How the Property Sector can benefit from improved analysis in GA4

The current iteration of Google Analytics has been the industry standard for eight years. Other tools offer greater accuracy and improved granularity, but for some time GA has set the bar for out-of-the-box insights and its market share of global websites is unparalleled. The encroaching obsolescence of this marketing standard is therefore a moment of some considerable significance. With GA4 being developed over the coming year, now is an ideal opportunity to consider the changes the new tool offers and to reflect on the metrics that matter most, and how they will be impacted by the implementation of this new Analytics platform. With this in mind, Intergrations Analyst Claire Feeney offered a few key points on how GA4 might benefit property developers in particular.  

Improved Data Collection 

With GA4 allowing up to 25 parameters per event hit (excluding the automatically enabled ones), we move into a new world of in-depth reporting. This level of information will be more beneficial to some sectors than other, mainly providing those with a lot of product information with an extensive new way of reporting on their products/services.  

The Property Sector in particular stands to gain a lot from this improved method of data collection. With housing typically having a long-range conversion window, a lot of focus is placed on website leads and potential conversions. Under Universal Analytics we were restricted to only 3 parameters per event hit: Event Category, Event Action & Event Label, meaning the amount of product information passed into Google Analytics needed to be restricted to prevent cluttering up reports. By allowing 25 parameters per hit, GA4 gives us the ability to fully breakdown our products into all potentially significant categories, creating scope for a deeper analysis of our product’s popularity and the distribution of interest across different locations and user types.  

But what about Bounce Rate… 

The response to GA4 has been a mixed one, with some people revelling in the chance to expand their data collection, while others cry out for “essential” metrics that are lost. The loss of Bounce Rate seems to have been a particular cause for distress amongst some marketers. Personally, I find this confusing as Bounce Rate was a rather unhelpful metric at best, often leading to a confusing or incorrect view of page performance depending on how badly GTM had been implemented. As well as being vulnerable to poor GA build out, in many situations a high Bounce Rate might simply indicate how effectively and quickly a landing page can answer the user’s question or provide the information they are seeking.  

A future-focused approach to data 

Space & Time’s Insights Team are investigating how the Property Sector can get the most out of GA4’s new reporting and & analysis capabilities.  We believe the GA4 update provides significant opportunities to modernise the way we collect and use data and are committed to exploring how our clients can benefit from this.  

Visual Changes 

With GA4 still in Beta mode, the visual display of the platform is constantly changing, so don’t be alarmed if it looks slightly different to how it did before. This will continue to happen as Google perfects its reporting capabilities, meaning now is the perfect time to start exploring the different aspects of GA4. Allowing ourselves to get comfortable with the new features and layout is important so that when the eventual switch over comes (and UA becomes obsolete), we can realise the full reporting capabilities of the platform without being overwhelmed or incorrect.