Google Analytics 4 hasn’t exactly got off to the best start with marketers.
In fact, it’s getting pretty awkward – some advertisers are so disappointed with the new program that they’ve even been hosting funerals for its predecessor, Universal Analytics.
But what is it about GA4 that’s got the world of digital marketing so riled up?
We decided to ask our readers in a GA4 readiness poll to find out. Below, we’ve put together a list of the most common complaints. Let us know if you and your team can relate…
1. User interface
GA4’s user interface was hands-down the biggest issue our readers reported.
The UI was described as “slow”, “laughable” and a few other adjectives we’re opting not to publish.
Independent sales and marketing contractor, John Erikson, told us:
- “When on selecting segments/dimensions in GA4, instead of the ability in Universal to select/deselect one or more segments in a single list and click ‘apply’, you have to open customization or add comparison, click add filter, select a dimension from a long dropdown, then select dimension value from another dropdown, then apply (and you can only select one).
- “Granted it is only a few seconds difference, but when you look at many different patterns every day, it becomes frustrating to repeat those excess UI moves over and over when you used to do it faster.”
- “That same dropdown structure is used in creating/editing GA4 reports. The dropdown lists are long and it is hard to find what you are looking for. You can type in partial names and more quickly find them once you know them, but initially it is very hard to scroll through them all and find what you want.
- “Also, you can only select one so it is hard to look at multiple dimensions/values. I don’t know the answer to fixing this, but I do find it clumsy to use.”
2. Data lag
Another major concern for marketers has been the delay of same day data on GA4.
Advertisers have stressed that they need the ability to monitor performance constantly and are confused as to why the new analytics platform doesn’t appear to have this function.
