The roast of Google Analytics 4

Marketers haven’t had the easiest time migrating from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4.

Some advertisers are so frustrated with the new tool, that they’ve even been holding funerals for UA in the hope that Google might get the message and make a sudden U-turn.

Search Engine Land recently ran a poll to find out how the industry is coping and to give marketers an opportunity to get their voices heard – and the feedback was interesting to say the least.

The enforced switchover is a historic transitional moment in digital marketing history, and we know it’s a big adjustment. But if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. So with that in mind, we’ve put together a list of the funniest reactions we received to Google’s enforced GA4 switchover. Enjoy!

Short and sweet. Some marketers were able to summarise their experiences with GA4 in just a few words.

• “Mad! Mad! Mad!
• “Total cr*p!”
• “GA4 = LAME!”
• “One word (in fact two words): BS!”
• “What a Waste of our time.”
• GA4 UI team should be fired

“Google should be ashamed!” Marketers certainly know how to articulate their frustrations. They also know how to dish out some pretty epic one liners. We’re so glad we won’t be answering calls on the GA4 customer service desk on Monday.

• “Did they find the software in a Christmas cracker? The biggest pile of sh*t I have ever seen. Unusable for scenario of casual small business owner with a simple question about their stats. I can only conclude that Google deliberately wanted to obfuscate people’s access to their own website data. If it doesn’t get better, considering removing from many customers’ sites because it is just pointless drag on speed stats.”
• “GA4 is potentially the worst product update ever from a pure usability perspective, and Google should be ashamed of its current state.”
• “Google trying to do tableau for dummies is not working on either level.”
• “Simply Put, GA4 Sucks. It is a pain in the a*s to use (NOT USABLE) requires much more time than previous version lacks the same visual impact as GA3 it is junk.”

Mind games. What if Google secretly designed GA4 with a hidden agenda; to get marketers to stop using its own tools and turn to its competition instead? Makes sense. Kinda. Well, not really.

• “This might be the least user-friendly product Google has ever produced. Almost like they don’t want people to use it.”

I’m outta here! A fantastic solution if you’re not a fan of GA4; turn on your Out Of Office, go on vacation and wait for all of this to blow over. Of course, it probably won’t. But definitely a great short-term option.

• “I have been dreading the arrival of this date so much that I booked a trip out of town. LOL. My hope is that by the time I return from vacation, Google will have changed their mind, and Universal Analytics will continue to exist.”

You can’t make me. Alternatively, if you’re not in a position to take a vacation right now, just close your eyes, pretend GA4 isn’t happening and do nothing. What could possibly go wrong?

• “Our marketing department doesn’t have the faintest idea how to follow complex directions. And most of them are out of the office for the next two weeks. So IT kicked the project over to our business insights department, who swiftly said, “We don’t have anything to do with Google Analytics anymore. Talk to Marketing. Now it looks like the project is mine. I’m a one-person department. I’m not gonna do sh*t. That’s my GA4-adjacent sob story.”

Why we care: We’re all in the same boat right now. After 11 years of relying so heavily on Universal Analytics, migrating over to GA4 is a daunting task. But unfortunately, we don’t have a choice (unless you want to consider a GA4 alternative). So we might as well get our heads down and try to figure it all out. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a laugh along the way.