You can now connect your Google Optimize containers with Google Analytics 4 properties, providing you with the newest features from Google Analytics. For information about what's new to Optimize with Google Analytics 4, see What's new.
Get started
To connect your Optimize containers with Google Analytics 4 properties, follow the instructions in Link Optimize to Analytics.
What's different
This section maps Optimize functionality for containers that link to a Universal Analytics property with the corresponding functionality for containers that link to a Google Analytics 4 property. For more information on the differences between Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics properties, see Migration reference.
Experiences
Experiences are website customizations that you can create to achieve a desired business goal. In Optimize, experiences include experiments (e.g., A/B and multivariate tests), personalizations, and banners.
Audience targeting
Optimize lets you use Google Analytics audiences to target experiments, enabling you to focus your experiments on a group of users who exhibit certain behaviors on your site.
| Universal Analytics | Google Analytics 4 |
|---|---|
| Available to Optimize 360 containers only. | Available to all Optimize containers. |
Google Ads targeting
The Optimize integration with Google Ads enables you to target experiences at Google Ads accounts, campaigns, ad groups, and keywords and have it persist while a visitor navigates your website.
| Universal Analytics | Google Analytics 4 |
|---|---|
| Available to Optimize 360 containers only. |
Available to all Optimize containers.
|
Simultaneous experiences
This section describes limits on the number of experiments you can run at the same time with Optimize. The limits on the number of simultaneous personalization hasn't changed. For the limits when you upgrade your account, see this section instead.
| Universal Analytics | Google Analytics 4 |
|---|---|
|
You can run up to 24 simultaneous experiments per view. |
You can run up to 10 simultaneous experiments per property. |
Objectives
Objectives are used to determine how your variants perform and inform the statistical model for picking leaders. In other words, objectives are the metrics or activities that your variants are measured against.
| Universal Analytics | Google Analytics 4 |
|---|---|
|
You can choose from these objectives:
|
You can choose from these objectives:
|
| Use revenue-based objectives in any currency. | Use revenue-based objectives in US Dollars (USD). |
Variant impressions
Optimize populates its reports with the number of users who visit an experiment variant.
| Universal Analytics | Google Analytics 4 |
|---|---|
| hitType=data is a non-interactive data hit type used to report on impressions of an experiment variant. | The optimize_personalization_impression and experiment_impression events let you report on impressions of an experiment variant. |
Experiment duration
| Universal Analytics | Google Analytics 4 |
|---|---|
| You can run experiments for up to 90 days. | You can run experiments for up to 35 days. |
Note: Personalizations do not have a duration limit.
Lifetime started experiments
For Optimize containers that link to a Universal Analytics property, Optimize limits the total number of experiments that can ever be started for a view. Optimize includes experiments that are currently running, scheduled to run, ended, and archived. Draft experiments do not impact this limit.
| Universal Analytics | Google Analytics 4 |
|---|---|
| You can start up to 1,200 experiments in total per view. Deleting experiments from the container won't reduce the total number of experiments. | Optimize doesn't limit the number of experiments you can create for a container that links to a Google Analytics 4 property. |
AMP experiments
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) use special components like <amp-analytics> to measure activity and <amp-experiment> to run experiments.
| Universal Analytics | Google Analytics 4 |
|---|---|
| Measure and report on AMP experiments. |
This feature isn't currently available in Google Analytics 4 properties.
|
Reporting
Google Optimize enables you to see the results of your experiments and personalizations using built-in reports. This section describes the differences in reporting for Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4.
Reporting scope
An important difference between using a Universal Analytics property and a Google Analytics 4 property is the ability to report on individual sessions compared to the ability to report on individual users and their experiences across many sessions.
| Universal Analytics | Google Analytics 4 |
|---|---|
| Optimize enables you to report on individual sessions. | Optimize enables you to report on individual users. |
Experiment dimensions in Analytics
Optimize populates experiment dimensions so you can measure your Optimize experiment data in Analytics.
| Universal Analytics | Google Analytics 4 |
|---|---|
| You can choose dimensions in Universal Analytics reports to see the results of your experiments. |
This feature isn't currently available in Google Analytics 4 properties.
|
Export report data
Exporting raw Optimize reporting data lets you investigate your reporting data using your own tools.
| Universal Analytics | Google Analytics 4 |
|---|---|
| Export Optimize reports and Analytics data as a comma-separated value (CSV) file. |
Export Optimize reports as a comma-separated value (CSV) file.
|
Google Analytics 360 users
Upgrade your account
Upgrade your account to get access to higher limits and additional features.
| Universal Analytics | Google Analytics 4 |
|---|---|
| Upgrade your Optimize account to Optimize 360 to get access to higher limits and additional features. You are invoiced monthly through Optimize 360. | Upgrade your Analytics account to Analytics 360 to get access to higher limits in Optimize. |
| You need to enable a Universal Analytics property for use with Optimize 360. | You need to link your Optimize container to an Analytics 360 property to upgrade your account. |
Simultaneous experiences
This section describes limits on the number of experiments you can run at the same time when you upgrade your account. The limits on the number of simultaneous personalization hasn't changed. For limits with the free version of Optimize, see this section instead.
| Universal Analytics | Google Analytics 4 |
|---|---|
| You can run more than 24 simultaneous experiments per view. | You can run up to 25 simultaneous experiments per property. |
Current latency differences
Latency measures the time from when something happens on your site to when data appears in Optimize. This section describes the current differences in latency between Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4.
Impression counts
With Universal Analytics properties, Optimize shows active user counts within minutes, while with Google Analytics 4 properties, impression counts start populating up to 12 hours after an experiment starts.
Audience targeting
You can use Google Analytics audiences to target experiments in Optimize. Universal Analytics audiences can take a few hours to appear in Optimize, while Google Analytics 4 audiences can take up to 30 hours to appear.