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You should not compare Universal Analytics data with Google Analytics 4

The 5 reasons why…

2 min readAug 31, 2023

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Introduction

This is a brief article, because I am kind of tired listening:

Data on my GA4 property do not match with Universal Analytics. 😱

It is expected and here ’s why…

Reason 1: The Event Model

Of course you’ve heard of this already. But, the due importance was not given. GA4 is moving away from that hit-based data model of UA and moving towards the event-driven data model. Basically, this is telling us that the two platforms have different ways to measure things.

Reason 2: The reporting identity

GA4 creates a single user journey from all the data associated with the same identity. Because GA4 can identify users between different devices, they allow you to de-duplicate users. This is a huge difference compared to browser identification that Universal Analytics used to leverage.

Reason 3: The attribution model

GA4 upgraded its attribution model to Data-Driven. So, now every channel through your visitors path should take credit for a conversion. Can you see the difference between this and the…

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Alexandra Poulopoulou
Alexandra Poulopoulou

Written by Alexandra Poulopoulou

Analytics Developer @ Holini | Passionate about Digital World | Life-Long Learner

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