In this month’s digital marketing industry updates, we’re tackling common questions about understanding GA4 data, new guidelines from Google for Merchant Center trust signals, and platform updates in Google Ads, Microsoft, and LinkedIn. Happy August!
Now that people have completely switched from Universal Analytics to GA4, we are noticing that some questions tend to come up a lot. Here are a few of the most common questions and answers:
Also asked, “should I report on Active users or Total users?”
The ‘Users’ metric you see in GA4 reports is actually Active users, so if you are building a Looker Studio dashboard or GA4 Exploration, pick Active users. Note that Google sets a really low bar for “Active”. It is defined as a user that is new to the site or has at least one millisecond of engagement time. Since Users in Universal Analytics is more equivalent to Total Users in GA4, you may notice fewer ‘Users’ in GA4 since not all users are active.
This question is pretty common, but we’ve also been getting questions about a wide variety of other discrepancies between Universal Analytics and GA4. For an overview of discrepancies, check out this blog post: Understanding GA4 and UA discrepancies.
Also asked, “where did Average Session Duration go?” and “what does engagement mean?”
One of my favorite things about GA4 is its ability to measure engagement. GA4 actually keeps track of when a user is on a tab and interacting, versus just has the tab open while they are doing something else. When the user is looking at the tab (the tab is “in focus” in browser parlance), they count as engaged. In contrast, Universal Analytics counted session duration as the timestamp of the last interaction minus the timestamp of the first interaction. Since the standard Universal Analytics implementation only measured page views, many sessions counted as zero-second duration, since only one interaction occurred. On the other hand, some users would leave a tab open while they did other things, then come back and engage, inflating session duration for those users.
In comparison, GA4 measures a much wider variety of interactions out of the box, including whether or not the browser tab is in focus, providing a much more accurate view of how much time users are spending on a site. So hands down, Average engagement time per session is more meaningful than Average session duration, but the latter is also a lot more accurate than it was in Universal Analytics. For more specifics on how engagement is measured, check out our video GA4 Engagement Metrics: Session Duration, Average Engagement Time, & More.
Google actually got rid of Average session duration when they first introduced GA4, but eventually added it back in. You won’t find it in standard reports, but it is available in Explorations and Looker Studio. You can compare it to Average engagement time per session in an Exploration. If you find that Average session duration is a lot longer, you know that users are likely to leave your site open while they do other stuff. From the data I’m seeing, this is actually very common behavior.
Also asked, “Why am I not seeing any traffic for [source x] / [medium y]?” and “Why can’t I see any data for event such_and_such”.
This one is beastly, and unfortunately very common, especially if you have Google Signals enabled. I was working with a client last week, and the Pages and screens report was only showing traffic for about 15% of the pages that were actually getting views. If you are experiencing something similar, the cause is likely thresholding. Google ostensibly introduced thresholding to protect user privacy, but the impact can be devastating. When thresholding is applied, they just plain don’t show you all of the data, so you could be missing metrics for key pages, traffic sources, or any other reporting dimension.
Luckily, there is a simple fix that almost completely solves the problem. Analytics guru Julius Federovicius describes it in his article Thresholding in GA4, but here is the short version:
You should now see all of your data in most reports. You may still notice the dreaded ‘Thresholding applied’ icon in reports that include demographic data, but for the most part it should go away.
Note that changing the reporting identity does not change underlying data, so you can switch it back and forth to test the impact of the change.
Also asked, “Does the Landing page report attribute conversions to landing pages?” and “Does the Landing page report even work?”
The Landing Page report in Universal Analytics was on many people’s short list of favorite reports. If you are one of those people, the Landing page report in GA4 is likely a bit of a disappointment. For many of the GA4 properties I’ve worked on, the first row in the report is (not set), and for some the majority of conversions show up in that row. What gives?
I’ve identified three main causes for activity showing up in the (not set) row:
If none of this makes sense to you, not to worry – reach out and we can have a look and tell you which issues are affecting your report. If your property is only affected by the third bullet above, conversions should be accurately attributed to landing pages and I think it’s fine to ignore the (not set) row and proceed with analyzing landing page performance. If your property is affected by one or both of the first two bullets, the report may be pretty much useless for you.
Google is moving to allowing only certified click-trackers. Click trackers are third-party services which track Google Ad clicks, used for fraud monitoring or advanced analytics. Many existing click trackers have been certified and can continue to be used by advertisers. And Google will offer a grace period: any existing uses of click trackers, even if not on the approved list, can continue for the time being.
The Performance Max ad type continues to get love, in the way of expanded functionality on Google, and the availability of Performance Max in an open beta in Microsoft ads.
Google is now advocating migrating Dynamic Search Ads and Display campaigns to Performance Max, with additional features to support these ads. They will offer the ability to specify landing page URLs to include or exclude in advertising.
Microsoft announced an open beta for Performance Max ads, and ad format they’ve been testing for the last year that offers parity with Google’s functionality. This is an upgrade to what was accessible to most advertisers, where Google Performance Max could be imported, but were converted to smart shopping or local inventory ads.
Performance Max ads on both platforms are designed to simplify tasks for marketers, while offering expanded audience reach and better ROI.
LinkedIn is shifting feed prioritization in several algorithm updates. First, the focus is shifting to business and marketing topics rather than personal updates. The social platform aims to put more emphasis on expert knowledge and advice.
Second, the platform will prioritize feed content by 1st-degree connections. Posts from your closest connections will appear first on your LinkedIn feed. This is because you are more likely to engage with the content they share on their profiles.
Google has updated their guidelines on how building trust can help ensure websites have their organic and paid products featured on the search results. Here is some of the primary criteria for building trust:
Failing to adhere to these trust guidelines may violate Google’s misrepresentation policy and cause products from your feed to not be featured for organic or paid listings. The closer you follow these guidelines, the more likely Google will see your site as a trustworthy marketplace for users to make purchases. Review your site and assess how well you’re following this trust criteria.
Site names were introduced for subdomains on mobile devices in May 2023, but are now available for subdomains on all devices for English, French, German, and Japanese languages.
Google has also updated the criteria to better ensure that site names appear properly on search results:
Making sure your site is featuring the correct site map is important in keeping branding consistent. Search for your company name and see if the correct site name is populating. If not, check to see if your site is crawlable, and has the correct schema implemented.
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