Meet the next generation of Google Analytics
As of October 14, 2020, a Google Analytics 4 property (formerly known as an "App + Web" property) is now the default when you create a new property. Universal Analytics refers to the previous generation of Analytics. This was the default property type for websites prior to October 14, 2020. Learn more.
2021 releasesDecember 10, 2021
Expanded availability of Churn probability metric
Analytics recently expanded availability of the Churn probability metric, one of GA4’s predictive metrics, so that many customers who weren’t previously eligible to use this metric are able to do so going forward. This was made possible due to increased resource investment from Analytics.
As a reminder, the Churn probability metric predicts how likely it is that recently active users will not visit your app or site in the next seven days. Using this metric you can build a predictive audience, for example, the suggested audience “Likely 7-day churning users”, which includes active users who are not likely to visit your site or app in the next seven days. You can then use this audience to help retain, via Google Ads, the people who might not return to your app or site.
In addition to building audiences, you can also use predictive metrics to analyze your data with explorations. For example, you can use the user-lifetime technique to identify which marketing campaigns are likely to lead to the most churn. With that information you may decide to reallocate your marketing budget.
Search Console integration
We are thrilled to announce that GA4 now supports an integration with Google Search Console! When your properties are linked, users will have access to two new reports in Google Analytics 4: 1) Google Organic Search Traffic, which provides insight into how organic search performance translates to on-site action, and 2) Queries, which provides insight into the Google search queries that drove users to your site. After linking, these new reports can be accessed via two new tiles in the Acquisition Overview report, and Admins can optionally add them to collections via reporting customization. A Search Console property can be linked with at most one Google Analytics 4 web stream. Universal Analytics linking is still supported and unaffected when you link to Google Analytics 4. You can find more details here.
Import Google Ads links from Universal Analytics
We’re proud to announce the launch of a critical new feature supporting the GA4 migration: importing Universal Analytics to Google Ads account links! Ads/Analytics account linking is vital for advertisers to be able to use their property data in conjunction with advertising campaigns; this opens the door for using conversions, audiences, and property stats for advertising purposes. With this new tool, customers can quickly import UA/Ads links into their GA4 properties. And, a user only needs to be an Analytics editor to copy these links; this bypasses the normal requirement to be an admin on both accounts to link them.
You can find this feature in:
- The Setup Assistant when you're creating a GA4 property based on your UA property
- Your GA4 property under Admin > Product Linking > Google Ads Linking when that GA4 property is connected to a UA property and when the UA property has Google Ads links
November 15, 2021
Improvements to Default Channel Groupings
We recently made the following changes to improve the quality of default channel groupings:
- New channels: We added the following additional channel groupings (see detailed definitions here):
- Organic Shopping
- Paid Shopping
- Organic Video
- Paid Video
- Paid Other
- Audio
- SMS
- Mobile Push Notifications
- YouTube is Video, not Social: Previously if Google Ads auto-tagging was enabled, traffic acquired by paid ads on Youtube was in Channel “Video”, and traffic acquired with source=”youtube”, utms, and no gclid was in Channel “Organic Social” or “Paid Social”. After this update, source = ”Youtube” is either Channel “Organic Video” or “Paid Video”. Channel “Paid Video” occurs if a gclid or utm_medium indicates paid.
- Channels are more accurate and more often classified:
- All rules are case insensitive.
- Paid mediums now additionally include CPA and CPV. Google Analytics 4 recognizes all mediums that match regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|paid.*)$ as Paid. Based on the source, GA4 will categorize traffic with a paid medium as either Paid Search, Paid Social, Paid Shopping, Paid Video or Paid Other.
- Display mediums now additionally include expandable and interstitial.
- Tagging utm_medium=organic on a social site is now classified to channel “Organic Social” and no longer classified as “Organic Search”.
November 5, 2021
User-roles update
Access Management (previously called User Management) has been updated. The “Manage Users” Permission has been retired and replaced with an Administrator Role that combines User Management and Editor. Edit, Collaborate, and Read & Analyze have been renamed to Editor, Analyst, and Viewer. The “None” option has also been introduced, which indicates that the user has no role for a particular resource, but may have roles for others (e.g., may have a role for a property but not for the account). Two new metric restrictions are added as well. “No Cost Metrics” will restrict viewing of cost metrics on Google Analytics 4 properties. “No Revenue Metrics” will do likewise on revenue related metrics. You can find more details here.
