On 16th March 2022, Google announced that it will start sunsetting Universal Analytics from July 2023. That means everyone will need to be set up on and using GA4 by that date at the latest.
Google has released a demo account for Google Analytics 4 (GA4). This account contains two fully-functional GA4 demo properties that enable you to get truly hands-on with a fully configured version of the new platform.
The GA4 demo properties use data collected from the Google Merchandise Store and Flood-It!. This means you can see how GA4 reports for both a conventional eCommerce site and also an iOS and Android app.
If you’ve previously accessed the Google Analytics demo account for Google Universal Analytics, you should now also have access to the two properties listed above; Google Merchandise Store and Flood-It!
If not, you can access the demo here, or via the Google Analytic Help Pages.
Navigating the GA4 Demo Properties
Google Merchandise Store Demo Property
One benefit of the GA4 demo properties is that they give you access to several datasets that you might not otherwise have.
At last count, this gives you 29 different events and their parameters to play with.
The Merchandise store GA4 property focuses on eCommerce, with events such as product view (view_item), promotion views (view_promotion) and checkouts (begin_checkout).
The Analysis hub, where most reporting and analysis takes place, has four reports already configured. The analysis hub is one of the biggest changes in GA4 as users have to create the bulk of reports themselves.
On one hand, this is great as it moves away from the one size fits all approach in previous versions of Google Analytics. On the flip side, it makes GA4 more difficult for the basic user.
Google Flood-It! Demo Property
The second GA4 property within the account is for the Flood It! app. And being an app, the configured events are very different.
Automatically-collected events are still captured, but only the ones relevant to an app. There are a great deal more automatically-collected events for apps, with events such as ad_impression, app_update, first_open and in_app_purchase being captured.
The Recommended events are for Games, so includes events like level_complete, level_retry and level_fail. As mentioned in our previous blog post, GA4 has Firebase analytics on the backend, so it is a natural fit for app tracking.
Sadly, there are no Analysis hub reports set up for the Flood It! property, but this means you have a chance to have a go at creating them yourself.
Final Thoughts: GA4 Demo Account
When you compare the GA4 App and Merchandise store demo accounts, GA4 definitely feels better suited to the App. This, however, is likely to be because the structure and format of Universal Analytics has been ingrained in our minds after years and thousands of hours of usage.
The demo account for Universal Analytics has been around for some time. When it was first created it was an invaluable resource to be able to get hands-on with some of the newer (at the time) features of Universal Analytics, such as Enhanced Ecommerce.
That hasn’t changed this time around. GA4 is markedly different from Universal Analytics - so much so that we don’t recommend diving in head-first and switching over straight away. The demo properties are just another chance to get to grips with GA4 and experiment with what’s possible.
As ever, if you have any questions about moving over to GA4 please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our Web Analytics team, and they’ll be more than happy to help.
