Google Analytics 4 (GA4) for Hotels
The current version of Google Analytics, called Universal Analytics (UA), is being replaced by Google Analytics 4 (GA4) on the 1st of July 2023. This means that your Universal Analytics accounts will stop tracking data from this date.
GA4 is built on a different architecture to UA and therefore needs a lot of the tracking to be set up again. In order to smoothly transition from using UA to GA4 you will need to do a few things:
1. Migrate your UA account to GA4 and set up all your required tracking before July 2023.
2. Connect GA4 to Google BigQuery (free) to store your data permanently.
3. Recommended: Use a data warehouse like Google BigQuery to store current UA data (paid) for year over year comparison.
The importance of user data in hospitality
The data that Google Analytics provides is crucial for analysis of your website and the revenue produced form marketing efforts.
For hotels and businesses where the majority of bookings are online, being able to see what is causing customers to book is super important.
As Google Analytics data is so useful, it is important to set up and test your GA4 account before UA is sunset on July the 1st 2023. This will ensure that you do not have a gap in your website data while you set up GA4.
Comparing metrics
As GA4 works differently to UA, some of the metrics will vary slightly in value. This is completely normal and not something to worry about when comparing data from UA and GA4.
UPGRADE PACKAGES
Starting at £995, we have different options for all hospitality businesses.
The Essential Set Up is for you if you need to track the engagement levels of your online customers and the success of your website.
The Ecommerce Set Up is for you if you need to track all the essential engagement data as well as all the purchases made through your website's booking engine.
Custom Event Tracking is for you if you need additional parts of your website tracked like specific buttons, forms or other user actions in addition to all the above.