Learn all about creating a content marketing strategy using GA4 BI tools. 

We live in a world that’s developing dynamically and is constantly driven by data.

Everything is changing rapidly – be it users’ behavior, data requirements, business needs, and how they work with data. That’s why there are constant updates to old services and new product launches. However, the old analytics methods will not work in the future post-cookie world.

Nowadays, we’ve been witnessing a lot of buzz around the new Google Analytics known as “Google Analytics 4” or “GA4” since its debut in 2020.

GA4 has garnered many mixed reviews from digital marketers and developers since its release. While some swear by the new features offered by the upgraded version, some are happy to stick to the well-known and loved Universal Analytics they’ve been using since 2012.

Google has declared that GA4 will soon become the default while setting up a new property, and every user should have upgraded from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 by July 2023.

So, here’s a synopsis of all you need to know about GA4 and how to use GA4 with Business Intelligence (BI) tools for better analysis and creating a winning content strategy, along with preparing your organization to transition to the updated platform seamlessly.

First things first, what is GA4?

Google Analytics is the most popular digital analytics software tool enabling you to evaluate website visitor behavior in depth and marketing efficiency.

When Google announced a significant update, Google Analytics 4, a new version different from the established Universal Analytics, it did create some ripples. However, this is not the first time we’ve been introduced to a new platform by Google, but most of the previous updates have either tracked app properties or websites, not both.

In the past, businesses required two platforms, Google Analytics and Firebase, to evaluate both websites and apps separately, making it challenging to get a unified picture across both. However, all this has changed with the advent of GA4, previously known as the App+Web property.

Designed with artificial intelligence (machine learning), GA4 enables marketers to measure engagement and traffic on both websites and apps. It attempts to correct data corrupted by cookie restrictions and user consent choices in a privacy-safe way.

With GDPR and 2021’s privacy enhancements, tracking with cookies can be challenging. However, GA4 fills those gaps with the help of machine learning and cross-platform tracking.

GA4 vs. Universal Analytics – What’s the difference?

Universal Analytics has established itself as the standard of tracking. It was designed for desktops, independent sessions, and cookies for collecting, measuring, and organizing web data. But with the advent of Google Analytics 4, marketers are gaining a fresh perspective on the recent modifications in digital marketing. The multi-platform functionality and user-centric enhancements of GA 4 help streamline retrieving valuable analytics that marketers need to navigate easily in today’s dynamic digital world.

So what is the difference between the two?

1. A New User Interface

The new and enhanced interface on Google Analytics 4 stores the most valuable data in one place, making it easily accessible. Another exciting feature is the search bar. Unlike the Universal Analytics dashboard, GA4’s search bar allows users to perform an ad-hoc analysis of data, look up reports, and get instant answers to their queries.

2. Different Measuring Models

A significant difference between UA and GA4 is their measurement model. Universal Analytics measures based on sessions and page views. A session is a group of user interactions over a given timeframe and can contain multiple page views, events, and e-commerce transactions.

On the other hand, Google Analytics 4 measures based on events and parameters. These events give a better understanding of how users engage with the website, what pages they enjoy, what they click, and what actions they take.

3. Getting answers from the data

UA was designed to collect and store the data and create reports using that data. Everything happens inside Universal Analytics.

Google Analytics 4 is designed to store information for the Google measurement suite. Google Tag Manager collects the data you want to track, Google Analytics 4 stores that data and Google Data Studio is where you build your reports.

4. Cross-platform tracking

If your business has websites and mobile apps, it has become convenient to stream data to the exact property. Marketers can monitor the customer journey across devices with the help of GA4 and cross-device tracking.

But previously, with UA, marketers had to use Google Analytics property for tracking website data, and to view traffic in an app, they had to leverage Google Analytics for Firebase to access the data. This overload of information can cause confusion among marketing teams as they wouldn’t know the right way to process and leverage all the data that’s being shown to them.

Why is data critical to inbound content marketing?

Content marketing has become a data-driven field. While creativity is still essential, leveraging data helps you plan better and achieve goals. If your goal is to accelerate, then the creators must embrace GA4 for content marketing to improve the performance of their content. However, with so many data streams and ways to analyze, it can be intimidating to dive in and get started with GA4.

Data helps identify the target audiences, trending topics, preferences of potential customers in a specific channel, and the influencers most relevant to those groups. Hence, ensuring that incorporating data-driven analysis will boost your content strategy is extremely important.

