API’s Product Strategy team offers tips and resources to ensure your migration is successful and relatively painless and stress-free.
I’ve been working in digital journalism long enough to remember a time when Google Analytics didn’t exist. Nowadays, it’s such a facet of digital metrics analysis that it’s hard to imagine how we ever did without it. (While it’s true that Google is not the only website analytics platform, it is the most ubiquitous.)
Many newsrooms have relied on Google’s Universal Analytics since 2012, so imagine our collective surprise when Google announced in 2020 they were going to do away with GUA and replace it with Google Analytics 4 (GA4) on July 1, 2023. It seemed like such a faraway date, and now it feels like…quick, everybody panic!
With all of the challenges facing product teams right now (looking at you, Twitter and Meta), switching to and learning a new analytics platform isn’t on the top of anyone’s list.
Since March, API’s Product Strategy team (with help from consultants Brad Gerick and Claire Tran) has hosted a series of training sessions to help newsrooms navigate the switch to GA4 ahead of the July 1 cutoff date. And trust me, this is one deadline you don’t want to blow off as you don’t want to risk losing access to any real-time analytics data.
We hope these resources and our FAQ will help you feel less overwhelmed, especially if you’re a small team (or a team of one).
Best of luck, you got this.
— Shay Totten, Newsroom Success Manager
Share with your network
You also might be interested in:
Take stock of your 2023 local election coverage — what worked well and what didn’t — to support your planning for 2024. We aim to help you take notes now to strengthen your engagement and audience work ahead of next November.
Why a 20-day, 20-action challenge? Because prioritizing the well-being of ourselves, our journalists, and by relation, our organizations takes deliberate steps toward healthy habits and self-awareness.
Katie Kutsko amplifies insights and shares resources she's learned alongside newsrooms who track the diversity of people quoted in their stories through Source Matters, API’s award-winning source diversity tracking and analysis tool.