Universal Analytics vs. Google Analytics 4: What’s the Difference?

As Google prepares to retire Universal Analytics next year, marketers should familiarize

themselves with the nuances of Google Analytics 4’s event-based data tracking model. The

main reason for this transition? Universal Analytics is simply becoming obsolete - users are no

longer active online on one device for one session at a time, and third-party cookies are being

phased out. By offering a solution to measure event-based data while protecting user privacy,

Google Analytics 4 is able to track user activity with more precision and accuracy.

Universal Analytics vs. Google Analytics 4: What’s the Difference?

• Users: UA tracks Total Users (total number of users) and New Users (first time

  interactors), while GA4 tracks Total Users, New Users, and Active Users (total distinct

  users). You might see a slight discrepancy between your “users” metric, because UA’s

  primary user metric is Total Users and GA4’s is Active Users.

• Sessions: UA and GA4 both measure a Session as the period of time that the user is

  actively engaged on your site or app, ends the Session after 30+ minutes of inactivity,

  and starts a new Session when a user returns after a session timeout. The main

  difference between the two is that GA4 does not restart a session at midnight or if new

  campaign parameters are encountered mid-Session (UA does).

• Pageviews: UA tracks Pageviews (total number of pages viewed, including repeated

  views of a singular page) and Unique Pageviews (total number of pages viewed, not

  including repeats). GA4 only tracks Views (total number of web pages or app screens

  seen by the user, including repeats of a singular page).

• Bounce Rate: UA’s Bounce Rate is defined as a percentage of the single page

  Sessions that had no interaction with the page (duration is 0 seconds). GA4’s Bounce

  Rate is the percentage of Sessions that did not trigger any events or visit other web

  pages or app screens before leaving (not engaged Sessions, which must last 10+

  seconds, have 1+ conversion event, or have 2+ webpage or screen views).

• Purchases: UA and GA4 measure Purchases very similarly as events, but GA4 expects

  you to provide the items array when collecting a purchase event and does not provide

  additional Javascript for array collection.

• Conversions: Conversion metrics are the trickiest to directly compare between UA and

  GA4, but can yield similar results for destination URLs or UA events and the equivalent

  GA4 Conversion Events. The main difference between UA’s Goals and GA4’s

  Conversion Events is that UA counts one conversion per Session per Goal and GA4

  counts every instance of that Conversion Event (including repeat events in the same

  session).