The Data Driven Business Newsletter
​Harnessing Data to Drive Growth
​Volume 11.5.1
May 5, 2023

Reading time: 4 minutes​
​

Hey Reader,

Here's this week's roundup of newsworthy items for data-driven marketers:

📊 Universal Analytics Data Will Be Kept Until July 1, 2024

Finally. Now we know.

Your Universal Analytics data, whether you are a free or 360 user, will be available for export until July 1, 2024.

Keep in mind that as a free user, your Universal Analytics will stop collecting data on July 1, 2023. So you won’t have any new data after this July, but the historical data will remain available for export for an additional year.

On July 1, 2024, however, the turndown for Universal Analytics will begin. That’s a gentle way of saying that your Universal Analytics data will be deleted.

Google lists your options for exporting Universal Analytics data:

1) BigQuery Export to Cloud storage (360 only)

2) Reporting APIs to Cloud storage (with the quotas in place)

3) CSV download

4) Google Sheets add-on for Analytics

What they didn’t list is a fifth option:

5) UA data backup using BigQuery + Analytics Canvas at a far lower cost than 360.

In fact, we have an ongoing CYA program (Breezy BigQuery Blueprint) that teaches how to do this. Once the program concludes, we may offer session recordings. If you want to get the recordings when they’re available, you can join the waitlist.

Meanwhile, read here to learn more about the deadline to export UA data.

💰 Pricing for Profit With Coach Ben McAdam

HAPPENING NOW! Ben McAdam is joining us live for a public Profit Pillars session to talk about how agencies can price their services to maintain healthy margins and raise rates without scaring off too many clients at once.

We are starting the call at 11 AM eastern time today. Hop on with us now!

​Join via Zoom​

📍 Meta: Location Targeting Is No More

Meta giveth and taketh away.

One useful feature that some advertisers loved using was location targeting. However, Meta quietly took that feature away recently.

So now if you create a new ad or duplicate an existing ad set, you'll find that you no longer have location targeting options.

But why?

Maybe not enough advertisers used it.

Perhaps privacy concerns are at top of Zuck's mind.

Or they trust their own algorithm will take care of it for you.

Who knows. But this won't be the first time, nor last, that Meta giveth and taketh an useful feature.

​Visit Jon Loomer's blog​

⚒️ The GA4 Landing Page Report Is Broken, But You Can Fix It

Do you blindly rely on the default landing page report of Google Analytics 4? Then it’s time to take action. More than 50% of the valuable data can be hidden.

To reveal the hidden gems, you need to create a landing page exploration report and replace the default landing Page dimension with another one.

​Read article​

🎥 What to Do About Missing GA4 Annotations

In the absence of a native annotation feature in GA4, Google Sheets can be used as a practical alternative.

We show how to organize annotations into categories such as campaign, website change, calendar, hot news, and others. Then create a drop-down menu for seamless data annotation.

However, be cautious when using GA4 annotation plugins, as some might collect sensitive information like passwords and credentials.

​Watch video​

That's all for this week!
​