Google Analytics 4: What Your Dealership Needs to Know Before the Switch
UPDATE:
Our team is officially part of the Automotive Standards Council for GA4! Meaning that we have the wonderful opportunity to not only bring you the latest updates about GA4 but also deliver any issues or concerns to a group of like-minded professionals. Click here to learn more about the council and its objectives
Well, the time has come. In less than two months [ July 1, 2023 ], Google will be implementing its newest property, Google Analytics 4. Meaning more in-depth data about your website users will be available at your very own fingertips – if you’re all about the numbers this is great news to hear!
However, if you’re not sure where to start with all this new information or if you’ve been procrastinating (don’t worry, we don’t judge), we’ve got you covered. Join us as we dive into the newest developments involving Google Analytics 4 and what dealerships such as yourself should be keeping an eye on going in.
What is Google Analytics 4?
So, let’s start with the basics, what actually is Google Analytics 4? According to Google, it’s a “new kind of property designed for the future of measurement.” With the new installment, you’ll be able to track and tack advantage of the following items:
- Both your website and app data will be available: GA4 will seamlessly track users from different devices such as mobile and desktop. This is a great tool for getting the full picture of how your potential customers go through the buyer process or customer journey.
- Users event-based data instead of session-based: In GA4, all measurements are events, meaning that although you can still view session reporting, the reporting will include more in-depth information such as engagement rate and engagement time.
- Privacy controls: In an effort to improve user privacy, GA4 will only track first-party cookies rather than third-party cookies.
- Predictive capabilities: With machine learning, GA4 can provide users with predictive customer data, including purchase probability, churn probability, and predictive behaviors. Additionally, users can use these predictive behaviors (given by Google) to create more personalized Google ads such as remarketing ads.
In short, Google Analytics 4 is designed to help you map your customer journey while also focusing on customer privacy. How can this help your dealership? Having a better understanding of your customers and how they make decisions will be a crucial point in getting them engaged at the right time and place. Meaning that you’ll be able not only close more deals but also close deals more effectively.
So as you begin your transition from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 try to think about what type of goals you want to accomplish with your ads, including the type of metrics you’d like to see. This will help you establish clear goals and set up your business for success in the long term.
How to Locate & Share Your Secret API Key
Google Analytics 4 is all about collecting more in-depth data about your potential customers, and one great way it can do so is through your secret API key. As a dealership you should aim to have one API key per vendor, that way you can track metrics separately and effectively.
Now, if you’re a fusionZONE customer, then the heavy lifting of creating your API key/s will be done for you! All you need to do is contact your representative about which vendors you would like to track and our team will create the API key/s for you. Then, once you have them available, you can share them with your vendors.
However, if you are not a fusionZONE customer or need to set them up manually, we’ve got you covered as well!
Note – To create/access your GA4 ID you will need admin access to your Google Analytics account.
Step 1: Log into your Google Analytics account and click “admin.”
Step 2: Then under the “property column,” click “data streams” and open the appropriate data stream you’d like to track.
Step 3: Scroll down and you’ll see a section labeled “Measurement Protocol API Secrets,” click it.
Step 4: You’re almost there! This is where you’ll be able to create a new API secret Key.
Step 5: To copy your ID, simply click the “copy” button located on the upper right-hand side of the page. Then you’re all ready to share your newly created ID with your vendor/3rd third party!
Conclusion
Congrats! You made it to the end of the article and hopefully, you learned some helpful items along the way.
In this article, we explored the latest developments of Google Analytics 4 such as the ability to track user engagement across multiple devices, how Google uses machine learning to provide you with predictive analytics of your customers, and how to locate your API key used to track metrics across channels and vendors. Overall, Google Analytics 4 allows for a great opportunity to take a deeper look into your customers and how they engage with your content. Thus equipping you and your team with the best tools to actively engage with your customers, no matter what stage of the customer journey they are in.
