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Switching to Google Analytics 4, Why you should use both old and new

Use Old and New Google Analytics for Year-to-Year Comparisons

by Dave Loebig ♦

A few weeks ago, I sent a newsletter about the end of old Google Analytics (Universal Analytics, UA). It will stop collecting data July 1, 2023.

Since then I learned a good reason to use both UA and the new Google Analytics 4 (GA4) until then: year-to-year comparisons in one place.

Both UA and GA4 have separate dashboards, separate places to see the data. The data isn’t combined. Using both for the next year creates a one-year overlap. You’ll be able to compare one time period to the same period the previous year in UA or GA4. Without this overlap, that won’t be easy for 2022.

If you might want to compare visitor stats for 2022 to 2021 and/or compare 2023 to 2022, use both UA and GA4 through June 2023.

Add GA4 to Pacesetter Site Theme

If your site uses the Pacesetter Site theme, you can do it yourself:

  1. Get the GA4 code snippet from Google Analytics.
  2. On your site’s WordPress dashboard, click “Pacesetter Site” (near bottom of the left column).
  3. Add the code snippet for GA4 to the setting “Google Analytics Script”.
  4. Click Save Changes.