October 15, 2021
Google Analytics for Firebase Updates
Google Analytics for Firebase has a new, yet familiar look! Changes introduced with Google Analytics 4 are now available in the Analytics section of Firebase. This update brings a flavor of Google Analytics 4 to Firebase, resulting in a similar experience between interfaces. More details can be found here.
September 17, 2021
Attribution Insights
We are introducing a new set of insights focused on conversion paths. These insights show the most common individual first-touch and last-touch channels, as well as the most common channel combinations for multi-touch paths. You can further analyze the data in the Conversion Paths report. Learn more
August 20, 2021
Unsampled explorations (360 only)
We are introducing a new feature in Exploration, the ability to request unsampled results when a query returns sampled data.
Google Analytics 4 360 properties have significantly higher sampling limits and in most cases your results won’t be sampled, but if they are, you can now re-run the query with a much higher sampling limit by clicking Request unsampled results as you see in the screenshot below.
Once requested, unsampled results are usually returned within 30 minutes, and they can be accessed either by clicking on the link included in the completion email or by refreshing the browser page.
For more information see this help-center article.
August 13, 2021
Archiving custom dimensions and metrics
This launch improves transparency on what happens when a user archives a custom dimension/metric and all the consequences/impact that action will have throughout different feature areas in GA4 (ie audience, explorations, etc.).
In the Custom Definitions table, when a user is about to archive a custom dimension or metric a summary card appears that shows the user a list of audiences and saved explorations that use that custom dimension/metric and an explanation lets users know that the components using this custom dimensions/metric will be affected if the user follows through with archiving.
Archiving a custom dimension or metric affects any audience, Exploration, or segment that is based on that dimension or metric. Audiences become invalid and stop accumulating users. Any remarketing lists based on exported audiences continue to function but don't accumulate any new users. Explorations and segments also become invalid and won't load when they contain archived custom definitions. If you'd like to load an Exploration or segment, remove the archived custom definition. Learn more
August 6, 2021
Conversion modeling
Regulatory and browser changes (such as GDPR, ITP, the phasing out of Chrome’s third-party cookie support, ATT, etc.) impact Google Analytics’ ability to join some conversion events with previous engagement events, which may leave gaps in attribution reporting. New conversion modeling in Google Analytics 4 will help fill in these gaps where observed data is unavailable, enhancing your understanding of the customer journey, while respecting user consent choices. All Google Analytics 4 properties will start modeling to provide more accurate conversion-channel reporting in core reports like Event, Conversions, and Attribution reports,as well as in Explorations, where certain event-scoped dimensions are selected. We will continue to enhance modeling capabilities to account for more gaps in observed data in the future. More details can be found here.
July 23, 2021
360 Self-Service Upgrade/Downgrade for Google Analytics 4 Properties
Organizations that are currently Google Analytics 360 customers for Universal Analytics properties can now self-service upgrade their Google Analytics 4 properties to 360 as well. While 360 for Google Analytics 4 properties is still in Beta, customers will benefit from premium data processing pipelines, larger feature limits, and new 360 features that will rollout throughout the 360 Beta. Users with the Org Admin or Billing Admin role can make these changes within the Google Marketing Platform admin settings. Please see Google Analytics 360 Beta to learn more and for details on how to upgrade.
360 Usage & Billing Preview for Google Analytics 4 Properties
Organizations that have been participating in the 360 Beta for Google Analytics 4 can now monitor usage for properties on the Beta program and also preview Google Analytics 4 pricing based on actual processed event volume. Org and Billing admins can view usage and preview billing by visiting the Analytics Usage report in Google Marketing Platform. Learn more
Predictive metrics now available for use in Audience & Segment Builder with additional model-quality statistics
Previously in Google Analytics 4 properties, you could only create predictive audiences via the suggested-audiences library. The modification of conditions built with predictive metrics was not supported.
But predictive metrics are now available for use in the audience builder and the segment builder metric pickers. And, you can now modify conditions built with predictive metrics.
When you're modifying a condition built with a predictive metric, you now see an interactive graph that explains the tradeoffs between prediction precision and the number of users that are included based on that predictive metric. For example, as you raise the lower bound of which users are included (a more precise prediction), you lower the number of users that can be included.
Default prediction configuration for churn probability, set to include 80th to 100th percentile of users (top 20% of users).
