Should You Upgrade Your Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 (GA4)?
Just when you started to get used to Universal Analytics, Google had to go and switch it up again. They just released Google Analytics 4 in October 2020. I totally slept on the announcement and didn't even notice until I started setting up Google Analytics for a new website.
You may have noticed inside your Google Analytics Admin area this option to upgrade to GA4:
So what's the deal, should you upgrade?
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Just when you started to get used to Universal Analytics, Google had to go and switch it up again. They just released Google Analytics 4 in October 2020. I totally slept on the announcement and didn't even notice until I started setting up Google Analytics for a new website.
You may have noticed inside your Google Analytics Admin area this option to upgrade to GA4:
So what's the deal, should you upgrade?
So far from what I've seen, it's mostly just a new user interface. You no longer have Views, it's just Accounts and Properties. You will have to set up all of your Conversion/Goals again after you upgrade to GA4 which is also a lot different depending on what kind of events and goals you're trying to set up.
There are still some features being rolled out to GA4 like IP filtering, which is pretty important. I'd probably hold off making the switch to GA4 but there is one thing you can do to help you decide for yourself.
Instead of upgrading your existing Universal Analytics account to GA4, you can create a new GA4 property and install GA4 alongside Universal Analytics to compare the 2 against each other. This will help you determine if you want to make the switch completely to GA4.
Since this is obviously the direction Google is heading and at some point, I'm sure Universal Analytics would be sunsetting, you should probably learn GA4 as soon as possible.