Analytics & Reporting

On October 14 2021, Google announced a replacement for Universal Analytics, which they’re calling Google Analytics 4 (GA4). 

You might be wondering, how does this impact our businesses’ use of Google Analytics and Marketing Cloud? Well, we’re going to give you the lowdown and tell you what you need to do to keep your reporting solutions up to date.

Google Universal Analytics is going away

If you use Google Analytics to track your website engagement metrics, then you likely use Universal Analytics. You’ll need to upgrade to GA4 before Universal Analytics goes into retirement mode to avoid any disruptions in your website reporting.

At the end of June 2023, Google is going to retire the free version of Universal Analytics. The GA4 upgrade deadline is September 2023 for Premium paying customers. After these dates, Universal Analytics will stop capturing data. 

Take action soon

We recommend implementing tracking in GA4 by the end of June 2022. Our hasty deadline recommendation is based on the need for at least one year’s worth of data for year-to-year analyses.

What’s different between Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4?

So the big question, what is different between the two Google Analytics versions and what are the advantages with GA4? Well, here you go.

Goals are now Conversion Events

Universal Analytics allows you to measure conversions by setting up goals. GA4 includes a change to this feature that impacts how you measure conversions. 

In a nutshell, the difference between the old and new ways is this. GA4 allows 30 events per property while Universal Analytics only allows 20 Goals per view, and a single property can have more than 30 different styles of Goals. 

Depending on how you operate you might need to consolidate your Goals down.

Flexible event-based model

Rather than tracking data as hit types, GA4 data points are all characterized as events.

Universal Analytics uses a session-based model to collect and report on data. That means, each tracked interaction is categorized by hit type (web page, event, ecommerce, and social). 

In contrast, GA4 properties have become more flexible by using an event-based model. This allows for additional information to be captured and passed to Google Analytics for each interaction as well as more accurate reporting.

Focus on privacy

The new GA4 is privacy-focused and durable for the future and any additional changes that may come.

Machine learning insights

GA4 is intelligent, using machine learning to unearth insights about the customer journey across platforms and devices.

Integrations across Google ads platforms

GA4 has enhanced, seamless integrations with Google advertising platforms to optimize campaign performance and drive greater marketing ROI.

How to set up the new Google Analytics 4

Upgrading to GA4 is where Google has made our lives easier. It’s super simple to set up a new GA4 property. 

There are three big steps to go about setting this up. All you need to get started is the Editor role for the Google account.

Step 1. Create an account (or confirm you have one)

Already have an account set up? Great. You’re good to go.

If you don’t yet use Google Analytics you can simply create a new account. This will allow you to set up a Google Analytics 4 property.

Step 2. Create a GA4 property

If you are already using a Universal Analytics property, you can add a Google Analytics 4 property to the existing setup. Or read on if you’re starting fresh.

1. In Google Analytics, select Admin (lower left hand corner).
2. In the Account column, make sure it is the correct account you wish to update (ignore this if you only have one account).
3. In the Property column, select the Universal Analytics property you wish to use that already collects data on your website.
4. In the Property column, select the GA4 Setup Assistant. This should be the top option in this column.
5. Click Get started under I want to create a new Google Analytics 4 property.
6. If you currently use the gtag.js, tag you can elect to “Enable data collection using existing tags.
   
   If your website does not support the gtag.js, you use Google Tag Manager, or is tagged with analytics.js, then you can’t reuse your existing tags and will need to add the tags again.
7. Click Create your Property.

Step 3. Update global site tag on your website

If you currently use a website builder platform that requires you to provide a “UA-” ID, don’t worry, you can still use Google Analytics 4. 

You’ll need to paste the global site tag (gtag.js) snippet manually into your website builder’s/CMS’s custom HTML field. Select your website builder from this table for platform-specific instructions.

Do I need to change anything in Salesforce Marketing Cloud for the GA4 upgrade?

This is a great question, and the short answer is — not really. 

From what we can see so far, you will not need to make any changes to your Google Analytics connector to Marketing Cloud tools, including Account Engagement (Pardot).

Check for Google Code in Marketing Cloud forms

However, you may need to take action if you are using Google Code within your Marketing Cloud forms to fire events or track form completion. Navigate to your Form completion code section to review and make sure your forms are using the gtag.js tag and not the old analytics.js tag (refer to Step 3 in this blog post for details). 

