Hello all,
As I'm sure many of you are already using GA4 in parallel with GA3, or getting ready to implement GA4, I am curious about what methods organizations are considering for backing up their historical GA3 data.
Currently as of right now, I believe Google's roadmap is for GA3 to stop collecting data in the summer of 2023, and we have until January of 2024 to backup our historical data. Personally I think it's worth having some years of data backed up and accessible for comparison reporting.
Is anyone considering or using Google's reporting API to store your historical GA3 data in BigQuery? While that seems the most robust option, there is a heavier lift upfront and cost considerations. (This is a free service for Google 360 customers).
Other ways that are not as much technical lift usually involve some process of storing data in Google sheets, using a connector like Google analytics reporting plugin for sheets, or something like Supermetrics. The disadvantages of these are usually that thresholds are applied, data is sampled, and you would also have to choose what dimensions/metrics you want to keep, most likely across many sheets.
Also, do you feel you'd be taking this on yourself or working with an agency to do this for you?
Thanks
(Admins, if this question should be posted to another forum, I'm happy to move this.)
Hi Michael thanks for posting! It might be an idea to post this to the Analytic Coffee Community Group as well?- Gill, Community Manager