Why Should You Make the Switch to Google Analytics 4?

Let’s start with the basics.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics may sound intimidating and overwhelming, but it’s worth it and a helpful tool in your toolbox.

This data-collecting service provides statistics and is an essential search engine optimization and marketing tool. The software is used to track website performance and collect visitor insights.

It helps organizations determine the top sources of user traffic, gauge the success of their marketing activities and campaigns, track goal completions, discover patterns and trends in user engagement, and get other visitor information, such as demographics.

What are Universal Analytics (UA) and Google Analytics 4 (GA4)?

Why is Google Analytics forcing the switch?

In 2012, during a much simpler time, Google introduced Universal Analytics. Even though it doesn’t seem that long ago, the only way you could measure data was on a desktop and with cookies. Unfortunately, these are not the cookies you eat.

They collect data to provide a more personalized experience for visitors. There are two different types: first-party and third-party cookies. Google recently announced the elimination of third-party cookies, causing companies to adjust.

The old method of measuring data from cookies is quickly becoming obsolete. Conversely, Google built the new Google Analytics 4 to operate across platforms, not rely only on cookies, and use an event-based data model to deliver user-friendly measurements.

Event-based data tracks interactions between users and your website. An event is any action that occurs within a digital touchpoint, such as a mobile app, email, CRM, or webpage. User attributes such as location, device, language, mobile number, etc., are also recorded.

Google Analytics 4 also provides a lot of significant new improvements while making the service more user-friendly.

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Improvements include:

Increasing privacy protection and control.
Tracking both websites and apps is all in the same place.
Tracking primary events automatically, such as scrolling, outbound link clicks, document clicks, and website searches.
Improving visualization of the consumer’s journey and a deeper understanding of how users navigate your website.
Exporting complex raw data for free to BigQuery, a fully managed enterprise data warehouse that helps you manage and analyze your data with built-in features like machine learning, geospatial analysis, and business intelligence.
Reviewing your entire tracking setup to ensure you achieve your overall goals.

How soon do you need to make the switch for your business?

As of July 1, 2023, standard Universal Analytics software will no longer process data. You can access previously processed data in the standard software for at least six months. However, recent data will only flow into the new software. If you don’t have a previously created account, you have nothing to worry about; new accounts will open using the newly updated software.

Even though Google Analytics 4 is supposed to be more user-friendly, it has a learning curve for new users. The setup is quite different, and it introduces new terminology and features to help you better understand your target audience and increase your overall sales. Regarding your monthly Google ad reports, you will still receive those, but they will look slightly different.

What if you need help transferring over or if you have further questions?

Google Analytics 4 could provide the insight you need to be one step ahead of your competition. VIA Marketing will help ensure smooth, effortless transitions and transfers the latest marketing analytic tools to clients.

Even if you don’t currently use any analytic tool, consider investing in the software to ensure you get all the benefits you have yet to experience. Let us help keep your business in pace with technology.

February 7, 2023October 20, 2023

reCAPTCHA Updates are Contributing to Contact Form Problems and Websites Taking Too Long to Load.

Here’s what helps.

First, what is a reCAPTCHA?

Google reCAPTCHA is a free Google tool that protects website forms from malicious users and spam. It helps determine whether the person completing your form is a human or a robot.

Why does it deny some website submissions?

Generally, it takes time for the reCAPTCHA API to load and verify your site’s account. APIs allow two software components to talk with each other using a set of definitions and protocols. reCAPTCHA API keeps track and categorizes users as either high-risk or low-risk and later stores that information for analysis.

Whether your form works may depend on whether reCAPTCHA is wholly loaded; an entire library needs to load to check the users of your website forms. Here at VIA, load times are improved by delaying the release of the reCAPTCHA scripts until they are needed. In other words, when the user clicks on a form field, the reCAPTCHA verification is only then called.

Why are load times beneficial?

