Google Analytics 4 is quite a popular tool used by many businesses and marketing teams to track key metrics. The latest numbers show that almost 9 million websites use GA4 for their analytics. However, there are certain restrictions with this program that may prevent you from getting a complete, personalized representation of your data.
Fortunately, Looker Studio can assist you in overcoming a lot of these limitations. But is this easier said than done? Let’s find out!
Understanding Google Analytics 4 Limitations
GA4 provides powerful insights into your website traffic and customer behavior. It’s no surprise that it owns over 29% of the web analytics market. However, it does come with some limitations you'll want to be aware of:
Limited historical data
GA4 only collects data from the date you install the tracking code. You won't have access to historical data prior to implementation. To get a complete view of your traffic trends, you'll need to combine GA4 data with your Universal Analytics (UA) data.
Sampling occurs at lower traffic volumes
For websites with fewer than 500,000 sessions per month, GA4 uses data sampling. This can reduce report accuracy and make some metrics unreliable at lower traffic levels. Using a tool like Looker Studio in conjunction with GA4 allows you to see your full, unsampled data.
Fewer standard reports
GA4 currently offers fewer out-of-the-box reports compared to UA. While the reports that are available provide more detail, you may need an additional tool to generate certain custom reports. Looker Studio gives you the flexibility to build any report or dashboard with your data.
Limited segmentation
GA4's segmentation capabilities are currently more limited than UA's. Looker Studio provides robust segmentation to help you gain valuable insights from your customer attributes, traffic sources, location, device types, and more.
How Looker Studio Complements Google Analytics 4?
Looker Studio is an intuitive data analytics platform that seamlessly integrates with GA4. Some of the key ways Looker enhances your Google Analytics experience include:
Custom Dashboards
Looker lets you create customized data dashboards that provide a visual summary of your GA4 metrics. You can choose from a variety of graph types to gain actionable insights at a glance.
Advanced Segmentation
Looker's segmentation features allow you to slice and dice your GA4 data in powerful ways. Create segments based on traffic source, location, device, and hundreds of other dimensions to gain a deeper understanding of your users and their behavior.
Predictive Analytics
Looker uses machine learning to uncover trends in your historical GA4 data and predict future outcomes. See forecasts for metrics like pageviews, revenue, and conversions so you can make data-driven decisions to optimize your site's performance.
Flexible Data Modeling
Looker provides full control over how your GA4 data is organized and connected. Create customized data models that join data from GA4 with other sources like your CRM or financial systems for a complete picture of how your marketing and business strategies are impacting key outcomes.
Key Features of Looker Studio for Enhanced Analytics
Looker Studio provides powerful features that enhance your Google Analytics 4 data.
Data Blending
One of the biggest limitations of Google Analytics 4 is that the data is siloed within the platform. Looker Studio overcomes this by allowing you to blend your data with other data sources like a CRM system, marketing automation platform, or web analytics tool. This gives you a more complete view of your customers and business.
Granular Access Control
Looker Studio provides granular access control and permissions. You can set permissions based on roles like Executives, Marketing, Sales, etc. This ensures that users only see the data that is relevant and meaningful to them. Permissions are also set at the dashboard, visualization, and data dimension levels.
Scheduled Reports
With Looker Studio, you can schedule reports to be automatically delivered to stakeholders on a recurring basis. This is useful for executives or clients who want to receive a weekly or monthly report with key metrics and insights. The reports can include visualizations, tables, descriptions, and annotations.
Development Platform
For more technical users, Looker Studio provides a development platform to build custom applications, visualizations, and models on top of your data. This includes options like LookML, Looker Blocks, and the Looker API. The platform is flexible enough for any level of developer.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, while Google Analytics 4 has some limitations for data exploration and visualization, Looker Studio overcomes many of these shortcomings. So, for any business relying on GA4, Looker Studio is a must-have tool to go alongside it. And with its affordable pricing, you have nothing to lose by giving it a try.
Call-to-Action
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