Boosting organic traffic is a good goal, but boosting the wrong kind of traffic will not bring in revenue. If your content attracts people who search for information without the intention of making a purchase, it just increases your traffic numbers, but your revenue numbers stay flat.

Data and goals go hand in hand, and you can only set goals by understanding what the numbers mean, and tracking your progress toward the goals without monitoring the suitable KPIs is difficult. Selecting the right goals depends on having a strategy, and for that, data analysis is critical.

Google Analytics is a critical tool for tracking user data to understand the success of its marketing programs, lead generation campaigns, website content, and more. You can obtain a lot of data and insights from analytics. But for that, you must know why analytics are essential to leveraging your inbound marketing strategy for better results.

Understand your customer journey across all touchpoints with data-driven features that will help you identify how your customer came to the purchase point by analyzing all searches and clicks. Data-driven features of GA4 provide exceptional insights into the decision-making process and help you streamline the entire marketing strategy to deliver a more significant ROI.

How does GA4 fit into your content marketing strategy?

Content creation is a time-consuming process, and time is a limited asset, so you mustn’t waste it working on content that doesn’t convert or build an audience. Google Analytics provides a way to monitor the audience’s reaction to the content so that the creators make the most of the time they invest. This is where GA 4 for marketers comes into the picture.

1. Identify Your Foundation

Before talking to your audience, consider the following:

• What kind of content should you create?
• What are the topics you want to discuss?
• What is your industry specialization?
• What sets your brand apart?

Then, create content that will position your brand as an expert. GA4, as well as data insights, drive accuracy. Use your topics to bring you success by reviewing traffic patterns and observing your previous success trends.

In GA4, examine the screens and pages report for your highest-traffic page, the content where visitors read and spend the longest time, and the pages visitors scroll on the most.

2. Setting Goals and KPIs

• Increase brand awareness
• Bring in new leads
• Increase organic traffic
• Boost conversion rates
• Improve your Return on Investment (ROI)
• Gain more backlinks
• Increase user engagement with the help of comments and conversations

3. Know Your Audience and Positioning

Once you know the key differentiator, studying your audience should be easy. Understand their interests, likes, and dislikes. Analyze audience engagement by communicating directly through your content, and then modify your approach to keep them engaged. Consider adding key players, such as SEMrush, Brand watch, and Social Bakers, for better audience and competitor research.

4. Research and Pick the Keywords

Use keyword research to look for the keywords you should be ranking for. Start by looking at your Search Console performance report to find the keywords you rank for and the pages you rank with. Develop keyword clusters for the edge you need to win with competitors.

5. Build Authority with your Content

Content brings authority, but clarity should come before authority. Define your content format, and decide how comprehensive you want it to be. When you create unique content, you’ll automatically gain recognition and authority in your industry, which scales your brand and revenues.

6. Be Consistent with Content Creating and Publishing

Consistency is the key to content creation. It establishes credibility, expertise, and brand authority while boosting your SEO. It is essential to be consistent with publishing because you need to keep your audience engaged. According to a HubSpot study of 7,000 businesses, it was found that companies with 1,000+ web pages see 9.5 times more traffic than those with less than 50 pages.

7. Maintain Your Strategy with Calendar, Post-Publishing Promotion

Professional SEO services use a calendar to consistently develop topics that bring in the leads, which is only of use with promotional strategies. For a functioning strategy, you must have a budget, with agreement from each party involved.

You can gain insight into whether you are approaching your goals by monitoring and tracking your content performance through GA4 and other BI tools.

Conclusion

Designed to expand up to the enterprise level, GA4 has made it easier to meet data governance and content marketing needs. As your business grows, so will your use of Google Analytics. However, GA4 can initially be slightly intimidating with all the new features. Here are a few resources to help you get started:

1. Google Analytics 4 Tutorial for Beginners by AnalyticsMania
2. Google Analytics 4 for Beginners – New Google Analytics by Udemy
3. Online course for GA4 by CXL

Although Universal Analytics is here until July 2023, it’s recommended to create a new GA4 property and begin collecting data alongside your existing properties. This will allow you to familiarize yourself with the upgrade, make the most of your GA4 and take advantage of the latest insights as they’re implemented.

If you want to discuss incorporating GA4 into your content marketing efforts, reach out to my team at Contensify, and we can help you leverage your data the right way and supercharge your content marketing game!