There are many steps to making your migration from Universal Analytics to GA4 a success and a big one is to quality check (QA) your data. In this blog we’ll walk you through the process and provide you with a free templates that you can use with your own data.
Table of Contents
- What is a Google Analytics migration?
- How do I create a GA4 property?
- Why do I need to QA my data before making GA4 my source of truth?
- How do I QA my GA4 data?
- Free Google Analytics data check templates
What is a Google Analytics migration?
Universal Analytics is the version of Google Analytics that you’re more-than-likely using as your source of truth when it comes to your website data. Unfortunately all Universal Analytics properties will cease to function after July 2023. This means that whether you like it or not, you’re going to need to migrate over to GA4. The sooner you make GA4 your new source of truth the better off you’ll be – trust me.
How Do I Create a GA4 property?
This will require a lot of planning and a bit of time to setup. You can get started by checking out our blog on the Definitive Guide To Setting Up GA4.
Why do I need to QA my data before making GA4 my source of truth?
Before you make the big switch over to GA4, our recommendation is to check the parity between Universal Analytics and GA4. The two properties aren’t going to be a 1-to-1 match but they should be close enough in range and follow a similar pattern. If you find the two properties have wildly different data and high day-to-day variance then something’s up. You’ll want to fix that before making GA4 your source of truth.
Additionally, there might be tracking that was setup in Universal Analytics that didn’t make it to GA4 for whatever reason. Again, you’ll want to check that and make sure you get all the main metrics tracking consistently before making the switch.
How do I QA my GA4 data?
First, you’ll want to make sure you have enough data in both Universal Analytics and GA4. We recommend having 30 days worth of data for your QA data check. Second, you’ll want to pull data from your Universal Analytics property and GA4 property.
Pulling Universal Analytics data
We recommend making a custom report that shows you a breakdown of your main metrics by day. At a minimum you should look at sessions and pageviews. You can access our free GA template to easily complete this data pull. Once you have this data you can export it to Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.
Pulling GA4 data
We recommend creating an exploration that shows a breakdown of the same metrics you pulled from Universal Analytics. Again, this should be broken our by day and make sure your exploration is set to the same time period as you used for your Universal Analytics data pull. You can use our easy-to-follow free GA4 instructions to complete this task. Once you have this data you can export it to Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.
Comparing Universal Analytics data to GA4
With your data exports you can move them into a single file. You’ll want to setup your sheet to have a column with the date, a column with Universal Analytics data for a particular metric, a column with GA4 data for the same metric, and then repeat with every single metric. Essentially each metric will be represented twice – once with Universal Analytics data and another with GA4 data. Now, you can create a line graph which will show you if there is parity between your GA data.
Here you can see a report we created where we compared sessions reported in Universal Analytics compared to GA4. While Universal Analytics reported higher numbers, it was consistently within the same margin each day. Additionally, the trend was similar among the Google Analytics properties. With this we can feel confident to make the switch to GA4 being the source of truth when it comes to sessions.
Free Google Analytics data check templates
We love supporting our Google Analytics community. For this reason we created Google Analytics templates with step-by-step instructions to easily quality check your data. Enter your email below to get these amazing free templates.
Written by Mikhail Cherniss
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