I know there has been a lot of negative commentary about GA4, the release process was almost cruel, but when you consider the entire platform from GA4 to GCP, it is an impressive platform, and you can run it at no cost. For anyone looking to learn and gain experience on a commercial platform for no cost, it can’t be beat.
Immediate gratification is the expectation today. I still remember needing to wait weeks or months after mailing in an order, and I’m a child of the 80s. Today people need it in all forms from likes and video games, same goes for answers to their technical questions.
With an entirely new set of analytics concepts for millions (I’m afraid to look up the actual number of unique GA users) of users who were accustomed to using Universal Analytics that weren’t familiar with the underlying data and web architecture, the change to GA4 or any other platform was going to be frustrating without the right resources.
The fact it was against everyone’s will didn’t help, fortunate for myself I’m an early adopter thanks to following amazing people like Simo Ahava and the discussions that his content creates. He’s been posting about GA4 since the first announcements and his content inspired me to start getting practice in early.
Back to the topic, the free tiers of GCP allow you to run the newest tech for server side tagging containers, using SQL to dig into the detailed data in BigQuery, and then wrap it all up in a dashboard built in Looker Studio. Anyone can build an analytics data pipeline in a matter of hours with little to no full stack knowledge, nevermind data modeling or warehousing experience.
Yes, the documentation could be better in many cases, and Google may have rushed it out. The panic in migrating without all the APIs built out for automation wasn’t a pleasant thought, but for many it’s over now. If not, just keep chugging along and you’ll get there soon! You can always reach out if you need some professional services to help your organization or project!
