• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 26, 2024

Google has created new tools based on artificial intelligence (AI) to support full-funnel and cross-channel measurement, and budgeting and planning in Google Analytics 4.

AI will enable Google Analytics 4 to surface insights, predict future consumer behaviors and solve for unknowns in paths to purchase, while giving advertisers greater insights.

Behavioral and conversion modeling, combined with data-driven attribution, will give advertisers more information on campaign performance. The features only become available in Google Analytics 4, since the company plans to shutter Universal Analytics on July 1, 2024.

Measurement is essential for marketers to understand the impact of their efforts and make more informed decisions, according to Steve Ganem, director, product management, Google Analytics.

In a blog post he explains how Google will introduce generated insights that summarize and explain fluctuations in the data.

The goal is to make insights easier to understand. For example, if purchases spike on a series of dates, Google AI will work through countless combinations of dimensions and metrics to understand and explain why these spikes occurred.

Google Analytics 4 later this year will offer aggregated impressions from linked Campaign Manager 360 accounts into the advertising workspace to provide additional insight into performance across multiple types of campaign and devices. 

It should become easier to gain access to non-Google campaign data in Analytics 4 through improvements to the cost data import feature.

The data will map to Analytics traffic sources with metrics such as ad costs, ad clicks, and ad impressions. For example, a brand can connect Pinterest, Reddit and Snap advertising accounts from Analytics 4 and automatically see non-Google campaign data in the cross-channel performance report.

Cross-channel budgeting in beta will become available in Google Analytics 4 in the coming months, making insights more actionable.

The update will include a projections report that will allow advertisers to track media across channels and include analytics and projected performance, tracking it against a target objective such as revenue.

All updates and new features will focus on privacy first. Ganem explained how later this year, Google will begin rolling out support for some Chrome Privacy Sandbox APIs to ensure advertisers can continue to reach audiences and measure successfully even without third-party cookies.

Enhanced conversions in Google Analytics 4 should provide a more complete picture of cross-channel conversion attribution by combining hashed, consented first-party data with existing conversion tags.

Consent Mode helps advertisers share choices to Google Analytics 4, tapping into AI-powered behavioral modeling to see a complete view of the user journeys.