Key Differences between GA4 360 & GA4 Standard
The choice between GA4 and GA360 depends on various factors, such as the size of your business, budget considerations, and your specific needs for data collection and analysis.
Napkyn
This article was first published in July 2023 and updated in August 2024
When comparing a product's free version to its enterprise version, it’s expected to find features exclusive to the paid version. However, the disparity between GA4 360 and free GA4 often lies not in the presence or absence of a feature, but in the degree to which it is available.
In simpler terms, both the 360 and the free versions of GA4 offer similar features, but GA4 360 provides the advantage of higher usage limits for those features. For instance, both versions allow native data export to BigQuery. However, while GA4 allows exporting up to 1 million events per day, GA4 360 includes 20 billion events per day.
Let’s start with the basics:
What is Google Analytics 4 (GA4)?
GA4, a groundbreaking Google product, revolutionizes the way we collect Web and App data. Offering the flexibility of separate or continuous property collection, it outshines both Universal Analytics (UA) and GA360. By adopting an event-based, rather than a session-based data model, GA4 provides a nuanced, precise, and comprehensive perspective on user behavior. Additionally, GA4 boasts advanced privacy controls like cookieless measurement and predictive capabilities that offer intuitive guidance without complex models.
What is Google Analytics 360?
Google Analytics 360 (GA360) is the paid, enterprise version of Google Analytics. It provides advanced features and higher usage limits beyond what the free version offers. GA4 360 forms part of the Google Marketing Platform, which includes other products like Google Tag Manager 360, Search Ads 360, and Display & Video 360.
With GA360, you can collect more data before reaching sampling limits, giving you improved insights. It also allows for greater flexibility in data collection with increased options for custom dimensions, custom metrics, event parameters, and more.
Key Product Differences: GA4 360 vs. GA4 (Free)
There are numerous distinctions between GA4 360 and GA4. Below, we’ve curated a selection of what we consider to be the most significant.
Cost Considerations
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a free tool designed for small to medium-sized businesses. It provides essential analytics features without any financial commitment, making it accessible to companies that need robust data insights without investing in an enterprise solution.
Google Analytics 360 (GA360) is a premium, enterprise-level product within the Google Marketing Platform. It requires a paid subscription, which can be a significant investment. However, the advanced features and higher data processing capabilities justify the cost for large organizations with complex analytics needs.
How much does GA4 360 License cost?
If you would like to receive an estimate of how much would your license cost based on your property's event count, please reach out to our Account team.
Data Collection
Data Limits and Sampling
One of the most critical differences between GA4 and GA360 is their handling of data limits and sampling.
GA4 offers a monthly hit limit of 10 million. Once this limit is exceeded, data sampling begins, potentially leading to less accurate insights. This limitation can be a challenge for businesses with high traffic or those requiring precise data for decision-making.
GA360 significantly increases the hit limit to 1 billion per month, ensuring that data remains unsampled even for extensive datasets. This capability is vital for enterprises that need accurate, real-time data to drive their strategies. Additionally, GA360 supports custom tables and integrates seamlessly with BigQuery for advanced data analysis
Here are a few key differences to note:
Data Collection
In general, GA4 360 offers the advantage of gathering a significantly larger volume of data compared to GA4 before encountering data sampling limitations. It also provides increased flexibility in data collection through expanded options such as custom dimensions, metrics, event parameters, etc. This ensures a more comprehensive and sophisticated approach to data analysis.
Here are a few key differences to note:
Source: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/11202874?hl=en
The capabilities of GA4 properties have taken a huge leap forward, especially when it comes to data retention. This directly impacts your ability to access historical data within the interface. While Google suggests using Big Query and Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) to meet these needs, there's still the desire to retrieve full year-over-year reports. The free version of GA4 only retains data for 14 months, limiting your reporting lookbacks to just over a year.
GA4 4 360 properties offer extended data retention of up to 50 months. This means you'll get access to an impressive four years of valuable historical data for both pre-built and custom reporting.
Data Integration & Activation
Collecting data with GA4 is just a means to an end. As marketers, our ultimate goal is to activate that data across multiple customer touch points. This is where GA4's integrations with the Google stack truly shine. As mentioned earlier, both GA4 360 and GA4 seamlessly integrate with the entire Google stack, however, if you're looking to scale those integrations, you may find the free version limiting.
Let’s take a closer look:
GA360 excels in this area, offering native integrations with other Google Marketing Platform tools such as BigQuery, Google Ads, and Salesforce. This integration enables businesses to connect their analytics data with marketing and sales platforms, facilitating more effective campaign management and data-driven strategies.
GA4 also integrates well within the Google ecosystem but lacks some of the advanced integration options and customization capabilities of GA360. For enterprises that require seamless data flow between analytics and marketing tools, GA360’s flexibility is a significant advantage
Advanced Reporting and Analysis
When it comes to reporting and analysis, GA360 offers several advanced features that go beyond what GA4 provides. One of the main one is data-driven attribution that allows analysts to look at the whole marketing funnel.
GA4 includes essential reporting tools like event-based tracking and basic funnel analysis.
GA360 provides advanced reporting capabilities, including customizable funnels, advanced segmentation, unsampled reports, and roll-up reporting. These features allow for deeper insights into user behavior across multiple domains or properties, offering a comprehensive view of your digital performance. Furthermore, GA360 is able to provide near real-time insights that are crucial for timely decision-making
Administration & Account Management
While Admin and Account Management features may not be the most thrilling aspect, they do offer significant differences. Investing in the 360 version provides a greater level of flexibility when it comes to the architecture of your GA account. With the ability to create "roll-up" properties and "sub-properties," you can effectively segment your data and establish highly customized data governance. These features not only enhance the way your GA account is structured but also enable crucial insights and improved control over your data.
Service-Level Agreements (SLA)
One crucial distinction between 360 and the free product lies in the inclusion of Service Level Agreements (SLAs). While the free product lacks any SLAs, the 360 product offers several assurances, outlined below.
Which Version is Right for You?
The choice between GA4 and GA360 depends on various factors, such as the size of your business, budget considerations, and your specific needs for data collection and analysis. For small to medium-sized companies seeking essential capabilities, GA4 Standard is a suitable option. On the other hand, if you are a larger business with more advanced feature requirements, GA4 360 is better equipped to meet to your needs.
If you have questions, need help deciding or require assistance transitioning to GA4 360 or GA4 standard, our team of experts is here to help. Talk to us.
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