What Are GA4’s New Features?

It’s official. Universal Analytics is out, and Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is in. As marketers and website owners everywhere are settling down after the long-awaited switch was complete, Google announced at the end of June 2024 that GA4 new features were coming to the search engine’s analytics platform. These updates are anticipated to bring new opportunities for analysing data, managing campaigns, connecting with new customers, and evaluating campaign performance. So, what’s new, and what does it all mean for users? We’ve put together this handy blog to help you out.

What’s New in GA4?

The search engine giant announced 5 main Google Analytics 4 updates that it will bring over the next few months. They are:

1. Third-party ad data
2. Cross-channel budgeting
3. AI-powered insights
4. Cookieless measurement
5. Campaign Manager 360 integration

Google Analytics director of product management, Steve Ganem, said of the changes:

“Measurement is essential for marketers to understand the impact of their efforts and make more informed decisions. Today, we’re highlighting new features and key investment areas to help you make better business decisions.”

Read more: The Core Differences Between Universal Analytics and GA4: How to Adapt

What do each of these 5 updates mean for users? How will it change their experience using the platform?

Third Party Ad Data

One of the most exciting updates that Google announced is increasing the number of third-party data points you can integrate into your reporting. Google Ads and Google Analytics are already integrated into various web, app, social media, email, and other paid marketing channels. With the latest update, users will now be able to integrate ad data from other third-party sites, including Reddit, Snap and Pinterest. This data will be available in cross-channel performance reports and will be included in metrics like ad clicks, ad cost, and ad impressions. By including more data in reports, SEO experts can gain a holistic view of user journeys by demographic and platforms. In turn, this will give users a more well-rounded view of their ad performance across multiple platforms and will help shape future data-driven ad strategies.

Cross-Channel Budgeting

Handy for those who like to keep a close eye on their advertising budgets, cross-channel budgeting on beta is another new and helpful feature that will be gracing GA4. This will include a projections report that will let you monitor your projected performance and media spending against specific target objectives, like your revenue, across every single one of your marketing channels. It is hoped that this will make allocating your budgets and optimising your ad spend more effective. If you’re struggling with your budget, our Paid Search service is here to help.

AI-Powered Insights

It’s no secret that AI has arguably been one of the hottest topics on the lips of marketers and website owners the world over. Google’s latest GA4 features will harness the power of AI to produce insights and summaries for users that are easy-to-understand. This use of generative AI is another example of the enhanced capabilities of GA4. These AI-powered insights will look at all of your data to pinpoint trends, changes, and metrics and give you helpful explanations and recommendations to continue with your marketing efforts, putting your campaigns in a stronger position. Ultimately, this feature will help you make quicker, more informed decisions based on the analytics data that Google has collected.

Cookieless Measurement

Web users value their privacy more than anything. For this reason, the future appears to be cookieless with limitations on tracking third-party cookiesCookies are very small files that a website saves on a visitor's computer and uses to recognize repeat visits. coming into place. If data privacy regulations have you wondering how you’ll reach your target audience or figure out how your campaigns are performing, then do not worry. Google announced that it will be supporting Chrome Privacy Sandbox APIs to make sure that you can still track campaign performance and reach your desired audience.

Campaign Manager 360 Integration

Google Campaign Manager 360 is designed to meet the needs of advertisers and agencies and lets them manage and measure metrics, including impressions, overall traffic, and conversions, across devices. Another core aspect of the new GA4 features is that Google will start importing aggregated impressions from linked Campaign Manager 360 accounts into the workspace. This integration will give users a better view of campaign performance in one place. This will make cross-device and cross-channel reporting easier, with all the information you need in one place.

We Can Help

Hopefully, these new features will make keeping an eye on your advertising campaigns much easier. Of course, as digital marketing experts, that’s easy for us to say. The good news is that our team at Click Intelligence is always up to date on the latest comings and goings at Google, whether that’s GA4 updates or any other news, so we’re always ready to help you. For more information on everything you need to know about GA4, take a look at our blog or get in touch with our friendly team.