Farewell to Universal Analytics: Archiving Your Data Before the July 1st Shutdown

Illustration of a laptop with pie and bar graphs
by Anthony Wilson in Development Research & Strategy

As of July 1st, 2023, Google sunsetted Universal Analytics, its long-standing web analytics platform. This marked the culmination of a transition period that began with the introduction of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) in 2020. While GA4 offers a powerful approach to website measurement, it doesn’t include the ability to migrate data from Universal Analytics.

The Shutdown Timeline

  • July 1st, 2023: Standard Universal Analytics properties stopped processing new data.
  • July 1st, 2024: Access to the Universal Analytics interface and all data will be permanently removed.

For businesses that relied on Universal Analytics for historical data and trend analysis, this shutdown presents a challenge. If the data is still needed, there are still options to preserve your valuable insights before they disappear.

Archiving Your Universal Analytics Data

Here are four ways to save your data before it’s erased on July 1st:

  1. Migrate to BigQuery: Google’s cloud data warehousing platform, BigQuery, allows you to import your Universal Analytics data for long-term storage and analysis. This approach offers flexibility and scalability, but requires some technical expertise for setup and ongoing management.
  2. Third-Party Analytics with Import Functionality: Several third-party analytics platforms offer the ability to import historical data from Universal Analytics. This can be a good option if you plan to switch to a different analytics solution altogether. Research various platforms to find one that aligns with your needs and offers a smooth import process. A few platforms supporting Universal Analytics data are Plausible, Analytics Canvas or Power My Analytics.
  3. Export to Spreadsheets (Excel or Google Sheets): You can export your Universal Analytics data to a spreadsheet format like Excel or Google Sheets. This allows you to maintain some level of data manipulation and analysis capabilities. However, keep in mind that complex reports and visualizations will not translate well to a spreadsheet format.
  4. Export to PDF: While not ideal for future analysis, exporting reports to PDF format can preserve the original visualizations and charts from your Universal Analytics reports. This can be useful for archival purposes and creating static presentations of your historical data.

Many users chose several of the options above to support various goals. For example, creating excel and PDF exports.

Remember

Make sure to initiate the archiving process well before the July 1st deadline to avoid losing valuable historical insights.

This shutdown marks a turning point in website analytics. Many companies have run Universal Analytics and GA4 in parallel long enough the loss of data will not matter. But if historical data is critical, now is the time to act.