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As the sunset of Universal Analytics comes close, Google has announced that they will start auto-migrating your Universal Analytics Property on March 01, 2023, in preparation for the Universal Analytics sunset on July 01, 2024. This may sound great but in reality, there are a lot of factors you need to consider if you will take advantage of this feature as there is an option to opt-out.
Google advised users that they have until February 28 to opt out of this feature but checking on the GA4 Setup Assistant in Google Analytics Settings, the feature to opt out is still available.
Additionally, I am handling almost 100 UA Properties and have not seen one that’s been auto-migrated. I’ve also attended an all-day GA4 Event by MeasureMinds and all the participants who have UA Properties mentioned that they have not experienced auto-migration with their properties just yet. A little confusing to me that Google has provided a specific timeline but no one has seen it happen.
I truly believe Google is beginning to be aggressive on this matter because the majority of UA Properties are still not migrated to GA4 or it could also be due to privacy compliance because of the capability to send PII to UA.
Why does this matter?
Universal Analytics and GA4 are 2 completely different tracking tools with different structures so it is best to identify whether auto-migration will be of benefit to you and your business. Also, if you have already migrated to GA4 and have not opted out of the auto-migration feature, Google will still create a new GA4 Property for you.
In this video, we will discuss reasons for you to consider whether to take advantage of the GA4 auto-migration.
Final Word
My opinion on this is that auto-migration is not entirely a bad thing as this will assist you in gathering more data now than setting up GA4 later. So it is recommended to proceed with caution as automation is set for everyone and every business is different so it is recommended to do what is fit for your business. After all, migrating to GA4 is a must.
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