Get ahead of the GA4 upgrade

If you currently don’t have the Pardot Google Analytics connector set up and want to know more about it, you can read more on our blog post 10 FAQs on the Pardot Google Analytics connector.

If you have any other concerns about this change or have further questions, feel free to reach out to us to find out more.

Creating a Salesforce marketing dashboard is an effective way to see how you are doing against your marketing targets. What channels are most effective for generating pipeline? How many leads did we generate this month compared to last month? In this post, I’ll share some example marketing dashboard components and some tips and tricks for creating dashboards in Salesforce.

Hot Tip: Check out this blog post to learn more about choosing a Salesforce marketing reporting tool.

Salesforce Marketing Dashboard Tips & tricks

Create a reports folder for your dashboard reports

Anyone accessing your dashboard also needs access to the underlying reports. Creating a separate folder for your reports allows you to easily control who has access to them. And (bonus!) it’s easier to find your reports when you are creating your dashboard.

Choose your dashboard running user wisely

Each dashboard has a running user, whose security settings determine which data to display in a dashboard. If the running user is a specific user, all dashboard viewers see data based on the security settings of that user—regardless of their own personal security settings. For this reason, you’ll want to choose the running user wisely, so as not to open up too much visibility.

Add a chart directly to your report

Adding a chart directly within your report can speed up your dashboard setup time, especially if you are going to use the same report on multiple dashboards. It is also helpful if you are going to share the report directly instead of the dashboard.

Change your dashboard palette

Give your dashboard a fresh new look by changing the dashboard palette. There are 14 themes available in both light and dark mode.

Resuse reports within your dashboard

The same report can be used many times within your dashboard. This is a great way to visualize the same data in different ways without creating multiple reports.

Example Dashboard Components

Let’s dive into some examples of what type of reports you might want to add to your dashboard. In these examples, I’m specifically looking at the pipeline and revenue marketing has generated. To pull these reports, I have the primary campaign source field populated on the opportunity and I use the campaigns with influenced opportunties report type. Your setup might be differ depending on how you associate marketing campaigns with opportunities.

Marketing vs Target

What this reports answers: How are we tracking against our pipeline target?

Report setup

• Report type: Campaigns with Influenced Opportunties
• Filters: Show me all opportunities CREATED this fiscal quarter
• Grouped by: Create date

Dashboard component setup

• Chart type: Gauge

Closed won revenue

What this reports answers: How much marketing generated pipeline has been closed-won?

Report setup

• Report type: Campaigns with Influenced Opportunties
• Filters: Show me all opportunities CLOSED this fiscal quarter
• Grouped by: Close date

Dashboard component setup

• Chart type: Gauge

Leads created by source

What this reports answers: What are our top lead sources this quarter by month?

Report setup

• Report type: Leads
• Filters: Show me all leads created in the last fiscal quarter
• Grouped by: Create date and lead source

Dashboard component setup

• Chart type: Stacked vertical bar chart
• X-axis: Create date
• Y-axis: Record count

Contacts created by source

What this reports answers: What are our top contact sources this quarter by month?

Report setup

• Report type: Contacts and Accounts
• Filters: Show me all accounts created in the last fiscal quarter
• Grouped by: Create date and lead source

Dashboard component setup

• Chart type: Stacked vertical bar chart
• X-axis: Create date
• Y-axis: Record count

Pipeline by source

What this reports answers: What are the top marketing channels for generating pipeline?

Report setup

• Report type: Campaigns with influenced opportunities
• Filters: show me all campaigns where created date (opportunity) is this fiscal quarter
• Grouped by: Campaign type
• Columns: Opportunity amount summarized by sum and average

Dashboard component setup

Table component

• Chart type: Lightning table
• Grouped by: Campaign type
• Measure: Opportunity amount (summarize by sum and average amount)

Donut component

• Chart type: Donut

Marketing qualified leads (MQLs)

If you want to learn how to display MQL reports within your dashboard, check out this blog post.

Questions?

Send me a tweet @jennamolby, or contact the Sercante team for help.

If you’re new to using Salesforce campaigns, then this blog post is the perfect starting point. Use these 5 tips to make your life easier as you dip your toe into using Salesforce campaigns.

Even seasoned Salesforce pros may find a gem they haven’t seen before.

