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  • What is the process for implementing GA4 in GTM alongside UA tags?

    Posted by Harper on 19 July 2022 at 6:12 am

    Alright, so here’s the deal, we’ve just started rolling out GA4. We’ve got a bunch of UA-tags all set up in GTM. I’ve gone ahead and added a GA4 tag with the GA4 measurement-id in GTM, and it seems like GA4 is picking up some of our data, which is pretty nifty!

    But here’s where I’m scratching my head a bit: do I need to go in and manually change every single ‘Google Analytics: Universal Analytics’ UA-tag to a ‘Google Analytics: GA4-Event’?

    Google Analytics points me towards their migration assistant, but it’s looking a bit more complicated than I expected. We’re juggling more than 20 UA-Tags here. Is the game plan really to manually update each one to GA4? Seems like quite the project, huh?

    Scarlett replied 1 year, 2 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • Abigail

    Member
    21 November 2022 at 10:23 am

    Oh yes, you’re on the money – you’ll need to fill up GA4 with new event tags for all the data you want to continue tracking. The migration assistant isn’t flawless, and many folks think it’s simpler to start clean on GA4.

    But don’t fret! This fresh start could be a blessing in disguise. During your Universal Analytics tenure, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve accumulated extra baggage, such as unused tags. Now’s your chance to tidy up your operation, making sure each tag you set up in GA4 is pulling its weight and earning its keep!

  • Scarlett

    Member
    22 January 2023 at 4:36 pm

    Yes, your understanding is correct. The process of migrating from Universal Analytics (UA) to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) does involve manually updating each tag from UA to GA4 in Google Tag Manager (GTM). This is because UA and GA4 are fundamentally different systems and they do not share the same data model. The Google Analytics Migration Assistant can guide you through this process but, unfortunately, an automatic conversion tool is not provided. So, yes, it can be quite a task, especially if there are numerous tags to be converted.

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