As Google Analytics users world-wide prepare for the switch from Google Universal Analytics (UA) to the new Google Analytics 4 (GA4), we support our users providing key informations on the most significant changes between both analytics service that enables you to measure online traffic and engagement.

NOTE: Universal Analytics will expire on 01.07.2023

What is Google Analytics 4 (GA4) ?

This is a new property that is used for modern measurement.

Collects both website and app data to better understand the customer journey
Uses event-based data instead of session-based
Includes privacy controls such as cookie-less measurement, and behavioral and conversion modelling
Predictive capabilities offer guidance without complex models
Direct integrations to media platforms help drive actions on your website or app

Rate Limits

Google Analytics Data API Quota Limitation

Number of requests per day per project: 50,000

Reports

The reports are custom by setting the dimensions and metrics required.
To support Incremental sync, the uuid field is added by default to any report.
There are 8 default reports.
To add more reports, you need to specify the custom reports field (Like in our current integration)

What are the differences between UA and GA4?

Data Model	UA	GA4
Hit Types	Page view, Event, Social, Exception, etc.	Only Events, Because it is event-based and everything is captured as an Event.
Events	Has a Category, Action, and Label and is its own hit type	Has no notion of them.
Page views	Page view type: • Page_title • Page_location • Page_path	Page_view event: • Page_title • Page_location • Page_path • Page_referrer
Sessions	Can comprise multiple page views, events, social interactions, and e-commerce transactions Typically defined as having ended once there has been a 30 minute period of inactivity or another qualifying reset event has occurred.	Derived from the session_start event (an automatically collected event) The duration of a session is based on the time span between the first and last event in the session
Session -> Active user calculation	Relies on manual instrumentation (firing of an interactive event)	User activity is detected automatically (NOTE: A user can launch an app and be considered an active user in Google Analytics 4 but not in Universal Analytics. This may lead to higher active user counts for Google Analytics 4.)
Session -> Session counting	A new campaign will start a new session regardless of activity hits are processed if they arrive within 4 hours of the close of the preceding day	A new campaign does not begin a new session (This may lead to lower session counts in GA) events are processed if they arrive up to 72 hours late
Custom dimensions/metrics	Used to add information to collected data: • Hit-scoped • User-scoped • Session-scoped • Product-scoped	Event parameters is using for that purpose: • Event scoped custom dimension • User scoped custom dimension • No equivalent for Session-scoped • E-commerce parameters
Content Grouping	Lets you group content into a logical structure, and then view and compare metrics by group name	Properties have one predefined event parameter for content group that populates data into the "Content Group" dimension
Client ID	Same	Same (App Instance ID)

Data collection settings with no equivalent in Google Analytics 4:

control over IP anonymization IP anonymization is enabled by default on Google Analytics 4 properties
custom task (analytics.js only) - not available in Google Analytics 4
timing - not available in Google Analytics 4

Event Batching for GA4:

In Google Analytics 4 properties, most events are batched client-side. However,

Conversion events are always transmitted immediately, although they may be part of a batch
Containers loaded in debug mode will never batch events, to facilitate the real time DebugView
If any events are still held client-side when the user leaves the page (e.g. by navigating to another page), those events are sent immediately
In browser environments that do not support the sendBeacon API, all events are sent as they happen, with no batching.

Summary

For functionality, both our current UA integration and Airbyte’s GA4 integration are quite similar.

However, there are some differences due to the API changes. The main difference is that GA4 is using an event-based approach instead of a session-based approach. This can cause some differences in API calls and values that return from the reporting API (For example active_users counts may differ; for more info look at “What are the differences” section)

GA4 should be considered as a new integration, instead of considering it as a new version for the current Google Analytics integration.

As a final note, Google suggests that instead of updating current analytics logic into GA4 users should create a new analytics approach which uses GA4 properties.

The main change between them is that GA4 is only using events for tracking.

For more information about migrating to GA4, check out these resources from Google: