Google Analytics 4 property

Google Analytics 4 (formerly known as “App + Web) is a new kind of property , with different reports than what you're used to seeing in Universal Analytics properties.

One advantage of a Google Analytics 4 property is that you can use it for a website, an app, or both a website and app together.

Universal Analytics properties only support websites.

To help you get better ROI from your marketing for the long term, we're creating a new, more intelligent Google Analytics that builds on the foundation of the App + Web property we introduced in beta last year.

The new Google Analytics will give you the essential insights you need to be ready for what's next.

Introducing the new Google Analytics

Google Analytics 4

A Google Analytics 4 property represents an app and/or website. For example, you might have a game app that you sell via Google Play and App Store, and you might have a marketing website for that app. You can create a property that represents just the app or the app and website.

When you use a property to represent an app, it should represent a single logical application, like a single game. That single logical application can be the same game on different platforms (eg, Android and iOS).

Google Analytics 4 properties use the concept of separate data streams (see below) for the customer touchpoints that send data to the property.

When you click Upgrade to GA4 , you create a Google Analytics 4 property that collects data alongside your existing Universal Analytics property. Your Universal Analytics property is left unchanged and continues to collect data -- you can always access it via the property selector or Admin screen .

The upgrade process does not backfill your new GA4 property with historical data. Your GA4 property only collects data going forward. To see historical data, use your Universal Analytics property.

After upgrading, data will flow into both your Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 properties. Your two properties are now "linked". Because they are linked, you can use Setup Assistant to migrate configurations from your Universal Analytics property to your Google Analytics 4 property .

Events are the building blocks of data in your Google Analytics 4 property. For example, when someone views one of your website pages, a page_view event is collected. The page_view event is one of several events automatically collected via enhanced measurement . If the Upgrade to GA4 wizard used your existing tagging, it automatically enabled enhanced measurement.

Google Analytics 4 properties don't have views, they have data streams. A data stream can be a web data stream, an iOS data stream, or an Android data stream.

Google Analytics 4 properties don't have goals. To track conversions, you mark an event type as a conversion . Every time that event occurs, a conversion is registered.

Set up data collection for an app

To start collecting basic app-usage data, add the Firebase SDK to your app

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Android

Once you've implemented the SDK for your app ( iOS | Android ) or added the Analytics tag to your website, Analytics starts sending data to your property within minutes (usually 10-15 minutes).

To confirm that your property is receiving data, check the Realtime report. If you've set up your measurement code correctly, the Users right now card should refresh about every 15 seconds with a new count of users.

It takes 24-48 hours for Analytics to process the data for the other reports.

To see the app reports (whether in Google Analytics or the Firebase console), you need to use the Firebase SDK in your app. The Firebase SDK collects basic app-usage data for you automatically, without the need to write any additional code. You can understand basic interactions such as: how many times your app was opened, how often in-app purchases were made, and how many users were active during a certain period of time. You can also see user demographics and interests.

To use the latest generation of app reporting in Google Analytics, you need to install the Firebase SDK.