Google has just announced that in response to market feedback, the deprecation of Universal Analytics 360 (UA 360) properties will be extended from October 1, 2023, to July 1, 2024. The deprecation date for Universal Analytics “Standard” is not changing, and will remain July 1, 2023.
This means that users of the free Google Analytics product will still need to migrate to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) by July 1, 2023. Meanwhile, users of UA 360 properties now have the option of an additional nine months to use the product. Note that UA standard properties will be deprecated on July 1, 2023, even in Google Analytics accounts that have UA 360 properties. Deprecation is applied per property, not per account.
While this may be welcome news to organizations who have yet to complete a migration from UA 360 to GA4 360, the long-term implications of this announcement are negligible. GA4 continues to be Google’s flagship analytics product, and it will continue to add new capabilities and features moving forward. Conversely, Google will not be investing further in UA, which means that it will not receive any new features.
As such, organizations that haven’t begun their GA4 migration yet should still prioritize this important initiative. The sooner organizations begin — and complete — their GA4 migrations, the sooner they will be able to tap into the many enhancements that GA4 delivers relative to the legacy UA platform. For example, GA4 comes with:
- A new, unified data model to help you collect data holistically across web, app, and more.
- A raft of data privacy improvements.
- Behavioral and conversion modeling to help marketers “fill in the gaps” caused when data cannot be directly observed.
- In-platform machine learning features, like Predictive Audiences, which help organizations reduce churn and improve conversion rates.
So, if you’ve been sweating the previous deadline for migrating away from UA 360, hopefully you’re feeling a bit more relaxed about the transition now. But don’t let the extended timeline diminish the importance of — and the opportunity represented by — migrating your analytics deployment from UA 360 to GA4 360.
If it’s time to bring in the experts to ensure the migration is a success, get in touch with us and we’d be happy to share what we’ve learned from the 500+ GA4 deployments we’ve already led.