Modified prediction configuration for churn probability, set to include 40th to 100th percentile of users (top 60% of users).
July 1, 2021
Advertising workspace
The Advertising workspace makes it easy for advertisers to find reporting, tools, and resources to help them achieve their advertising objectives with Google Analytics 4 properties. As part of this launch, the workspace will contain the Advertising snapshot and Attribution reports (more details below). Additional capabilities and reports will launch in future releases.
Advertising snapshot
This is the landing page for the Advertising workspace. The snapshot provides you with a quick overview of all reports in the workspace and other helpful resources for advertisers. For now, this includes summary tiles for the model comparison and conversion paths reports, an insights tile which surfaces insights for the property, and education tile which links to helpful information for advertisers who are new to Google Analytics 4 properties.
Model comparison
This report lets you compare campaign performance using various attribution models and assess how each impacts the value of your marketing channels so that you can determine which model best suits the needs of your business. You can understand the percentage by which conversions and revenue increase or decrease under different attribution models. Learn more
Conversion paths
This report lets you understand the customer path to conversion and assign credit to the touchpoints in that journey. It has two sections: the data visualization and the data table. The visualization shows how conversion credit is distributed early, mid, and late touchpoints. The data table shows the paths users take to complete conversions, as well as metrics like Days to conversion and Touchpoints to conversion. Learn more
Attribution Settings in Admin
We are introducing an Attribution Settings page in Admin, where you can configure your reporting attribution model and lookback window:
- Use the Reporting attribution model section to select which attribution model you want to use to calculate conversion credit in your reports within your Analytics property. Changing the attribution model will apply to both historical and future data.
- Configure the lookback window to determine how far back in time a touchpoint is eligible for attribution credit. For Acquisition conversion events (first_open and first_visit), the default lookback window is 30 days. You can switch to 7 days if you have different attribution needs. For all other conversion events, the default lookback window is 90 days. You can also choose 30 days or 60 days.
Deprecating last-engagement models
On June 22, 2021 we started deprecating the cross-channel last engagement and ads-preferred last engagement attribution models. We will also be removing the option to select an attribution model at the report level (with the exception of Attribution reports), and instead introduce a property-level setting in Admin. Last-engagement models will not be included as options in the property-level setting.
Data API is now Beta
Programmatic access to the GA4 property’s data has reached its next stability milestone. The Google Analytics Data API is now in Beta. At this stability stage, breaking changes are uncommon and require 90 day notice. Additionally, the API supports more metrics and dimensions than it did in the alpha version.
June 25, 2021
AdMob Mediated Revenue
AdMob mediated revenue will now be incorporated into ad revenue metrics throughout Google Analytics 4 when you enable data flow between the two products. The data will appear in reports as Ad Revenue, and in the coming weeks will be factored into user LTV (e.g., for use in the Audience builder).
June 17, 2021
Offline-event data import
You can import offline events from sources that don't have an internet connection or that otherwise cannot support real-time event collection via the SDKs or Measurement Protocol. Once you upload events, they are processed as though they were collected via our SDKs, and use the timestamp you provide or the timestamp of the upload. Learn more
Renaming of Analysis to Explorations
We’ve designed a more modular left navigation as part of the Google Analytics 4 property foundation, to organize like-reports and tools into easily discoverable workspaces, for a more focused, immersive and relevant reporting experience out-of-the-box.
As part of this design, we are renaming Analysis in Google Analytics to “Explorations” and you should start to see the renamed workspace appear in your properties in the next few weeks. Functionality from the former Analysis has not changed, everything you were able to do previously is still available in the Explorations Workspace.
“Explore” in the left navigation will open the Explorations main page where you can start a new exploration by clicking on any of the templates, or access your saved explorations (your previously created analyses will be unchanged) from the list on the bottom half of the page.
In addition to renaming the Analysis module, we have renamed what was previously known as the “Exploration” technique to “Free Form” technique, and have updated the product UI and documentation accordingly.
April 23, 2021
Gaming concepts in Analysis
We have added a series of metrics in Analysis commonly used by gaming properties, but also useful for a variety of other apps or sites.
The metrics added are a combination of user metrics (e.g. users who at at least one purchase in the last 7, 30 or 90 days) and revenue metrics (e.g. average purchase revenue of all your visitors ARPU or average revenue of only visitor who purchased ARPPU).
