• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, March 21, 2024

Google on Thursday will roll out an update to Google Analytics 4 that standardizes conversion reporting and gives users a consistent view of advertising performance across Google Analytics and Ads.

“Standardized conversion reporting across ads and analytics was a big undertaking,” said Kamal Janardhan, senior director of product management and measurement at Google, in an exclusive interview with Media Daily News. “It was more than a year in the making, as we had to determine how to best represent events and conversions.”

Two years ago, Google announced that Analytics 4 would become its “solution of record” and since then invested in insights powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

It also worked on improving the integration with Google Ads. The changes were built by the company's developers, but supported by AI.

Conversions in Google Analytics, moving forward, will now give marketers a consistent view of advertising performance. Key events will continue to help site and app owners consistently measure the most important behavior on their websites and apps.

The update aims to improve the experience, with key events replacing what currently existed as "GA4 conversions" for behavioral analytics.

With this update, Google has standardized the way it reports conversions across Google Ads and Analytics. A conversion becomes the same whether a marketer looks at it in their Google Ads reporting tool or in a Google Analytics report.

The change addresses the differences in conversions reporting that marketers have experienced across Google Ads and Analytics, which Janardhan said has been a long-standing request from users.

Conversions in existing reports and explore modules become what Google now calls key events.

This way, marketers can define the most important customer actions for their business in Analytics, and learn what is working and what is not to improve products and experiences across websites and apps. The tool has been in preliminary testing during the past few months.

New features in the future, including additional conversion reporting and tools, will launch in the advertising section.

This update, together with the recent changes to the advertising section in Google Analytics, will create an improved view of performance.

Google initially built Analytics 4 to adapt to a privacy-first strategy. 

Support will roll out for Chrome Privacy Sandbox’s Protected Audience API in the platform during the next few weeks, allowing users to continue to reach audiences even without third-party cookies.

Janardhan also said Google will add cross-channel reporting on Google Ads conversions to Google Analytics.

She said it will give advertisers a complete view of conversion reporting and a better understanding of the of the impact from advertising, including organic and paid traffic beyond Google Ads.

Support for enhanced conversions in Google Analytics 4 will help to improve measurement accuracy.

Hashed, consented first-party user-provided data supplements existing conversion tags, providing a more accurate view of performance. These can now send seamlessly send enhanced conversions from Google Analytics 4 to Google Ads making it easier to get started. 

"Google Analytics 4 was really designed to help advertisers meet this moment and navigate beyond it," Janardhan said, in reference to the ongoing privacy and regulatory changes. "We're excited to roll out this update and continue to innovate to bring helpful features to advertisers in this critical time."