Google Universal Analytics 360 Sunsetting Soon: Migration Tips & Top Alternative Inside via @sejournal, @PiwikPro

1 week ago 10

ARTICLE AD BOX

This station was sponsored by Piwik PRO. The opinions expressed successful this nonfiction are the sponsor’s own.

This year, Google volition yet signifier retired Universal Analytics 360, requiring paid users to power to Google Analytics 360.

This is not thing you tin skip oregon postpone, and the timepiece is ticking.

The caller analytics disagree importantly from the erstwhile version, and you can’t migrate information betwixt them, truthful the modulation tin beryllium challenging for organizations.

Since you’ll beryllium starting from scratch, present is simply a bully clip to research different options and find if determination are amended solutions for your needs.

The 3 main areas to see erstwhile deciding if you privation to enactment with Google oregon determination to different level are: the migration process, privateness and compliance, and easiness of use.

When Is Google Universal Analytics 360 Sunsetting?

July 1, 2024 is erstwhile Google volition signifier retired Universal Analytics 360.

What Should I Do Next?

Google encourages you to migrate to Google Analytics 360 arsenic rapidly arsenic possible.

If you don’t, you could:

Lose captious advertizing capabilities.
Lose the quality to export humanities data.
Face delays successful mounting up Google Analytics 360.

How To Migrate To Your Next Analytics Platform

Moving to a caller platform is overmuch much than conscionable implementation; it is captious to program your migration properly. Below are 5 steps to assistance you done the full process.

Step 1. Evaluate Your Stack & Resources

Before you power analytics tools, instrumentality the clip to measure your full stack, not conscionable the instrumentality you’re changing. Ensure that your stack is up-to-date and meets your existent concern needs. Migrating to a caller analytics vendor astir ever requires much radical and much clip than primitively estimated. It’s a bully juncture to region redundant tools from your stack; it mightiness besides let you to integrate with caller ones that tin assistance you tally your analytics and cod information much comprehensively.

Step 2. Tidy Your Data

Over time, information postulation whitethorn get messy, and you find yourself tracking information that isn’t applicable to your business. A migration gives you a accidental to cleanable up your information taxonomy. Ensure that your caller instrumentality allows you to usage the aforesaid categories of information arsenic the erstwhile one. Pay adjacent attraction to immoderate information that needs to beryllium collected automatically, similar determination information (country, region, city), and instrumentality details (device type, browser). Finally, marque definite the SDKs you request are supported by your caller tool.

Step 3. Implement A New Platform

This measurement involves mounting up the tracking codification that collects information astir visitors to your website oregon app and making immoderate indispensable modifications. Remember to acceptable up tags to stitchery much elaborate information done events oregon link third-party tools.

Speed Up The Transition: If you power to Piwik PRO, you tin usage a migration instrumentality to easy transportation your settings from Universal Analytics (GA3) and Google Tag Manager.

Step 4. Evaluate Tour New Data

Once you’re done implementing your caller platform, you should tally it parallel to your existing instrumentality for a fewer months earlier finalizing the migration. During this time, you tin audit your caller information and close immoderate errors. In this manner, you tin clasp your humanities information portion simultaneously generating caller information segments connected the caller platform.

Step 5. Provide Training For Your Team

All extremity users request grooming to comprehend the platform’s operations, retrieve indispensable data, and make reports. This measurement is often missed arsenic it falls astatine the extremity of the project.

Upon finishing this step, you volition beryllium acceptable to power to your caller level fully. If you find the migration process challenging, see getting assistance from extracurricular sources. Some analytics vendors connection hands-on onboarding and idiosyncratic training, which accelerates merchandise adoption.

Is Switching To Google Analytics 360 Worth The Hassle?

You mightiness beryllium thinking, “Migrating to the successor of UA 360 won’t beryllium a locomotion successful the park,” particularly if you enactment for a ample organization.

In summation to subscription and information migration costs, you whitethorn besides request to bid your unit oregon summation fees for outer selling agencies that volition look caller challenges.

While Analytics 360 has unthinkable usage cases, determination whitethorn beryllium different tools that amended suit your needs.

Switching to alternate solutions whitethorn beryllium a bully enactment for you.

How To Pick A Replacement For Universal Analytics 360

To determine whether to take a caller level oregon instrumentality with Google, see a fewer important factors:

Because GA 360 is simply a antithetic software, your selling and analytics departments volition request to allocate other resources to larn the caller platform. You volition besides request the enactment of analysts, developers, and information architects to assistance you reconstruct reports based connected the information architecture of the chosen platform. Choosing a solution with akin features and idiosyncratic acquisition to UA 360 tin beryllium a bully option, due to the fact that it saves resources, making onboarding faster and easier.
You volition besides request to redesign your full lawsuit journey, due to the fact that the information exemplary successful GA360 has changed from sessions to events. This process tin beryllium much challenging and costly than choosing a session-based level oregon 1 that offers you state of choice.
Another important information is the level of enactment offered by the vendor. This tin greatly impact the prime of the migration and onboarding to a caller platform. Although Google Analytics is presently the astir fashionable instrumentality for analyzing web traffic, the level of enactment it provides is limited. Other companies similar Piwik PRO tin connection much successful this area, including personalized onboarding, merchandise implementation, training, and dedicated lawsuit enactment astatine each step.

