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The prior Universal Analytics available through Google Analytics is now long gone. The transition has not been a smooth one based on the feedback we’ve gathered from our clients. Change can always be hard, but the new Analytics 4 provides a wealth of new data and is far more customizable than the previous iteration. Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of the new Google Analytics system.

Why Did Google Change to 4?

Google Analytics 4 is the newest version of Google Analytics. This is a whole new generation of web analytics that will allow marketers to effectively analyze important customer usage metrics, not just track traffic.

Google Analytics 4 tracks the entire customer path across multiple platforms and leverages AI and machine learning to provide more detailed insights into how users interact with your website and app.

GA4 is also focused on customer privacy. This comes in the face of some of the latest privacy laws, such as GDPR and CCPA. With privacy-first tracking, cross-channel data measurement, and AI-driven predictive analytics, GA4 is an advanced tool that provides unparalleled insights.

Google Analytics 4 Features a New Dashboard

The first change you are likely to notice is the entirely new dashboard. It is more streamlined and many of the reports you are used to are gone or have been moved. The navigation bar to the right includes buttons for home, reports, explore, advertising, configure, and library.

All Measurements Are Events in GA4

With Universal Analytics, page views were the most important metric. With Google Analytics 4, all measurements are events. Instead of seeing generalized data, you can now gain a fuller understanding of how users interact with your app and website.

What does this mean for you? You can still view session-level reporting, but the ability to break it down by interaction means more in-depth reports and insights.

GA4 also has an array of new metrics. These include engagement metrics such as:

• engaged sessions
• engagement rate
• engagement time

It also tracks a number of other dimensions, including attribution, demographics, events, and so forth.

This is a big change, but it’s actually going to make it easier to track customers throughout their journey. GA originally assumed page views were the most important metric—that is no longer true. The new parameters might have a learning curve, but you will have access to more data.

GA4 Gives Marketers More Control

GA4 allows you to customize the dashboard, enabling you to see the reports that matter most to your business. It even works well in conjunction with Google Data Studio so you can create custom visualizations of the data collected.

You can also create custom segments based on trigger events which are essentially a subset of events that occurred on your website or application. This enables you to more accurately track customer interactions.

For example, you can create segments on all conversion events that occurred in a particular location. These capabilities make it possible to take a more granular view of your users and their behaviors.

We wrote a previous article extolling the advantages of potential Twitter campaigns. Elon Musk recently threw a bit of a curveball to digital marketers by rebranding the Twitter platform to X. Is Twitter/X still a worthwhile place to run campaigns and find quality prospects? We believe it is.

Twitter’s decision to rebrand itself as X has generated mixed reactions within the digital marketing community. While rebranding can be a strategic move to revitalise a company’s image and appeal to a broader audience, it can also alienate existing users who are familiar with the original brand. The success of this rebranding effort will depend on how well X communicates its new identity and whether it manages to retain its loyal user base during the transition.

So far the rebranding hasn’t been very popular among the populous. App Store users began downrating the app. Influencers are complaining of loss of subscriber blowback. The switch hasn’t been smooth. So far it’s been anything but illuminating for marketers looking to understand what Musk’s plans are for his platform business. In fact, this most recent move has achieved quite the opposite effect, leaving advertisers feeling uncertain and unconvinced.

Facebook’s rebrand to Meta hasn’t been popular either, especially in the wake of the near complete failure of the metaverse. X could suffer a similar fate, especially since users aren’t even sure what to call their activity on the platform anymore. Is it tweeting? Is it X-ing? Nobody knows and it just doesn’t feel right.

However, X’s effort to eliminate bots, fake traffic, fake accounts, and the like, is a still a huge boon for marketers. Even if there is rebranding blowback, digital marketers can at least rest assured that audiences they target on the platform are more likely comprised of real prospects and that the data available to market to those prospects is genuine.

In the whirlwind of its massive changes over the last two years, in ownership, in staff, and in policy, marketers have been cautious in re-embracing Twitter on behalf of their clients. However, Elon Musk’s cleanup of the company including the wipeout of fake accounts, bot accounts, and other unsavory types of accounts that drain marketing dollars. This new move toward authenticity in the system is a potential goldmine for marketing purposes so we thought it a good time to revisit some of the top ways to tap into Twitter for marketing purposes.

Twitter boasts more than 217 million active daily users making the social media platform an important piece of your marketing strategy. Not only does the microblogging site have a significant user base, but Twitter is also the world’s seventh most popular network and is expected to grow to over 340 million active users by 2024.

But with 350,000 tweets sent per minute and 500 million tweets sent daily, you need to be strategic and savvy to win (and hold) your audience’s attention and achieve your Twitter marketing goals.

Set Goals

Success on any social media platform begins with having clear, measurable goals. There’s no way to know if your strategy positively impacts your business unless you understand what you’re trying to achieve.

You want to create SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. So “going viral” doesn’t count. These goals should align with your high-level business objectives and be broken down into measurable indicators of success.

For example, you may want to drive more traffic to your website. Translate that into a SMART goal by aiming to increase your average click-through rate. You can use your baseline click-through rate from your Twitter audit to set a specific achievable goal over a reasonable period of time (say, an increase from 1.5% to 2.5% in three months).

Check Out the Competition

You know what they say… keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

While it might feel sneaky, don’t forget to review the Twitter accounts of your industry competitors. Analyzing their social media can help you refine your own by revealing weaknesses or gaps in their strategy and ways that you can distinguish yourself.

If you want to be super savvy, create a private Twitter List of your competitors so you can see what they’re tweeting and discussing in real time.

Make a Content Calendar

Planning your content takes a little bit of time upfront but ultimately saves you effort and stress later on. Trust us. You’ll be glad you did it when you’re not struggling to develop a witty, original tweet for #NationalDoughnutDay at the last minute.

A social media content calendar helps align the content you’re posting on all your channels and spot possible gaps and conflicts that you can address. It also helps you plan ahead and seize opportunities for timely or interesting content, like sharing your sustainability practices on Earth Day or celebrating your female founder on International Women’s Day.

When creating your calendar, consider:

• How often you want to post
• The best times to post
• Who should approve posts

A calendar can also help you assess your content and see if you’re sharing a balanced mix of tweets. You want to follow the rule of thirds (number 8 on this list): ⅓ of tweets promote your business, ⅓ share personal stories, and ⅓ are informative insights from experts or influencers.

However, you can’t set it and forget it. You still need to keep an eye on your Twitter account so you can reply to DMs and mentions and join conversations.