Universal Analytics will sunset in June 2023 – but that’s not the end of the world
Dear Data-Traveller, please note that this is a Linkedin-Remix.
I posted this content already on Linkedin in June 2022, but I want to make sure it doesn’t get lost in the social network abyss.
For your accessibility-experience and also for our own content backup, we repost the original text here.
Have a look, leave a like if you like it, and join the conversation in the comments if this sparks a thought!
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What if your behavioral data is driving a part of your product?
What if your Saas app changes based on how your users are using it?
These sound today like a product manager’s Sunday sunny morning dreams, but maybe they are not so unrealistic. We see first glances already with some personalization features in our mobile operating systems (I said some).
But there is a requirement for this future: reliable behavioral data.
If you have ML pipelines driving essential parts of your user journey, things like: “sorry that we changed this attribute in the frontend, just thought it was a button attribute,” threaten your business model.
Imagine you would build some core product features based on Google Analytics data? Yes, it would be ok not to sleep well with that.
Funny, there is an analytics tool out there that is making sure for years that you only get predictable data: Snowplow.
In Snowplow, you define the data schema that you expect to arrive downstream. And all data that looks different is not just ignored (looking at you, GA) but put into a diverse pipeline so that you can analyze it (and maybe transform and reintegrate).
This creates some contracts with downstream systems (and yes, we will talk a lot about data contracts in data). This sounds great when you think that this data is used to drive your product.
So, there is a life after Google Analytics UA (which will go on an endless holiday in June 2023) – especially when you plan to build data products (or data-driven products).
Next week, Wednesday, 15 June, 9 am PDT, 12 PM EDT, 5 PM BST, and 6 PM CEST, I will join Alexander S., Jordan Peck, and Michael Faulkner in a live session: What does life after Google Analytics UA look like?
Make sure to signup to join live and ask your questions or get the recording afterward.
Signup now: https://snowplowanalytics.com/events/life-after-google-analytics-universal/