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Google Analytics Updates 2024: Everything You Need to Know

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Google Analytics Chart

Navigating the evolving digital analytics landscape can be challenging for marketing leaders and business executives alike. In 2024, Google Analytics rolled out a series of updates and functionalities designed to enhance user experience and provide advanced data insights for strategic decision-making.

As dedicated partners in your journey towards measurable growth, O8 is here to guide you through these universal analytics updates and help you leverage them for your business’s success.

Primary Channel Group (Feb 28, 2024)

A new default reporting channel, the Primary Channel Group, has been added. This editable channel group allows you to customize how you view your channel data reports historically, offering flexibility in reporting and analysis that adapts to your evolving business requirements.

GA4 Primary Channel Group Reporting

 

By staying informed and utilizing these updates, you can ensure your digital marketing strategies are built on the most current and comprehensive new data available. Learn more about how to configure your Primary Channel Group.

 

Advertising Section Updates (Feb 22, 2024)

The Advertising section in the new Google Analytics is getting an overhaul. All advertising and publisher reporting will be consolidated for easier access to campaign performance. Remember to link your advertising or publisher accounts to maintain these insights.

 

Trend Change Detection & Google Signals (Feb 13, 2024)

Google Analytics introduces trend change detection, complementing anomaly detection, by identifying subtle, long-term shifts in your data trends. These insights can be pivotal in understanding the underlying movements in your market or user behavior.

Trend change in event count for "screen_view"

Event Parameter Limit Increase (Feb 9, 2024)

Google Analytics 360 now supports event parameter values up to 500 characters. This extended limit, compared to Google Analytics 4 property data collection, reporting, retention, allows for more detailed historical data collection, particularly valuable for mobile apps utilizing the Firebase SDK. Here is the breakdown: 

Feature Google Analytics 4 properties (standard) Google Analytics 4 properties under Analytics 360
Event parameters  25 per event 100 per event
User properties 25 per property 100 per property
Event-scoped custom dimensions and metrics 50 event-scoped custom dimensions per property
50 event-scoped custom metrics per property
 
125 event-scoped custom dimensions per property
125 event-scoped custom metrics per property
 
Item-scoped custom dimensions 10 per property 25 per property
Length of event parameter value 100 characters 500 characters
Conversions 30 50
Audiences 100 400
Explorations 200 created per user per property
500 shared per property
200 created per user per property
1000 shared per property
Explore sampling limits 10M events per query 1B events per query
Unsampled explorations Not available Unsampled results up to 15B events per day per property
API quotas
Most requests consume fewer than 10 tokens.
200,000 tokens per day 2M tokens per day
Data retention Up to 14 months
Options: 2, 14 months
Large and XL properties are limited to 2 months
Up to 50 months
Options: 2, 14, 26, 38, and 50 months
XL properties: 2 months
BigQuery Export Daily export: 1 M events
Streaming export: unlimited
Daily export: Billions of events
Streaming export: unlimited
Distinctly named events
There is not limit on the number of distinctly named events for web data streams.
500 per app user per day
(for app data streams)
You might see more than 500 distinctly named events if users on different app instances trigger different events.
Automatically collected events and enhanced measurement events don't count toward the limits.
2000 per app user per day
(for app data streams)
You might see more than 500 distinctly named events if users on different app instances trigger different events.
Automatically collected events and enhanced measurement events don't count toward the limits.
Data import Manual uploads: 120 uploads per day per property
Storage limit: 10 GB per property
Manual uploads: 120 uploads per day per property
Storage limit: 1 TB per property

Manual Traffic Source Dimensions and Report in Realtime (Feb 8, 2024)

Eight new traffic source dimensions have been added to Google Analytics. 

  • Manual source
  • Manual medium
  • Manual source / medium
  • Manual campaign name
  • Manual campaign ID
  • Manual term
  • Manual content
  • Manual source platform

These dimensions apply to all traffic types and sources, offering a unified view of user behaviors, page views, and cross-channel performance, which is critical for accurate new data attribution, acquisition reports, analysis, and event tracking. Learn more about the manual report. 

 

Search and Display Linking for Google Ads Subproperties (Feb 7, 2024)

Linking subproperties and roll-up properties to Search Google Ads 360 and Display & Video 360 is now possible. This integration allows for a more granular or comprehensive view of your advertising efforts, enabling precise targeting across your audience segments.

 

Play Console Recommendation (Jan 31, 2024)

Google Play apps that are not linked to your Google Analytics property will prompt a Play Console linking recommendation. Connecting these accounts lets you access valuable in-app purchases and predictive subscription metrics directly in your Google Analytics 4 reports.

Prompt to link google play account to user's android stream

In-Product Help For Beginners (Jan 30, 2024)

Google Analytics 4 now offers improved in-product help, including detailed page assistance, guided tours, and additional support channels. This instant access to admin assistance ensures you can optimize and maximize the platform's potential without delay.

Google Analytics Dashboard

 

At O8, our mission is to provide you with the actionable guidance and deep technical expertise needed to navigate these changes seamlessly. Get in touch with our analytics experts, and together, let's harness these new features to fuel your growth and enhance your digital marketing efforts. For more information about Helpful Google Content updates in 2024 and how to boost your SEO, browse our full breakdown here.


About Nate McBride

Nathan brings years of enthusiastic experience in strategic content strategy, brand consulting, and digital design to O8. His intuitive ability to understand and leverage how digital media and data influence decision-making has been critical in driving conversion and engagement growth across diverse industries and marketing channels. Nathan is also a creative problem solver, passionate storyteller, technical innovator, and proponent of O8's DIO (Digital Integrity Optimization) methodology. Outside of O8, Nathan enjoys cycling, yoga, skateboarding, reading, and writing, if he's not taking...
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