Consideration 1: Think About Privacy & Compliance

Organizations astir the satellite are progressively acrophobic with information privateness and compliance. A 2023 Thomson survey recovered that 80% of concern professionals admit the value of compliance arsenic a important advisory relation for their organizations. Gartner, connected the different hand, predicts that, by 2025, 60% of ample enterprises volition usage astatine slightest 1 privacy-enhancing computing (PEC) method successful analytics, concern intelligence, and/or unreality computing.

This is owed to a increasing fig of caller regulations that spot greater power implicit idiosyncratic information astatine the forefront. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) are 2 of the astir salient examples. The scenery has been further analyzable by events specified arsenic the Schrems II case, Brexit, and China’s Personal Data Protection Law. Data extortion is besides progressively important successful immoderate sectors, specified arsenic healthcare, wherever regulations similar HIPAA are mandatory.

If your institution operates globally oregon has ambitions to bash so, the archetypal happening to see is who has afloat ownership of the data, wherever the servers hosting the information are located, and who owns them. Google Analytics 360 lone offers unreality deployment successful an chartless location, which means that information mightiness beryllium transferred betwixt information centers successful the Americas, Europe, and Asia. This makes it hard to cognize precisely wherever the information is stored and ownership is unclear. For now, the contented of information transfers betwixt the US and the EU has been resolved by the EU-US Privacy Shield model agreement, but the aboriginal stays unclear. Last year, NOYB, led by Max Schrems, announced that it would soon entreaty this determination to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

To conscionable privateness and compliance requirements successful antithetic countries and industries, take a level that allows you to customize your hosting program and acceptable circumstantial parameters for information postulation and analysis. Platforms similar Piwik PRO Analytics Suite alteration you to store your information connected servers successful Europe, the US, and Asia, based connected your preferences. This translates into flexibility and information of your data.

Consideration 2: Ease Of Use & Integration

This whitethorn dependable counterintuitive, but the caller GA 360 mightiness beryllium excessively analyzable for many. While it offers galore precocious functions for information analysts, it lacks features specifically designed for marketers. As a result, marketers whitethorn request assistance successful configuring the strategy to efficiently usage the data.

On the different hand, successful GA 360, the information exemplary shifts from session-based to event-based. This is particularly important if your teams beryllium connected UA 360 behavioral reporting, benchmarking, and e-commerce travel reports, arsenic these features are unavailable successful the caller release. You besides request to revise each the reports for each the stakeholders.

Conversely, Piwik PRO powerfully emphasizes simplicity and enables marketers to rapidly entree the indispensable data. Additionally, the information exemplary combines some session-based and event-based structures. This attack ensures that you tin commencement moving with the information faster and present the reports that stakeholders are utilized to. Another large vantage of Piwik PRO is its exemplary for moving with earthy data, which is simply a invaluable root of cognition astir users and provides richer reporting successful much contexts. Google Analytics does not supply earthy information exports, truthful you person to usage assorted services and tools to execute this. To beryllium fair, however, exporting ample earthy information packets with Piwik PRO bundle whitethorn instrumentality longer than with Google solutions.

The caller GA 360 is astir effectual erstwhile utilized chiefly with products from the Google ecosystem. When considering information activation, Google Ads is the astir suitable option. When it comes to Piwik PRO, you inactive person this option, but integrating with different solutions is overmuch easier. The level offers 4 modules: Analytics, Tag Manager, Consent Manager and Customer Data Platform (CDP). The CDP module, disposable successful the paid plan, lets you make elaborate lawsuit profiles and categorize your information into assorted assemblage segments. You tin activate them to supply a personalized acquisition and tally effectual campaigns crossed aggregate channels.

The scenery of modern analytics is perpetually changing. On the 1 hand, determination are ongoing discussions astir privateness and compliance regulations, portion connected the other, companies are trying retired assorted methods to cod and analyse data. In the end, your prime of analytics level volition interaction the show of your selling and income efforts. So instrumentality the clip to explore, and you whitethorn find different solutions that amended suit your organization’s needs.

Piwik PRO is simply a coagulated prime to research for your adjacent superior analytics solution. Book a personalized demo of the Enterprise mentation and spot the benefits of introducing Piwik PRO Analytics Suite successful your organization.

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Piwik PRO Used with permission.