On July 1, 2023, Google will sunset Universal Analytics, and as such standard UA properties will stop processing new hits.
What does this mean for your Studio experiences that use the Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager integration?
Google Analytics Integration
Prior to July 1, 2023, you will want to update your Google Analytics integration settings in the Studio to use the GA4 measurement ID (G-XXXXXXXXXX) for your data stream.
To do this, either at the account level or for individual experiences, navigate to the Integrations settings, click the gear icon next to Google Analytics, and update the Tracking ID field to use your GA4 Measurement ID.
If you do not know what your GA4 measurement ID is or how to find it, refer to this documentation from Google:
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9539598?hl=en
Google Tag Manager Integration
If you are using Google Tag Manager, the container ID used within the Studio / Tag Manager integration can remain the same.
The change to sending events to a GA4 property would be made within the Google Tag Manager container by changing the tag type to GA4 Event and mapping the parameters as desired.
A common starting point is to map either the event category or the event action to the event name and to set the event label and custom definitions as parameters, but the tags could be set up in a number of different ways and how they are setup will depend on your organization's reporting needs.
Click here to check out our article about Tag Manager specifically.
Other Necessary Changes
Naming of Events and Parameters
Google's documentation states that within GA4, event names must contain alphanumeric characters or underscores only, and they must start only with an alphabetic character.
This means that if you are still using the Studio integrations’ default category and action names (ceros-event, ceros-click & ceros-hover), or are using your own naming convention that contains dashes/hyphens, you would want to edit those to use a name that is either all one word or uses underscores to separate words.
If this change is not made and the event actions, which are used as the event name, contain a dash/hyphen, it may not be possible to use Ceros events within custom dimensions or metrics. This could in turn prevent Ceros events from being used within reports.
This applies to both the Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager integrations in the Studio.
You do not need to change the naming of hotspots or other clickable/hoverable elements in the Studio.
The event name (event) that the Studio sends will match the naming of the event actions as set in the GA or GTM integration settings in Studio.
These could be something like ceros_click and ceros_hover, or any other naming convention as long as it does not contain a dash/hyphen character.
The Studio also sends two parameters that cannot be edited: event_category, and event_label.
The event category parameter (event_category) value will match the name of the event category in the integration settings.
Here's an example of a naming convention that's close to the Studio default and acceptable for GA4 using the GA integration settings (the settings are the same for the GTM integration):
The value of the event label (event_label) parameter is set by the name of the element in the layers panel within the Studio that has the click or hover interaction added to it.
If the action name for a click is set to ceros_click within the Google Analytics integration settings, and the name of the hotspot is "Your Hotspot Name," the GA event object that the Studio sends for a click will look like this:
gtag('event', 'ceros_click', {
'event_category': 'ceros_event',
'event_label': 'Your Hotspot Name'
});(The code above is an example of a GA event object and is only here to illustrate how the event object that comes from the Studio is structured, and where the event name, category, and action names end up within the event object. There is nothing you need to do with this code.)
Note: If you are using Tag Manager, and use static parameters within the tags that fire on Ceros events rather than data layer variables, those names must of course follow the same convention of using alphanumeric characters or underscores only.
Adding Ceros Events as Custom Dimensions in GA4
In order to see Ceros events within reports in the GA4 dashboard, it is necessary to create custom dimensions for those events.
Depending on your organization's needs, it may only be necessary to add the Ceros event_label parameter as a custom dimension, but it would be valuable to create a custom dimension for event_category as well so it can also be used in reports within GA4 if needed.
Refer to this documentation from Google Analytics for information on how to create custom dimensions:
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10075209?hl=en
Seeing the Breakdown of Events from Ceros
Once Google Analytics processes the custom dimension or metric, you can add it to your custom reports, audiences, explorations, and segments, and as secondary dimensions in standard reports.
You could also use Google's Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio) or another data visualization/business intelligence/reporting platform that connects to Google Analytics.
Your analytics team is likely preparing for this change, and your company might have already migrated, so it may be worth connecting with your team internally to test and ensure that Ceros events are reported in a format that makes sense for your reporting needs.