BigQuery user-engagement queries
For more efficient event logging, Google Analytics will begin measuring user engagement time on apps as a parameter on automatically collected events and as a result, reduce the number of dedicated user_engagement events sent by the SDK. This change was announced previously and does not impact features in the GA4 interface, like reporting or Analysis. However, if you are using BigQuery, you may need to alter your queries slightly, as described in this blog post and article.
March 12, 2021
Conversion counts in Google Analytics 4 properties
To improve measurement when third-party identifiers aren't available, we're releasing a fix on March 15, 2021 that updates conversion count metrics for app conversions in Google Analytics 4 properties and Google Analytics for Firebase. As a result of this update, app conversion counts will be more closely aligned to the event counts you see in your reporting.
February 19, 2021
Contribution Analysis V1
Analytics Intelligence regularly scans your data for anomalies in metrics. If anomalies are found, Analytics Intelligence may now identify granular user segments that demonstrate these anomalies. You can create an audience from a user segment for root cause identification in Analysis, or you can export it for ad campaign targeting. Learn more
Google Ads metrics/dimensions and session scope available in Analysis
We have introduced more useful metrics and dimensions in Analysis:
- Session scoped acquisition dimensions
Until now in Analysis you could see which source/medium/campaign (and other acquisition dimensions) drove a user or an event by selecting the appropriate dimension. We just added a set of new dimensions to give you the ability to see which source/medium/campaign drove a session. - Google Ads dimensions and metrics
If your Google Analytics 4 property is linked to a Google Ads account, you can now explore campaign data, like impressions and clicks, alongside user behavior data in the Analysis module.
Introducing user-scoped custom dimensions and a unified table to manage custom dimensions and metrics in GA4
User-scoped custom dimensions are now available in Google Analytics 4 properties and are populated from collected user properties. "This launch eliminates the need for marketers and developers to think about "slots." User properties become aliases for (user scoped) custom-dimension slots, allowing developers to focus on tracking meaningfully named data points without having to associate each data point with an arbitrary slot number.
Additionally The ‘User Properties’ section in Google Analytics has become ‘Custom Definitions’ and has been updated locally with a table that unifies the management (create, edit, archive) of custom dimensions/metrics of all scopes. Previously, a user had to go to the 'All Events' table for event-scoped custom dimensions and metrics, and to the 'User Properties' section to register a user property. Instead of having to go to the relevant scope section in Reporting (e.g. the 'User Properties' section for user-scoped custom dimensions), there is now one unified management table for all current and future custom dimensions and metrics of all scopes.
January 22, 2021
Cohort technique in Analysis: new calculation types and per-cohort size metrics
Two new capabilities are available in the Cohort technique within the Analysis module: rolling and cumulative calculations.
Standard calculation lets you identify users that return in each specific period after being included in the cohort.
Rolling calculation lets you identify users that return in every period after being included in the cohort.
In the example below, standard calculation tells you that there are 35 users who were acquired on November 23rd and then came back to your site 3 days later. Rolling calculation tells you that 6 of these users came back every day from November 23rd to 3 days later.
Cumulative calculation lets you cumulate the selected metric for users who have returned in any period after being included in the cohort.
In the example below, standard calculation tells you that users who returned to your site on day 3 after their first visit on November 23rd purchased $29.60 worth of products on that day. Cumulative calculation tells you that users who were acquired on November 23rd purchased $5,173.43 worth of products during the first 4 days after acquisition.
Per cohort size metric displays the results relative to the size of each cohort, letting you quickly and easily compare the behavior of cohorts of different sizes.
In the example below, while the metric type ‘Sum’ lets you see the total number of returning users on day 3, the metric type ‘Per cohort user’ allows you to see that the November 22nd cohort is the best performing one after 3 days of retention.
- December 17, 2020
- December 11, 2020
- November 20, 2020
- November 4, 2020
- September 29, 2020
- September 18, 2020
- September 10, 2020
- September 3, 2020
- August 21, 2020
- July 24, 2020
- June 26, 2020
- June 12, 2020
- May 29, 2020
- May 20, 2020
- April 21, 2020
- April 3, 2020
- March 20, 2020
- March 6, 2020
- February 21, 2020
- February 7, 2020
- January 23, 2020
- December 23, 2019
- December 9, 2019
- November 14, 2019
- November 1, 2019
December 17, 2020
New predicted revenue metric in Google Analytics 4
We introduced a new predictive metric to Google Analytics 4 properties. The predictive revenue metric predicts the revenue expected from all purchase conversions within the next 28 days from a user who was active in the last 28 days. This metric can help drive growth for your business by reaching the people most likely to be top spenders via Google Ads.
