Date:
December 18, 2024
Google is finally removing Universal Analytics and replacing it with Google Analytics 4, deleting all previous APIs and data.
Businesses of all sizes rely on Google’s services for multiple marketing efforts. The analytics dashboard provides accurate data to analyze campaigns and optimize them easily. Last year, Google started rolling out Google Analytics 4 as an exclusive property that would later replace Universal Analytics and its API services. With Universal Analytics shutting down, all legacy Universal Analytics services, APIs, and historical data will be deleted from global users' accounts.
Starting in March 2023, the tech giant began automatically creating the new Google Analytics 4 properties for all users except for those who opted out. This effort was made to make the migration to the new dashboard seamless and firmly adhered to. Google published its blog's official action timeline of the removal process on March, 2024, to remind users to take action and prevent potential losses of their campaigns, API integrations, and data.
It may be one of the biggest discontinuation transitions in Google services' history. Google is calling July 1, 2024, the UA sunset. From that day onwards, the universal analytics platform will stop recording new data, including goals, conversions, and traffic. The conversions of any linked advertising account will also become untraceable on UA dashboards. Ignoring the notification may lead to damaging the performance of ad campaigns, especially the ones created with smart bidding strategies. All third-party apps that fetch or share data with UA will also stop working.
The 360 Universal Analytics properties with a current 360 order continued processing data after July 1, 2023. The 360 Universal Analytics properties without a current 360 order did not receive the extension and stopped processing data starting on July 1, 2023.
Why Did Google Do It?
“As we shift resources to focus on building Google Analytics 4, so that it satisfies those technological and regulatory demands, we can't guarantee that all features and functionalities in Universal Analytics 360 continue to work as expected,” stated Google in its blog. This means that the new regulations after the AI boom have made compliance difficult for the old platform, and complete migration to GA4 is a must to adhere to all new sets of rules.
How Can You Save Your Years Of Marketing Data?
Whether it is the lifetime value report or the best conversion strategies, everything will vanish into thin air on July 1, 2024. However, Google has provided a transition period till July 1st, 2024, for all accounts to migrate and export data. All UA accounts without an automatically provided GA4 account will have to be created manually during this period. Afterward, the data can be migrated or exported to external storage for safekeeping. The full universal analytics shutdown will happen in just a week, leaving little room for the last-minute runners to do what is needed. The GA4 and UA platforms may experience glitches during the transition period. Users can check out these mobile analytics tools to run effective and high-performance marketing campaigns.