For search engine optimization. Many search engines prioritize sites with fast load times as part of good UX (user experience).
To close the sale. Say you run an e-commerce site, and a customer in a hurry comes to the site to buy something. They go to your site only to be greeted with a white screen for five seconds. Of course, they give up and decide to purchase somewhere else. In 6 seconds, the page would have loaded, and you would have made that sale.

It’s easy to see why loading reCAPTCHA scripts on an as-needed basis is so important. Making sure your forms work well is crucial to security, user experience, and brand reputation.

What should you do when the form denies your customer?

One of your site users fills out your contact form wanting to contact you. They then press submit on their form. Darn… An error message shows through to give you a clue.

There are three reasons your customer could face a denial.

Wrong codes. The programmer may have entered the wrong codes when setting up your reCAPTCHA. Google uses a site key code and a secret key code. These codes make sure Google is connecting correctly and securely. If the site key is wrong, the reCAPTCHA symbol in the bottom right will show the error message: “Invalid site key.” If the “Secret key code” is incorrect, you will not get an error message. Let the Web Developer of your marketing company know, and they’ll get it fixed for you.

The user is suspicious. When reRECAPTCHA thinks someone is too suspicious, you will get an error message saying the reCAPTCHA standards are not met. Have your customer sign into their Google account and try again. Spam bots don’t have Google accounts, so signing in increases the likelihood their message will be accepted. Or ask them to use an Incognito window on their browser.
Duplicate message error. This means they probably struggled with the submission and tried to submit the exact text more than once. The system sees this as an action a Bot would use and denies the user in its mission to prevent spam. Ask your customer to change their message a little and try to submit it again.

Please let us know if you have questions or need help securing your reCAPTCHA in our contact form.

Sources:

Google on Recaptcha

Detailed Code implementation

Page Load Speed and SEO

July 8, 2013

VIA Idea #29: Strategic outbound marketing has a place in your marketing plan

It seems that lately we’ve been advising a lot of our clients to add more inbound (pull) marketing to their marketing budget. This fact triggered a discussion among our staff about the shift in marketing strategies. What percentages should a business spend for each inbound and outbound tactic?

Although it’s less dominant than in years past, traditional (also referred to as outbound or push) advertising remains a strong component for a lot of industries. It isn’t going away anytime soon. Think about Super Bowl ads and, on a more local level, all those fireworks store billboards along the expressway. But you don’t own a major brewery and your name isn’t Kaplan Fireworks. So does outbound advertising still work for your business? The answer in many cases is still “Yes.”

Ideally, your marketing budget and strategies should in part be based in relation to what percentage others in your industry are spending. If you’re the only car dealer for miles around, you likely don’t need to do much advertising. But if you’ve got a half-dozen competitors up and down the street, you’re going to need to work hard to keep and grow your customer base. The same is true for professional services: the more competition, the more you need to spend on advertising and marketing.

Whenever you talk about push marketing, you also want to consider reach and frequency. Reach refers to the number or percentage of different homes or people exposed at least once to an advertising message over a specific period of time. Frequency is the number of times that a household or person is exposed to the same message during the same period of time. Reach without Frequency is ineffective. For example, it’s better to place a smaller ad in a publication several times than a large ad just once or mail a postcard to 500 homes four times than to mail 2,000 postcards once.

The shopping habits of your customers are more factors to consider. Are they reading the local newspaper, clipping coupons and looking for services in the phone book…or do they seldom or never use these media, instead opting to find recommendations on their Facebook feeds or via Google reviews?

Before making marketing decisions, it’s wise to think through your goals and define your audiences:

Who are we trying to reach?
Why do they need our products or services?
Are we trying to build brand recognition or change customer behavior?
Are we trying to accomplish a sale or engaging future buyers?
What message, information or offer would entice them to act?
Can we offer a special or coupon?
How will we measure response from each tactic?

After answering these questions, you should have a clearer picture of how to move forward. If you want more advice, we’ve got access to market reports and can share other information and insights that will help you make informed advertising and marketing decisions.

Delivering Big picture results since 1987…

Tag: VIA Idea