Universal Analytics, the free version of Google Analytics, is the most extensively used online analytics product. The platform is so popular that it has a market share of 86 percent, making Google the industry leader. Even though Google Analytics is widely regarded as the industry standard, there are reasons to question if it is the best fit for your marketing setup—especially after Google announced the end of Universal Analytics.
Universal Analytics properties will stop processing new hits on July 1, 2023, forcing users to migrate to Google Analytics 4. Marketers should not be deceived by what appears to be a natural trend.
We can discuss some of the drawbacks of Analytics 4:
There isn’t an easy way to move your data.
Migration is a complicated procedure that should be carefully planned. Unfortunately, Google Analytics 4 makes it even more difficult. All past data from Universal Analytics will not be transferred to the new platform unless data or tags are migrated.
The difficulty increases with the size of the organization—there could be hundreds of tags to relocate. Marketers might as well switch to a new analytic platform if they have to start collecting data from begin.
Not-so-intuitive user interface
The most significant issue that marketers and analysts will face with Google Analytics 4 is acclimating to the new UI.
A new dashboard differs from what marketers are used to managing in key ways right away. The way Universal Analytic properties handle all stats is dependent on hit kinds. Page hits, event hits, eCommerce hits, and social interaction hits are all examples of hit kinds.
Limits on custom dimensions
A custom dimension is a feature that marketers can add to their analytics solution to dig deeper into their data. It allows you to pivot or segment this data in order to isolate a specific audience or traffic for further investigation.
Custom dimensions can be used to segment reports in GA4, however there is a limit. Per property, you can only have 25 user-scoped custom dimensions and 50 event-scoped custom dimensions.
Lack of custom channel grouping
Channel groupings are rule-based groupings of marketing channels. When customized, these groupings allow marketers to track the performance of those channels efficiently.
Unlike Universal Analytics, GA4 does not allow you to create custom channel groupings in the new interface. Instead, marketers will only be able to use their default channel groupings.
Privacy and compliance: Google Analytics 4 has a long way to go
If a firm works in several countries, marketing teams must be aware of the myriad problems posed by both local and international data privacy laws and regulations.