one that aligns the company‘s broader vision for a more privacy-centric advertising ecosystem.

GA4 within an evolving landscape

Effective and precise measurement is a top priority for many digital publishers and marketers today. “Measurement is more important than ever right now,“ Stocks says. “Businesses need to understand the impact of their efforts so they can make informed, insightful and strategic decisions.”

​At the same time, however, measurement is growing increasingly challenging due to changes in the data privacy landscape that limit access to consumer data. “Marketers now have less data by default, but that doesn’t mean that effective measurement can’t exist,” she says. GA4 hopes to solve this challenge by balancing consumers’ demand for data privacy with marketers’ needs for data-driven performance measurement.

UA was designed to rely on signals from tracking technology such as third-party cookies. But now, Google Chrome is phasing out third-party cookies (following in the footsteps of other browsers including Safari and Firefox) – though the deadline has twice been postponed. Amid a widespread shift to more privacy-preserving approaches to ad targeting and measurement – which include those pioneered by Google through its Privacy Sandbox initiative – analytics can no longer take the same form as it once did.

GA4 accounts for this sea change and supports Google’s broader vision for a more privacy-centric web. “As consumer’s expectations for privacy have changed, so has the industry and, with that, the way that we can measure. GA4 was built for a world without third-party cookies,” says Stocks. “GA4 was designed with features like modeling, data-driven attribution and consent mode built in – these features help marketers understand the impact of their efforts without compromising user privacy.”

And instead of relying on identifying user data from third-party cookies, the platform produces insights based on predictions made using AI. It identifies patterns in user behavior across a business’s websites and applications without requiring manual inputs. In this way, Stocks says, “it will answer questions businesses may never even think to ask.”

Plus, while UA focused primarily on page views and sessions, GA4 incorporates a more complex “event-based data model” that can collect information on many more ways that users interact with websites – from scrolls, clicks and form submissions to purchases and video plays. At a high level, Stocks says the system is “built to keep up with a changing ecosystem” – while being “more powerful and easier to use than Universal Analytics.”

Streamlining the transition to GA4

With the GA4 migration deadline looming, Google has been busy rolling out updates and integrations to help streamline the transition for customers and enable them to get the most out of the platform. For example, the company is bringing GA4 to Google Ads, which Stocks says will enable advertisers to “build GA4 audiences, including predictive audiences, directly in Google Ads … making it easier for advertisers to leverage their first-party data.”

Other recent updates include data-driven attribution that accommodates partial credits based on various audience interactions; the new Business Objectives feature, which allows customers to define key objectives up front and get customized reporting based on these performance goals; custom funnel reporting that can be added to daily reports; and integration with AdSense to give publishers greater visibility into site metrics. The integration with AMP announced today is the latest GA4 update.

In addition to Google’s media measurement changes, the company also plans to introduce support for a handful of new APIs through Privacy Sandbox within the next few months. These will bring new privacy-safe capabilities to marketers, including remarketing for display ads and custom audience tools for the Protected Audience API – an ID-free device-level framework previously known as Fledge designed to enable remarketing on mobile. Forthcoming measurement updates also aim to improve attribution reporting for marketers.

With mere days until UA is sunset, Stocks advises that those who haven’t yet made the jump to GA4 get set up now. Although Google earlier this year launched Jumpstart, a tool to help organizations get started on GA4 with a basic property, Stocks recommends manual migration for most businesses. And even for those who elect to use Jumpstart, she still suggests that businesses tailor their property to meet their precise needs. “It gives marketers the best customization options and ensures that everything aligns with their preferred configurations,” she explains.

The platform’s Setup Assistant can also help new users navigate GA4. Plus, a new Google Analytics training hub includes a variety of resources for organizations either beginning the migration process or farther along in their switchover.

Once the migration is executed, UA won’t be able to receive data – including any audience and conversion data that advertisers may be collecting through Google Ads. “The campaigns that rely on this data will likely stop, so it’s important that advertisers check campaign setup to make sure that there is no disruption to performance,” Stocks says.

And while some businesses may still see their UA property or properties operating after July 1, Stocks is clear that businesses should not rely on this data and that “for all intents and purposes, the migration deadline is July 1.”

Ultimately, she’s hopeful that the migration represents a new era for marketing measurement – one that provides highly precise insights while respecting user privacy. “With a focus on building privacy-centric features, we’re able to deliver the insights businesses need and can move further away from things like third-party cookies toward a more aggregated and modeled future.

“The future of measurement doesn't look like the past, but that’s not a bad thing. Solutions like GA4 enable advertisers to measure in a more thoughtful, privacy-centric way.”

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