News, Articles & Knowledge

The world of online advertising often incites discussion on the ethical and legal responsibilities that said advertisers should uphold. We are at a pivotal point in online advertising, with lots of challenges being presented through current and upcoming technologies – the metaverse, crypto, NFTs, etc.

Westminster eForum’s recent conference focused on the next steps for regulations governing the online advertising industry within the UK, discussing priorities for the sector, its customers, and the public. I was keen to attend this event to gain further insight into how the UK’s regulatory bodies are operating to ensure a safer, fairer, and more transparent online advertising space. Here are a few key takeaways from the session which will either provoke thought or provide insight on the landscape of online advertising regulation:

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest property type available to Google Analytics users and is the successor to the popular Universal Analytics (UA) property. As discussed in our previous blog post, What is GA4 & How Will It Impact Your Business?, GA4 uses an event-based data model to track its user’s actions, and utilises “Data Streams” to connect all your data sources, such as website, iOS or Android apps, into one single property. GA4 aims to be more user-friendly by supplying you with a handful of automatically tracked events and “Enhanced Measurement” tracking, to automatically measure interactions and content on your site, such as file downloads, scrolls, etc., without the need for additional tracking code.

Google recently announced the planned retirement of its Universal Analytics properties within the Google Analytics platform, which are currently due to stop collecting data as of 1^st July 2023. Moving forward, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) properties will become the only property choice on the platform. Whilst this change may seem like a long way off, it is vital to begin your preparation and planning now to ensure your company isn’t adversely impacted come July 2023.

Every business seeks accurate data. Accurate data can be transformed into useful insights that guide your overall strategy. You may rely on Google Analytics for accurate and reliable website data however if this is the case; you need to be aware of something called ‘dark traffic’. Although dark traffic can go mostly under the radar, it’s likely having a huge effect on the quality and accuracy of your data.

Google Tag Manager (or for the purpose of speed GTM) is a hugely popular and powerful platform. However, it’s incredibly easy to get wrong. And if you’re using Google Analytics (which you most likely are) any mistakes you make are going to be forever visible on your account/view. This often can lead to problems comparing data, for example if you want to look at year on year (YOY) metrics, an issue with GTM tracking could easily lead to distorted and inaccurate figures.