Analytics now has a new predictive audience that you can create in the Audience Builder. Using the predicted revenue metric, we will suggest the audience “Predicted 28-day top spenders,” which includes users who are likely to generate the most revenue in the next 28 days, based on the total value of their purchase conversions.
In addition to building audiences, you'll soon be able to use the predictive revenue metric to analyze your data with the Analysis module. For example, you can use the User Lifetime technique as an indicator about which marketing campaigns are most likely to acquire top spenders. Then use that information to reallocate your marketing spend to campaigns with higher predicted revenue.
The predicted revenue metric is available in GA4 properties using purchase events or automatically collected events, once necessary thresholds are met.
December 11, 2020
Modify and create events (web)
Google Analytics events that come into a Google Analytics 4 property can now be edited without any tagging changes required. Edits will take place immediately, and impact any events received from that point forward. This helps you clean up event data that may not follow common standards, and also helps with conversion measurement for specific events and parameters. Learn more
BigQuery Export
Google Analytics 4 property data exports no longer require a linked Firebase project. This means that Google Analytics admins can audit and configure data exports to BigQuery from the Google Analytics Admin page. Firebase admins can continue to configure exports for linked properties using the Firebase Console. You can also specify the Google Cloud Platform region when configuring new exports, giving you more control over your data. For more information, see this article.
November 20, 2020
Web RLSA
Google Analytics 4 audiences are now supported in Google Ads Search campaigns! Just link Google Analytics with Google Ads, and be sure to enable the Ads personalization setting on the link. You also must have Google Signals enabled. Once set up, all of your Google Analytics 4 audiences will begin populating in Google Ads. Attach them to your new or existing campaigns to get started. For detailed steps and more information, see this article.
Data filters
In the course of navigating your site or app, internal users and developers naturally send Analytics data to your property. You can now use Internal Traffic Filters and Developer Traffic Filters to ensure that this data does not permanently impact your Analytics reports. For detailed information, see this article.
Cross-domain measurement
Google Analytics 4 now supports cross-domain measurement in web data streams. This feature allows user and session identifiers from first-party cookies to persist when users navigate between different domains that are tagged with the same Measurement ID (i.e., reporting within the same data stream). This improves the accuracy of your reports when you have important user journeys across different domains (for example, when the domain of your main site is different from the domain of your ecommerce site). In Google Analytics 4, this can be easily set up directly from the interface by any user who has Edit permissions at the property level. For more information and detailed instructions, see this article.
November 4, 2020
Conversions Insights
Insights make it easier for customers to discover important information about their data and take meaningful action. In this launch, we provide customers with new attribution insights focused on last-click attribution. For example, Advertisers can see the campaigns that drove the most conversions and revenue in the past month.
September 29, 2020
More flexible reporting: Introducing event-scoped custom dimensions and metrics in App + Web Properties
Event-scoped custom dimensions and metrics are now available in Google Analytics App + Web properties. Previously similar functionality was presented as “custom parameter reporting”, and individual registration was required for every event:parameter pair, which was both labor and quota intensive.
With this launch, registered parameters graduate to property-wide custom event-scoped dimensions or metrics, preserving all historical aggregates. Going forward, custom dimensions and metrics can be registered once at the property-level, simplifying the workflow and significantly preserving quota.
Parameter names will essentially be aliases for dimension/metric so that developers can focus on tracking meaningfully named data points.
With the scope of an existing custom dimension/metric having increased from event level to property level, we have preserved historical event-scoped aggregates, and new aggregates seamlessly extend historical aggregates. In cases where a parameter was registered for multiple events, we disambiguated between parameters by assigning a dimension/metric name that includes the currently assigned event name (e.g., “custom_dimension_name [event_name]”). As a best practice users should remove duplicate custom dimensions and metrics that were registered across multiple events to help preserve quota. Learn more
September 18, 2020
Visualize App + Web data in Data Studio
You can now add data from App + Web to your Data Studio reports and dashboards. You can visualize the fields available in the Google Analytics App+Web reporting API. These APIs are currently in trusted tester beta (to become a trusted tester, sign up here).
