Important Advice for Google Analytics Users in 2025

[@GSicKz]

Thank you - seems logical indeed to do that indeed for our clients! And for bigquery you can store data also for longer than the 14 months that GA4 is limiting you right? But then your privacystatement I guess would need to reflect that with the current GDPR rules? Since in the cookie/privacystatement we mention that all data will be deleted after 14 months? Or is that not relevant as all data is 'anonymized' in bigquery?

[@LeonKorteweg]

In many cases you are probably right. The default setting on BigQuery (if you're not in sandbox) is indefinite. So if want to set a fixed retention period, that is something you manually need to do. Yesterday I came across this article that talks about making bulk changes to the expiry of all your tables. I've not used this so far, but might be helpful: www.teamsimmer.com/2022/11/15/how-do-i-change-the-table-expiration-in-google-bigquery/ And as always; check with your legal advisor on this to be sure. Especially in the context of for example regional legislation, the data you collect and the purpose. But in general data is not anonymized in bigquery. It doesn't store IP addresses, but it does sometimes store identifiers (User ID, Transaction ID). In those cases it is possible to link with other datasources that contain PII.

[@cjtay]

Can you provide more context or sources that made you think GA4 is changing? Sampling by GA4 is a known behaviour all along. Anything else that make you state that GA4 is changing? Or is this just a clickbait title when the video is nothing but just about the benefits of connecting to BigQuery?

[@LeonKorteweg]

Yes, I'm certainly happy to do that! In the video I have three reasons that bring me to that conclusion. Let me go through each one of those below and provide them with more context and sources. Reason 1: Google Analytics has bugs or unexpected behaviour and Google is not transparent about what is going on. Two bugs in particular came to mind when I was making this video. First of all there is a bug where the Session Campaign dimension is set to '(organic)' for Google Ads traffic. Read more about that here: ppcnewsfeed.com/blog/fix-organic-not-set-google-ads-campaign-name-in-ga4/ Secondly there is an issue where a small percentage of traffic where Session Source / Medium is is attributed to '(not set)' after enabling Consent Mode. Most of the time this is between 2% and 5%, but in some cases this is 20% or more. See also this MeasureSlack thread for example: measure.slack.com/archives/C03AE85U5/p1725350182353769?thread_ts=1724915413.069189&cid=C03AE85U5 (If you don't have access, sign up here: join.measure.chat/). There are a lot more known issues with GA4, just like these. Google is silent about issues. Reason 2: Google is pushing lots of updates to Google Analytics, but is not clear what exactly is changing. Here is the changelog that I'm talking about: support.google.com/analytics/answer/9164320?hl=en For example, just search on this page for the word 'attribution'. You'll find that Google has been making lots of changes here. But they are often very vague about what exactly has changed and what the consequenses are for our reports. Reason 3: Google has introduced Sampling in the regular reports Of course, like you mentioned, sampling has always been a part of Google Analytics. But when GA4 replaced Universal Analytics, one of the big selling points was the fact that the regular reports where never sampled and therefore more accurate than before. However, in november 2023, Google changed this for high traffic sites: www.ga4bigquery.com/blog/newsletter-10/ I don't blame them, it's a free product. They can do whatever they want. But what if they decide to introduce heavier sampling starting tomorrow? These things bring me to the conclusion that it is not wise to 100% depend on Google Analytics for your reporting needs. Especially when there is a lot at stake. No need to switch, just a backup plan in case your GA4 reports break. To me, enabling BigQuery is a quick and easy way to have a plan B. However, in the video I briefly mention Piwik Pro as another low-cost alternative that you can set up parallel to GA4. I hope this helps.

[@shipudlink]

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[@sgtace]

I belive google will fail to AI and we will be looking for GA4 replacement in year or two