Quick tutorial for GA Pro. Google has deprecated Universal tracking in favor of its new GA4 tracking. To help with switching over, you can enable both GA4 and Universal tracking on the same site. This tutorial explains how to do it in a few minutes.

FYI: Google will stop processing data for Universal Analytics on July 1, 2023 (October 1, 2023 for Analytics 360 properties).

Step 1: Set up GA4

First follow the Quick Start Guide to install and activate GA Pro. Then once the plugin is active, set up GA4 as follows:

  1. Follow this guide to create a GA 4 account (if you don’t already have one).
  2. During account creation, you’ll get a tracking (measurement) ID.
  3. Add your tracking ID to GA Pro “Configure” tab ▸ “GA Tracking ID”.
  4. Select “Global Site Tag” for the plugin setting, “Tracking Method”.

Save changes and done. Wait 24-48 hours before viewing collected data in your GA account.

Tip: Here is more complete guide on how to set up Google Analytics 4 with GA Pro.

Step 2: Set up Universal Analytics

Now to add Universal Analytics, you need to get the full tracking code (not just the tracking ID but the entire tracking code snippet), and add it to the Custom Code settings. After adding the full tracking code to one of the “Custom Code” settings, save changes and done. You may also want to customize the related settings like code location and so forth, if desired. Otherwise the default settings are going to work just fine.

Tip: You can find the “full tracking code” for Universal Analytics in your Google account and/or in the official Google documentation.

After adding the Universal tracking code, you can (and should) check to make sure everything looks good code-wise. You can view the code output via the live “Preview” on the plugin settings page, and/or you can examine the source code of your web pages directly. Also if any doubts it never hurts to check for any JavaScript errors using your browser’s code inspector. And one more tip just in case: make sure to clear/empty/reset any cache plugins that may be used on site.

Reminder to wait 24-48 hours before viewing collected data in your GA account. Give those robots a chance to collect some data :)

Notes

  • Sometime in 2022, Google renamed “Global Site Tag” to “Google Tag”.
  • “Tracking ID” also may be referred to as “Tag ID”, “Measurement ID”, or “Property ID”, depending on which Google documentation you are reading.
  • Confused about the ever-changing Google Analytics terminology? Understanding the history of Google Analytics should be helpful.