September 10, 2020
Chrome v85 Referrer Changes
In late August, Chrome is making user-centric privacy changes to referrer and browser-version fields. While these are positive changes, they impact Google Analytics’ ability to report on organic referrals from Chrome. We recognize the value that organic traffic brings to our customers so in an effort to support Chrome’s privacy changes and help our customers, moving forward we will rely on a list of established search engines to identify organic traffic. This list can be found in our help center. If there are search engines missing from this list, please follow the established process (also outlined in our help center) to get additional search engines approved.
We will continue to support Universal Analytics Custom Organic Search Sources. You may need to adjust your existing Custom Organic Search lists by removing the query parameter to support Chrome v85+ users.
As part of this change, clients will no longer know the exact subversion of Chrome in Google Analytics but will still know the browser and major version number.
This change impacts both Universal Analytics as well as our App + Web (beta) properties. Since we do not actively support our legacy ga.js tag, some Organic traffic will be categorized as Referral traffic moving forward. We encourage you to update your tagging to Google’s global site tag to maintain visibility of Search Engines in Organic traffic reports. If you need to update your tags, this is also a good time to configure App + Web properties to reduce future implementation efforts.
September 3, 2020
A New Change History
We have updated Google Analytics' Change History feature to a new format that supports structured data output and detailed before-and-after states. Change History has also been expanded to support both Account and Property admins by offering versions that are scoped to each level.
Previously Change History was a free text feature that had different information depending upon what was being modified. Going forward, all changes will be recorded in a standard structure of: Who, What, Where, & When. The “Who” is the modifying user, be it a user or an automated process. The “What” is the object being modified. The “Where” is the location of the modification, be it an account- or a property-linked object. The “When” is the timestamp of the change, in your browser’s timezone. This help center article explains how to use it.
For Objects that are implemented in the new Admin API (currently in alpha), we offer detailed before and after representations of the modified object. This enables new support journeys that require detailed representations of changes that may impact reporting or data exports.
With this new Change History, we hope to improve the support, security, and audit experience across Google Analytics.
August 21, 2020
Google Analytics Mobile App
We have redesigned the Google Analytics mobile apps to help you quickly access your Google Analytics data anywhere and anytime. The apps support both Universal Analytics and App + Web properties.
Please update to the latest version on Android and iOS as the old apps will stop working at the end of September.
July 24, 2020
New predictive capabilities in Google Analytics App + Web
We are introducing two new predictive metrics to App + Web properties. The first is Purchase Probability, which predicts the likelihood that users who have visited your app or site will purchase in the next seven days. And the second, Churn Probability, predicts how likely it is that recently active users will not visit your app or site in the next seven days. You can use these metrics to help drive growth for your business by reaching the people most likely to purchase, and by retaining, via Google Ads, the people who might not return to your app or site.
Analytics will now suggest new predictive audiences that you can create in the Audience Builder. For example, using Purchase Probability, we will suggest the audience “Likely 7-day purchasers”, which includes users who are most likely to purchase in the next seven days. Or using Churn Probability, we will suggest the audience “Likely 7-day churning users”, which includes active users who are not likely to visit your site or app in the next seven days.
In addition to building audiences, you can also use predictive metrics to analyze your data with the Analysis module. For example, you can use the User Lifetime technique to identify which marketing campaign helped you acquire users with the highest Purchase Probability. With that information you may decide to reallocate more of your marketing budget towards that high potential campaign.
In the coming weeks these metrics will be available in properties that have purchase events implemented or are automatically measuring in-app purchases once the necessary thresholds are met.
Cohort technique in Analysis: any events as inclusion/return criteria
We are rolling out 2 new features in the Analysis Cohort technique:
Any event as inclusion and return criteria
You can now select any event as an inclusion or return criteria for your analyses to discover unique insights such as:
- How your newly acquired cohorts convert on the event that is most relevant to your business (e.g. purchases):
- How cohorts of different user segments behave along important journeys, like comparing level completion rates of free and paid users:
Natural-language titles
Dynamic charts titles that accurately describe the results of your cohort analysis. You will see above the cohort results a sentence that describes the data displayed and it changes as you change the tab settings.
