What has Changed in GA4 in 2024? 

A look at recent updates to the analytics platform. 

GA4 is in full force 

We have been following the evolution of Google Analytics 4 since 2022 and continue to provide updates to keep our Customers informed on changes to this vital marketing tool. In this blog, we recap releases from the past six months, including some highly requested features, reports, and capabilities, to provide insight into the changes and possible uses for your analytics strategies. 

Updates to attribution models and conversion rate 

In March, Google changed the name of conversions not tied to Google Ads to “Key Events.” The older label “Events” will continue to measure specific interactions on your website, but the more specified or important events can now be marked as “Key Events.” To avoid confusion, “Conversions” are now tied to Google Ad activity and reported in that platform and under the Advertising section of GA4.  

You can now find “User Key Event Rate” and “Session Key Event Rate” metrics in the default User Acquisition and Traffic Acquisition reports, which will automatically calculate these percentages for you:  

• User Key Event Rate in the User Acquisition Report: Users who took a desired action divided by the total number of users.  
• Session Key Event Rate in the Traffic Acquisition Report: The number of key events divided by the total number of sessions. 

These offer new percentage metrics to track, narrowing down desired actions against overall actions. 

In June, the attribution models were improved to fix the accuracy of credit given to conversions, or attribution, for paid search campaigns. Conversions attributed to paid search were sometimes incorrectly attributed to organic search, most commonly for single-page sessions. With this update, GA4 adjusted how they credit conversions to ensure campaign information is accurately captured on the first event of each page.  

As reporting available in Google Ads and GA4 evolves and overlaps, information like conversions versus lead activity can be clarified in LOOP Analytics. Your strategy should consider the types of conversions that generate quality leads. LOOP provides that information to bridge the gap between GA4, Google Ads, and leads in order to spot what’s working. 

Updates to comparisons feature and new toggle capabilities 

In May, a high-demand capability for comparisons was released, and it works like Univeral Analytics’ “Segments”—allowing you to view timeframes side-by-side in a report filtered by a specific parameter. Previously, a comparison could not be saved and users had to re-create the report every time. The latest update-to-comparisons includes the ability to save, and this change is gradually rolling out to all users. The default comparisons or parameters you can choose from include: 

• Paid Traffic  
• Organic Traffic 
• Direct Traffic 
• Referral Traffic 
• Email Traffic 
• Mobile Traffic 
• Desktop Traffic 
• Tablet Traffic 

The Analytics Team at TopSpot was thrilled about this addition as it was one common request asked of our Google partners.  

You can apply multiple comparisons or create custom comparisons, which can be tricky. Your TopSpot Team can help you explore those possibilities. Examples of possible custom comparisons include blog traffic, shop traffic, excluding referral spam, or specific countries. 

GA4 added the ability to toggle between day, week, and month in reports covering timeframes. You can click on the “Day” dropdown to switch between day, week, or month durations and use this along with the previous comparisons feature. Now users can view time durations and compare them more easily. 

New user metrics  

“Active Users” counts the prospective customers who have an engaged session across mobile or desktop experiences, a separate metric from “Total Users,” which is still available, and reports on total visits. A user who triggers a “first_visit” event but leaves within 10 seconds will not be counted as an active user. This metric better defines engaged users, who are more likely to become leads. Keeping track of content bringing in more engaged users can inform optimizations and net-new strategies. 

Additional GA4 updates 

GA4 has made sharing and receiving reports easier. In May, GA4 added functionality allowing those with administrator-level access to send standard or custom reports by email instantly. You can contact your Account Team to get certain reports emailed to your inbox outside your monthly reporting cadence.

Also, you can now export to Google Sheets and download reports as a PDF or CSV files to share information across Team Members. While you can see a list of all the updates made this year, here are a few more highlights: 

• Trend Change Detection: Previously, the tool tracked sudden peaks and dips in data, but this new feature tracks subtle changes over a period of time to get an idea of overall trends. This populates in the “Insights” section. 
• Tag Diagnostics: A new tool to help you find and fix issues with your website’s tags.  
• Advertising Segments in GA4: You can now see the number of users eligible for remarketing and ad personalization in Google Ads. The GA4 advertising segments differ but are synonymous with audience segments in the Google Ads Audience Manager. 

What’s your takeaway? 

Google will continue to update GA4 by adding high-demand features and other capabilities to meet the needs of the ever-changing digital marketing space. That’s why we are committed to keeping our Customers up-to-speed on updates that could affect your analytics or open up new data sources that can inform your strategies.  

Have a question about these updates? If you are a TopSpot/OuterBox partner, your Account Manager or Customer Relationship Team can assist you in getting the answers and data you need. Not a partner? Contact us to learn more about the latest in GA4.