If you are in charge of or run analytics for a business, you already feel the pressure to move from Universal Analytics (UA) to GA4. You might have thought about hiring GA4 consulting to make things go more smoothly, since UA stopped processing new data on July 1, 2023.
Today, we’ll help you figure out what’s different, where to put your energy, and how to make the move go smoothly.
Why the move is important now
Universal Analytics is no longer available. You won’t get new, reliable data if you still use UA. That makes your choices less strong. When analytics have gaps or mistakes on a large scale, they cost millions.
Google’s answer to the modern digital world that cares about privacy is GA4. It keeps track of both web and app activity in the same way.
GA4 is getting more and more popular. It has been used by more than 14.8 million websites around the world. About 2.9 million sites in the U.S. already use GA4.
Companies that wait to switch to GA4 will be at a competitive disadvantage as it becomes the standard. Your teams will be late with reporting, attribution, and predictive modeling.
What are the most important things you need to know?
You need to know how GA4 is different from UA in order to lead this migration.
1. Model based on events vs. sessions
UA is based on sessions and pageviews. GA4 sees interactions as events. There are many events, such as page views, scrolling, clicking, and submitting forms. That means you need to think about how you name things, what you keep track of, and how you put data together.
2. New numbers you’ll use
Engagement rate: the percentage of sessions that are meaningful and last at least 10 seconds, result in a conversion, or have at least 2 page/screen views.
GA4 Shares: The conversion rate for sessions The number of sessions that had a conversion event divided by the total number of sessions.
User conversion rate: The percentage of users who caused any conversion event. Once a user converts, they don’t count new sessions.
You can also use GA4 to look at predictive metrics like the chance of a purchase.
3. Privacy, cross-platform, and modeling
GA4 gives you more control over your privacy. It supports measuring without cookies, consent mode, and modeling to fill in missing data. It also brings together data from apps and the web into one property. That means you can see the whole journey of a user across platforms.
What are the steps in a strategic migration?
You can use this phased approach. These steps will help you plan your work inside your company.
Step 1: Check your UA setup
Make a list of all your UA properties, custom dimensions, goals, filters, segments, and dashboards.
Find out which parts are still useful. Some historical reports may no longer be useful.
Find data gaps or things that are hard to understand, such as multiple domains, cross-subdomains, or offline joins.
Phase 2: Set up metrics, events, and a taxonomy
Pick a clear way to name events. Names should be short and the same every time.
Map UA goals to GA4 events or conversions that are the same. Some UA goals won’t work the same way.
Set up the custom dimensions and parameters you need, such as user type, campaign, or content type.
Step 3: Collect data in parallel and tag both ways
Use Google Tag Manager or server-side to add GA4 tags next to UA tags.
To compare UA and GA4 data, run parallel tracking for as long as you can.
Check events in real time with debug tools like DebugView in GA4.
Step 4: Check and validate data streams
Look at traffic data from UA and GA4 for the same time periods.
In GA4, keep an eye on important conversion events and make sure they happen as planned.
Keep an eye on filters, thresholds, and sampling effects.
Step 5: Move reports, dashboards, and workflows
Use GA4 as a source to rebuild core dashboards and reports in GA4 or BI tools.
Make sure that teams know what new metrics mean and how to use them by training them.
Change the names, templates, and internal documents used for reporting.
Phase 6: Shut down UA and keep an eye on things after the move.
Stop using UA reporting once you are sure about the GA4 data.
Take a picture or save UA dashboards for future reference. You can’t import UA historical data.
Keep an eye on GA4 over time to see if there are any changes, broken tags, or strange data.
What are some of the best tips and best practices?
Here are some specific things you can do at each step.
1. Hire a GA4 consulting partner for complicated needs
Big businesses often have systems that are connected to each other, old code, and complicated needs. You can avoid making mistakes by hiring a team that specializes in analytics.
2. Use tools for tagging and tracking on the server side
JavaScript tags on the client side might stop working when the page is updated or when ad blockers are turned on. Server-side, like GA4’s server container, gives you more control and dependability.
3. Make sure that names and version control are the same across the board.
Keep one official version of your event names, parameters, and filters. Tag changes with version control, even simple version logs. Make sure that all teams are on the same page.
4. Keep an eye on the rates of discrepancies and fill in the gaps.
There will be differences between UA and GA4. Keep an eye on those differences. If you need historical data that isn’t there, use UA exports or BigQuery extracts before UA shuts down for good.
5. Use the improvements made to GA4 in 2025
You can now set up custom report emails to be sent daily, weekly, or monthly directly in GA4. Also, GA4 has added back support for annotations in line graphs, which are useful for marking incidents or marketing campaigns.
6. Teach teams and write down how things work
Don’t think that everyone can change. Hold workshops. Make a “cheat sheet” to help you understand engagement and conversion metrics. Use examples from your own business.
What are some problems that businesses face and how can they fix them?
There are some problems that only big companies have. You need to make plans for them.
1. Old systems and many domains
You might have a lot of websites, subdomains, apps, and systems that aren’t connected to the internet. You need a plan for tracking across domains and putting together offline datasets.
2. Data governance, privacy, and consent
Businesses deal with private user information. You can control GA4, but you have to handle audits, user deletion, consent, and data retention settings.
4. Change in culture and faith in metrics
Teams have been using UA for a long time. You won’t be used to GA4 metrics. You have to be the one to make changes. Show comparisons side by side, explain the differences, and boost confidence.
5. Reporting continuity during the change
Some people want reports every year. GA4 won’t be exactly like UA. You need to set expectations, explain things, and create hybrid reports while things are changing.
6. Risk of losing data
GA4 does not bring in old UA data. Before closing, you need to export UA data. So, make a plan for how to archive your data early.
7. Problems after migration
After moving, you might see:
Data thresholding
- GA4 might not show some data that isn’t very important.
- Differences in metrics: Some metrics have names that are similar but do different things.
- There may be problems with tracking conversions when they move from UA to GA4.
- Problems with UTM parameters: links that track may break or go to the wrong place.
So, you need to plan for these and check on them often.
Final Thoughts
It’s important to know your current baseline, even if the migration feels far away. Make a team with people from marketing, analytics, IT, and the law or privacy fields. This group will make sure that everyone in the company knows what the move to GA4 means and what needs to be done.
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