The dynamic title of the first example above is highlighted here:
June 26, 2020
Bot-traffic exclusion in App + Web properties
We have started automatically excluding bot traffic from your App + Web properties. Bot traffic is identified using a combination of Google research and the International Spiders and Bots List, maintained by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). In Universal Analytics, users had to enable bot exclusion per property. Automatic exclusion ensures, to the best of our ability, that your Analytics data in your App + Web properties does not include events from known bots. You can find more information in this Help Center article.
June 12, 2020
Conversions Details report upgrade
We have upgraded the Conversions Details page to support advanced analysis and ensure consistency with the rest of App + Web reporting. You can apply comparisons (which let you compare and filter data) and secondary dimensions to your conversions data, similar to other App + Web reports.
May 29, 2020
Audience limit for App + Web properties increased from 50 to 100
As part of a regular audit of feature usage, we have increased the number of audiences you can create in an App + Web property from 50 to 100.
May 20, 2020
Pre-defined search queries in App + Web properties
You can now simply click on predefined search queries to get quick insights about your Google Analytics data. Google Analytics Search lets you ask a wide range of questions about your Analytics data in natural language, and get instant answers.
April 21, 2020
Pre-defined templates for creating custom insights in App + Web properties
The new pre-defined templates for custom insights will help you set up up to five custom insights with one-click. Custom insights are used to monitor unexpected behavior of core business metrics. Learn more
Performance cards on Behavior dashboard
There are two new Performance cards and reports in the default reporting view for App + Web properties. These help answer questions like:
- Where is the traffic coming to my website coming from? Does content on this page need to be improved?
- Metrics: Conversions, Interaction with a Specific Event
- How are my different paid media channels performing against each other?
- This includes both Google and non-Google campaigns.
- Metrics: Best/Worst Performing Campaigns, Best/Worst Performing Audiences, Cost/Conversions across all Campaigns
Updated Google Ads linking flow
We have updated and improved the Google Ads linking workflow from App + Web properties. This new linking experience offers streamlined workflows to create, edit, or delete links, and provides a consistent and consolidated view across all existing Google Ads account links.
April 3, 2020
ecommerce_purchase events are now configurable as conversions
If ecommerce_purchase is already a conversion in your property, it will remain a conversion (with the option to unmark it as one). New properties have the option to mark ecommerce_conversion as a conversion (similar to any other event)
This is a follow up to purchase becoming a default conversion and unifies purchase across app and web, minimizing confusion and configuration errors.
March 20, 2020
Analytics Intelligence Search History
Analytics Intelligence Search History is stored for better personalization of Analytics search results. You can now see activity saved in your account by clicking Admin, and then in the Property column, clicking Analytics Intelligence Search History.
Users with Edit permission can delete any or all of the past search activity on a property
Advanced edits in Analysis
The new “Edit in Analysis” functionality in the App + Web Analysis module allows for easier exploration of your Analysis reports without having to rebuild them.
If you need to make an edit or change to any Exploration report, for example, change to a different visualization, look at different segments of your users, or break data down by more dimensions, you can now click Edit in Analysis in the customization panel to recreate the same report.
March 6, 2020
Cohort technique in Analysis
The new Cohort technique in the Analysis module in App + Web properties allows for a more granular understanding of user behavior over time across different cohorts.
This technique allows for granular analyses of user behavior over time across different cohorts. It's now possible for users to answer questions like:
- Among the users acquired last week, how many purchased, and how long did it take to purchase after they were acquired? How is this behavior different from users acquired the previous week?
- Do users acquired during Black Friday week generate more revenue over time compared to users acquired in other weeks?
- Among users who made a purchase last week, how many purchased again after that, and how long after the first purchase? How does this behavior change over time?
Learn more, or try it out in your App + Web property in “Cohort analysis” within the Analysis module.
New Realtime reporting in App + Web properties
All App + Web properties now have a new Realtime reporting experience. You can create comparisons with Realtime data, and see how users move through your marketing funnel, from acquisition to purchase, in real time, so you can take action faster.
February 21, 2020
Deprecation of Network Domain and Service Provider Data Fields
Starting February 4, 2020, the Network Domain and Service Provider data fields are no longer populated. The fields will remain in the product for legacy usage, but will no longer be updated.
As we continue to evolve our product, we regularly review how we process and make data available, and this change was a result of this examination.
If you relied upon these fields for spam detection, be sure you have enabled Bot/Spider filtering in your View settings. Google Analytics is constantly working to ensure the cleanest and safest data environment for our users, and will continue this process.
