In this conversation, Kevin Adams, from Predictive Online Marketing, and Julie Jones, the president of DFWSEM, discuss Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and its significant changes for marketers. Julie highlights that GA4 isn’t just an upgrade but a completely new product, emphasizing how GA4 provides more detailed customer journey insights while also introducing more opportunities for data misinterpretation. A specific issue she points out is case sensitivity in filters, which can lead to incomplete data if not handled correctly. Moreover, she discusses the impact of GA4’s enhanced customization features, including custom dimensions, metrics, and event tracking, and how these elements can lead to highly segmented or “cardinalized” data that makes consistent reporting challenging without tools like BigQuery.

Julie also delves into the new predictive capabilities of GA4, such as the ability to forecast purchase probability within seven days, which can be leveraged to optimize marketing campaigns in real-time. However, she mentions that this functionality is currently limited to e-commerce events and requires a substantial volume of conversions to activate. They also touch on broader issues like the increasing focus on privacy, AI’s growing role in data analysis, and the decline of granular user data due to privacy restrictions. Both Julie and Kevin agree that while GA4 offers more advanced analytics, it requires marketers to be much more meticulous with their filters and data interpretation to avoid drawing incorrect conclusions.