The great digital analytics reimplementation

The Great Digital Analytics Reimplementation is a widespread industry shift where organizations must rebuild their analytics infrastructure as major platforms change their core architectures.

This movement affects millions of businesses currently using Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics. Both platforms are abandoning traditional page view and session-based tracking in favor of event-based models.

Why is this happening now? Digital analytics tools are converging on the event-based architecture that platforms like Amplitude pioneered. This shift means most organizations face significant reimplementation work over the next few years.

The scale resembles other major historical shifts—from The Great Depression to The Great Resignation. While less visible to the general public, this reimplementation will reshape how businesses understand their customers.

What is Google Analytics 4?

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is Google's latest analytics platform that uses event-based tracking instead of the session-based model of previous versions. GA4 represents a fundamental shift in how Google measures user behavior across websites and apps.

Key differences from Universal Analytics:

• Event-based tracking: Every user interaction is an event, not just page views
• Cross-platform measurement: Tracks web and mobile app data together
• Enhanced privacy controls: Built for cookieless tracking and privacy regulations
• Machine learning insights: AI-powered predictions and automated insights

Google Analytics evolved rapidly—from Classic to Universal Analytics (2012), then App + Web (2019), and finally GA4 (2020). This rapid versioning left many organizations running multiple versions simultaneously.

Google is actively pushing GA4 migration, even paying agencies to help customers transition. Universal Analytics will stop processing data in July 2023, making migration essential.

The Google Analytics migration challenge

Moving to GA4 requires significant technical work because the platform uses completely different data collection methods.

Required changes include:

• Tagging updates: Rebuild tracking codes for event-based structure
• Data layer modifications: Restructure how data flows to the platform
• Reporting recreation: Build new dashboards since GA4 reports differ significantly
• Team training: Learn new interface and measurement concepts

Many organizations already migrated from Universal Analytics to App + Web, only to face another required transition to GA4.

Google's dual-implementation recommendation adds complexity—they suggest running both Universal Analytics and GA4 simultaneously during transition. This creates additional maintenance overhead and potential data inconsistencies.

This means that you have multiple implementations to maintain. I suspect that part of the reason Google recommends this is due to the fact that GA4 doesn't yet have full feature parity with Universal Analytics.

Invest in GA4 migration or explore alternative analytics platforms.

Your reimplementation options:

• Migrate to GA4: Accept the technical complexity and learning curve
• Evaluate alternatives: Consider platforms built for event-based tracking from the start
• Hybrid approach: Run parallel systems while deciding long-term strategy

This forced reimplementation creates an opportunity to reassess whether Google Analytics still meets your organization's needs.

Adobe Analytics and the broader reimplementation trend

If you are an Adobe Analytics customer, you may also be looking at some sort of reimplementation over the next few years. The future of Adobe Analytics is Customer Journey Analytics (or CJA). Like Google, Adobe is moving to an event-based model with CJA and the Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) that it is built upon. There are two ways for existing customers to migrate to Customer Journey Analytics – let Adobe automatically convert you or reimplement using the new AEP WebSDK. If you choose the former, Adobe will automatically convert your existing Adobe Analytics Success Events, eVars and sProps to XDM for you. This saves time, but you will not technically be using the new AEP WebSDK, which has many benefits and is the long term direction for Adobe. The latter is reimplementing using the AEP WebSDK, which you can read about in this great blog series by Frederik Werner. But if you read Frederik's 8-post series, it will become readily apparent that this reimplementation is a lot of work. Personally, I am not a fan of stop-gap solutions or kicking the can down the road, so I would recommend reimplementing CJA using the latter approach if I were planning to use Adobe Analytics for the long run. In addition to the work effort, upgrading to Customer Journey Analytics comes with an increased price tag. While I doubt that Adobe will sunset the current version of Adobe Analytics anytime soon, it is clear that they want as many customers as possible to migrate to Customer Journey Analytics.

So why would customers want to go through a potential Adobe Analytics reimplementation and pay more money to upgrade? While there are definitely some improved features such as joining disparate data sources, unlimited variables, fewer unique limits, viewing a more complete customer journey (e.g. web + call center), and improved user identification, in many respects, migrating to CJA may bring more benefits to Adobe than it does to your organization (is which is why many are getting pressure to upgrade). Adobe has invested heavily in its Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) CDP and clearly sees getting digital analytics data into the CDP as its first priority. Once Adobe customers begin using the AEP CDP, it will be easier for Adobe to sell add-on products built upon the platform. For those wanting to go "all in" on Adobe's tech stack, that is great, but I have spoken to many organizations that value a more flexible and plug-and-play MarTech stack and are fearful of vendor lock-ins.

In addition, there are some cases in which Adobe Analytics customers will actually lose functionality if they move to CJA. Some examples include Entry & Exit Pages, Bounce Rates, Referrer Types, Marketing Channels, real-time data and Merchandising eVars. Many of these features are popular with digital marketers and compensating for these can require using complex SQL queries, which are not things all marketers are comfortable performing. Additionally, CJA/AEP requires that marketers learn new skills including building and maintaining XDM schemas.

So before you commit to Customer Journey Analytics, I would suggest you determine what additional features your organization will truly take advantage of and potentially lose and weigh that against the time and cost that will be required to perform the reimplementation.

Why this creates an opportunity to explore alternatives

If you're facing significant migration work anyway, it's the perfect time to evaluate whether your current analytics platform serves your future needs.

Adoption and accessibility:

• How widely adopted is your current analytics product across your organization?
• Can casual data users get insights without help from a centralized team?

Platform consolidation:

• Are you using the same analytics product for all digital properties (web, mobile app, authenticated sites)?
• If not, what's preventing unified measurement?

Strategic alignment:

• Since mobile apps drive future growth, would you benefit from mobile-first analytics?
• Which platform would best enable product and marketing team collaboration?

These questions help teams decide whether to reinvest in an existing point solution or move to a platform better aligned with long-term goals.

Despite serving over 20,000 marketers and earning recognition as a top 50 marketing software by G2, Amplitude remains unknown to many digital marketers. A recent LinkedIn poll revealed this awareness gap—highlighting an opportunity for teams seeking alternatives.

Amplitude's architectural advantages:

• Built event-first: No migration from legacy page-view models needed
• Advanced user identification: Connects anonymous and known users more effectively than traditional web analytics
• Mobile-native design: Purpose-built for app analytics and product teams
• Open architecture: Integrates with existing martech without vendor lock-in

Ready to reimagine your analytics approach?

As you navigate this reimplementation, consider a platform built for the modern, event-driven world.

Technical foundation:

• Event-driven from day one: Built on our proprietary Behavioral Graph, not retrofitted from page-view architecture
• Superior user identification: Best-in-class technology connects user journeys across devices and sessions

Product focus:

• Mobile and product-first: Designed for customer engagement analysis and lifetime value
• User-centric measurement: Focuses on individual users, not sessions or page views

Platform capabilities:

• Integrated experimentation: Built-in A/B testing and personalization tools
• Data governance priority: Govern module ensures data quality and accuracy
• Self-service analytics: Enables organization-wide data access without technical barriers in a self-service manner
• Open ecosystem: Plug-and-play architecture with 300+ integrations

These advantages help teams move faster without fighting legacy constraints. If you're staring at the reimplementation work ahead, use this as a moment to decide how you want to measure and grow. Learn more about how Amplitude differs from Google Analytics or request a custom demo today. Or try Amplitude for free today and see what a modern analytics platform can do.