February 7, 2020
Paths to a selected event (backward pathing)
New functionality within Path Analysis (in the Analysis module) in App + Web properties lets you select a desired event or page and explore how your users got to it.
You can select an event, like a purchase or conversion, and analyze the different paths your users take to reach that event and use that insight to improve the user experience.
For example, you may determine unexpected paths to purchase outside your intended purchase funnel, uncovering user behavior that will help you streamline your site.
Or, you can select an event you want to avoid, like an app uninstall, and see the sequence of events that preceded that action so you can optimize the user experience and reduce uninstalls.
January 23, 2020
Web conversions enabled for bidding in Google Ads
As a follow-up to the launch of web-conversion export from App + Web properties, conversions exported to Google Ads (except for remarketing conversions) will by default be enabled for bidding moving forward. Conversions previously exported will be editable in Google Ads so Advertisers can manually enable them for bidding.
A notice will appear in your Google Ads account:
Use the following column in your Google Ads account to enable bidding:
Up to 14 months retention of event and user data for Analysis in App + Web properties
Analysis in App + Web properties just got a lot more powerful. You can now enable up to 14 months of retention for user-level and event-level data so you can conduct longer term analysis. Learn more
By changing the settings in the Admin panel as shown below to 14 months, your event-level data will stop expiring at the 2-month mark, and you will be able to run analyses over a longer time range.
As data accumulates over time in your App + Web property, you will be able to:
- Run analyses over a full quarter or year
- Compare key metrics vs. the same month last year to identify trends net of seasonality
- Look for user behavior in Funnels and Pathing over a longer period of time
To enjoy this new data-retention policy, you have to enable it in the Admin panel (Admin > Property column > Data Settings > Data Retention). Event-level data will continue to be deleted after 2 months until you perform this change.
December 23, 2019
New search functionality in App + Web properties
You can now do the following with search in App + Web properties:
- Navigate to pages within Admin. For example, if you want to add a new user to your App + Web property, simply search “add user” to see the relevant user-management page in the search results.
- Search for configuration details like Measurement ID (also known as Tracking ID in Web properties), Property ID or Account ID.
- See relevant App + Web specific help articles right in the search results.
- Use assistive auto-complete suggestions by pressing Tab to search faster.
Purchase events are now conversions by default
App + Web properties now have purchase
events marked as conversions by default. This ensures that important transactions that happen on a website are automatically included in the Conversions report to help you understand how your marketing efforts are driving these transactions (similar to ecommerce_purchase
for apps). This also ensures that purchase events are automatically available for import in Google Ads for properties that are linked to Google Ads.
December 9, 2019
Get instant answers via search
You can now ask questions about your Analytics data in natural language, and get quick answers to a wide range of questions. While searching for instant answers, be specific about the metric, dimension, and timeframes to get the desired response. For example, you can search for “conversions from united states last week” and see the answer in the search results. Click a search result to open the Insights panel and get more details. Learn more
NPA events and user properties
You can now mark specific events and user properties as “NPA” (non-personalized advertising signals) to signify that this data should not be used for personalized advertising purposes, while preserving measurement and content-personalization use cases. Learn more
November 14, 2019
Multiple Web Streams in App + Web properties
You can now create multiple web streams in App + Web properties (for a total of 50 streams across app and web). This release lets you measure multiple websites in the same property and distinguish them within the reporting interface. We expect this to be useful in properties where users want to analyze multiple sources of data independently. Learn more
Web-conversion export in App + Web properties
You can now export your web conversions from Google Analytics App + Web properties to Google Ads to use in reporting and bidding. Previously, this feature was only available for app conversions (Firebase). With this release we now have parity in actionability in Google Ads between app and web conversions from Google Analytics App + Web properties. Learn more
November 1, 2019
Insights
You can now see automated insights, metric changes that Analytics identifies as important to your business, and also create custom insights that are triggered by metric changes for which you set thresholds. Insights gets smarter over time as it learns about your business. Learn more
Analysis
Paths along unique nodes now allow you to perform a path analysis that displays only the changing values of your nodes.
For example, if you want to see how your users navigate through the pages on your website or screens in your app and there are multiple events tracked for each page or screen, this option within Path analysis displays only one node for each page or screen, even if the user completed many consecutive events on that page or screen. However, if the user then comes back to that page or screen after they've opened another page or screen, it will appear again as a unique node in the path. Learn more