Here are famed primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall’s five epic chimpanzee discoveries, from her own institute’s website.

1. Chimpanzees make and use tools.

2. Chimpanzees hunt and eat meat.

3. Waging war is not only human.

4. Chimpanzees have strong infant/mother bonds.

5. Compassion runs deep.

Some of these may sound like common knowledge, but at their time of discovery and confirmation, they were anything but. These represent the type of knowledge that stems from intense focus that, in her case, has carried on for almost 70 years.

Applying this to business and this blog post’s theme, allow a repeat. Knowledge, from intense focus, is what you can gain about your business, your website, and most importantly, your customers. Best of all, it’s not even you that has to do the intense focusing.

But it is a tool, one chimps haven’t proven the ability to build just yet. That tool is Google Analytics, and it is as important to a business as a branch is to a chimp looking to go fishing.

Let’s explore the top 5 reasons why.

1. Completeness of the Customer Journey

Universal Analytics provided insight into the customer lifecycle, it was delivered in more of a segmented, piece-by-piece format. It took some kind of calculus to see the whole journey.

In GA4, that whole customer journey is practically front and center. Utilizing event tracking, you gain a more detailed analysis of anywhere the audience is engaging, or dropping out, from conversion rates to bounce rates. Categorically speaking, there are four types of events on which GA4 serves you intel:

• Automatically Collected Events – Collected by default, these include ad clicks, first visits, or first engagement with your app, and other basic interactions.

• Enhanced Measurement Events – These go a bit deeper, covering video engagement, outbound links, and internal searches within your website. Like the ACEs above, these are collected by default.

• Recommended Events – These offer a glimpse into Google Analytics’ continued advancements. The software can recommend events based on different types of websites. Hyper-personalized, it’s a tremendous way to ensure you’re looking at the type of data you need to be, to make informed decisions going forward. You will have to manually enact them, but Google’s instructions make it less daunting than you may think.

• Custom Events – If all else fails, build what you desire. Whatever you’re gleaning from your reports, odds are it can be tracked in the future. 
  

2. Exporting Important Data Gets Cheaper

BigQuery is a big deal. It’s effectively a data warehouse. Now, back in the UA days, there was a cost to exporting data. You’d have to upgrade to Google Analytics 360 to export raw data to BigQuery. Now, you can export data at will and free of charge thanks to Google Cloud (though, there are limits of 1TB for querying, and 10GB of storage). This exporting and storage is instrumental in data analyses, and for visual aids depicting your successes and failures. It becomes a two-fold success, in that your reports can enhance this data, and the data in turn will enhance your reports.

3. Attribution & Models

Attribution “assigns credit for conversions to different ads, clicks, and factors along a user's path to completing a conversion”. You’ve got three types of attribution models available in the Attribution reports. You can read the in-depth abilities of each, but here they are:

• Cross-channel rules-based models - Here, direct traffic is ignored.

• Ads-preferred rules-based models

• Data-driven attribution

Attribution is imperative because it hones in on the source of truth. Jane Goodall knew that to study behavior was to locate the absolute core of its “why?”, and getting the deepest “why” is a goldmine in business.

4. Improve SEO

It doesn’t matter how amazing your product is, how innovative your service is. It doesn’t matter if you have unmatched customer service, or the best bargains in town.

If no one knows about you, you won’t sell. And that speaks to the wild importance of search engine optimization.

Thanks to GA4s expanded role into viewing data page-by-page, you can deduce what’s working in terms of keywords and content, and what’s not. This is also an instance where pairing with Google Search Console would be wise.

5. Avoiding Competitive Disadvantage

No, I’m not trying to be cute and wordy by avoiding saying “competitive advantage”. If you use Google Analytics, especially in a casual, once-a-month-manner, you don’t get much of an advantage. Why?

Google Analytics isn’t just popular; it’s the gold standard. It is used by 55.49% of all websites, businesses and non-businesses alike. Passing on Google Analytics, particularly if you’re in a hyper-competitive field, is bringing a plastic spoon to a sword fight.

That said, there is no doubt that the vast majority of those GA4 “users” are not as dedicated as they should be. That is where you can pounce. With GA4 mountainous evolution comes the potential for confusion, sure. But it also equates to capacity for outsmarting and outanalyzing, if you know how to wield the tool properly. Some standout guides for GA4 include those from Search Engine Journal, and if you’re open to taking on the more technical, Google itself.

Iliad Media Group Loves Data

No, really. In fact we’re a bit nerdy about it. GA4 is just the tip of our data iceberg to bring great success to our beloved local businesses. Creating an epic 1-2 punch between the top radio stations in Boise that we own, and an absurdly creative digital team, has brought a sales boom that many of our clients couldn’t even imagine a year or two ago.

And we’d love to help your business achieve the same thing. So if you want to be heard on the radio and found online with stories that make customers eager to buy, let’s chat.