Tip #1: View the unique count of records in a report

Want to know how many accounts or companies attended an event, webinar or interacted with a marketing campaign? The “show unique count” option within Salesforce reports can be enabled to view this information.

How it works

While editing a report in the report builder, find the column for which you want to count unique values.

1. Click Show More | Show Unique Count.
2. Click Save.

A count of unique values appears as a grand total for the whole report and as a subtotal for each group.

Each report support up to 3 unique counts.

Example: Campaigns with contacts report

This example shows the unique count of the accounts touched by a specific marketing campaign.

The report is using the “campaigns with contacts” report type and has a filter for campaign name equals (the virtual event campaign).

The unique count for account can be pulled by selecting the show unique count option for the account column.

Running the report allows you to see the total number of records (the number of contacts) and the unique account count (the number of accounts that were touched by the campaign).

Tip #2: Add custom fields to campaign members

The campaign member object in Salesforce represents the association between a campaign and a lead or a contact. While some standard lead and contact fields are available for the campaign member object, if you want to view or pull a report for custom fields, you will need to create a new field.

How it works

Create a formula field on the campaign member object that will check if the campaign member is a Lead or a Contact and populate the field with the custom field value.

Navigate to the campaign member object within the object manager and create a new formula field.

If your lead and contact fields are picklists, use this syntax for the formula.

IF(ISBLANK(ContactId), TEXT(Lead.Status), TEXT(Contact.Status__c))

If your lead and contact fields are not picklists, use this syntax for the formula.

IF(ISBLANK(ContactId), Lead.Status, Contact.Status__c)

Add the field to campaign member related list

You can add the new custom field to the campaign member related list by navigating to the campaign object in the campaign manager and selecting your page layout. Scroll to the campaign member related list and click on the wrench icon to select your fields.

Now the custom field displays in the related list for campaign members.

Tip #3: Create a campaigns calendar (without installing an app)

Did you know you can create a calendar based on any custom object in Salesforce – without using an app? Yes, this applies to the campaigns object as well. While there are a couple of limitations to using this feature, it’s a great way to get a view of all your campaigns in a campaign view without purchasing an app from the Salesforce App Exchange.

How it works

Search for “Calendar” in the App Launcher to find the calendar app.

Under My Calendars, click on the gear icon to create a new calendar.

Select the Campaign object from the drop-down and click next.

Give your calendar a name and select the start date (required) and the end date (optional). You can use the standard Salesforce campaign fields for the start date and end date, or you can select a custom field. For example, if you have a “go live” date field, you can use that as your start date instead.

You also have the option to add a filter to your calendar. The filter has to be a list view using the campaign object. For example, if you want to have a separate campaign calendar for webinars only, this is what your list view would look like.

Here’s what my calendar looks like:

Click on the gear icon next to your calendar name to change the colour of the campaigns displayed in the calendar.

Hover over the campaign name within the calendar to view more information about the campaign.

Limitations

There is one big limitation when it comes to using this feature… the calendar can not be made shareable without using the API. If you want to use this feature, each user will need to create their own calendar. With that being said, there is an idea open to allow sharing via the UI.

If you are looking for more robust calendar functionality, take a look at these apps on the Salesforce AppExchange.

Tip #4: How to automatically create campaign member status values

When a new campaign is created in Salesforce, there are two default member status values: “Sent” and “Responded”. For the majority of your campaigns, you will want to get more granular with your campaign member statuses than the default values. To do this, there are a couple of options:

• Create the statuses manually when you create a new Salesforcecampaign.
• Set up “campaign templates” to copy the status values.
• Use Data Loader to bulk create the values.
• Automatically create campaign member statuses using Salesforce Flow.
• Install the Protected Campaign Member Statuses App.

Tip #5: Customize your campaign page

One of my favourite Lightning features is customizing the campaign page using the Lightning App Builder. The drag-and-drop App Builder allows you to add tabs, reports and instructions to your page.

How to customize your campaign page

To customize your campaign page, navigate to one of your Salesforce campaigns, click on the gear icon, and click on edit page. This will take you to the Lightning Page Builder.

Note: Editing the page will overwrite the existing page. You might want to create a new custom record page instead of overwriting an existing page.

Check out these 4 changes to make to your campaign page

Questions?

Send me a tweet @jennamolby, or contact the Sercante team for help.