GA4 Becomes Mandatory: Final Migration Steps
In five days, Universal Analytics stops processing new data. July 1, 2023 is the hard deadline Google announced 16 months ago. If you have not migrated, this is the week. If you have migrated but never validated, this is the week. Here is the final checklist that catches the issues we are seeing in real account audits this month.
What happens on July 1?
Universal Analytics standard properties stop processing new hits at 12:00 AM Pacific on July 1, 2023. UA 360 (the paid enterprise version) gets a one-year extension to July 1, 2024.
After July 1, your existing UA data remains accessible until at least July 1, 2024 — but no new data is collected. Reports will progressively go stale. Integrations that depend on UA data will silently break.
A direct answer: Universal Analytics stops processing data on July 1, 2023. Existing UA reports remain accessible for one year, but no new data is collected after the sunset. Every site needs a GA4 property installed and validated before the deadline, or risk losing the entire week of data flow.
What if you have not migrated yet?
You have five days. The fast-path migration:
- Create a GA4 property in your Google Analytics admin
- Install the GA4 tag on every page (gtag.js or GTM)
- Verify the tag fires with Tag Assistant or DebugView
- Configure the events you care about
- Mark conversion events
- Link to Google Ads if you use it
- Set up audiences if needed
For a small business with a single domain, this is a two to four hour project. For a multi-site setup with cross-domain tracking, complex e-commerce, or custom UA configurations, this is a multi-week project that you should have started in Q1.
What is the validation checklist?
If you migrated months ago and assume everything works, validate this week. The most common issues we are finding in account audits:
The GA4 tag is firing on some pages but not others. Often caused by header/footer includes that don’t propagate to every template, or by GTM containers that are missing on landing pages.
Conversion events are configured but not firing. Common when migration was done before the page templates changed, or when form submission events broke during a redesign.
Cross-domain tracking is misconfigured. If you have a checkout subdomain, a booking app, or a separate microsite, cross-domain configuration in GA4 is different from UA. Validate that user sessions persist across domains.
Google Ads is still importing from UA, not GA4. Many accounts set up GA4 alongside UA and never switched the Google Ads conversion source. After July 1, those Ads accounts will lose their conversion feed.
Internal traffic filter is missing. UA had a built-in IP exclusion filter. GA4 requires you to define internal traffic in the admin and the configuration is different.
How do you check if your GA4 tag is on every page?
The fastest method: use Screaming Frog or a similar crawler with a custom extraction looking for your GA4 measurement ID (G-XXXXXXXXXX). Crawl the site, export the pages without the tag, and fix them.
Alternative: use Tag Assistant in Chrome and click through your site’s most important pages manually. Tedious but reliable.
A direct answer: Validate GA4 tag coverage by running a site crawl with a custom extraction for your measurement ID, or by clicking through your top 20 pages with Tag Assistant. The most common issue is templates that were updated after the original migration and lost the tag.
How do you validate conversion events?
Open GA4 admin → DebugView. Then walk through each of your conversion paths end-to-end:
- Submit your contact form → check that the form_submit event (or your custom event) fires
- Click a phone number on mobile → check the click event
- Place a test order if you have e-commerce → check the purchase event
- Sign up for a newsletter → check the sign_up event
Each conversion should fire exactly once. Twice means duplicate tagging (usually gtag and GTM both firing). Zero means the tag is broken.
What about Google Ads conversion import?
Google Ads can import conversion events from GA4 or fire its own Google Ads conversion tag. Most accounts in 2023 should use GA4 import as the primary source.
To switch:
- In Google Ads, go to Tools & Settings → Conversions
- Click New → Import → Google Analytics 4 properties (web)
- Select the GA4 property and the conversion events to import
- Mark imported events as primary
- Mark old UA imports as secondary or remove them entirely
If you skip this step, smart bidding loses its conversion data feed on July 1 and your account quietly degrades.
What about Looker Studio dashboards?
Any Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio) dashboard that pulls from UA will break after July 1. Rebuild the dashboards on GA4 data this week.
The data sources are different. GA4 has its own connector and the available dimensions and metrics differ from UA. Some UA charts cannot be directly recreated in GA4 — you will have to redesign them around the new event model.
What about historical data?
Google has confirmed that historical UA data remains accessible until at least July 1, 2024 — one year after the standard property sunset. You can continue to view reports, run comparisons, and export data during that window.
Export anything you want to keep long-term. We are recommending BigQuery exports of UA data this week for any client with a meaningful history they want preserved.
What is different about the GA4 data model?
A direct answer: GA4 uses an event-based data model where every interaction is an event, replacing UA’s hierarchical hit-type model (pageview, event, transaction). GA4 also has no view-level configuration — filters and customizations happen at the property level — and uses a different attribution model by default.
The practical implications:
- Goal completions become conversion events
- E-commerce reporting requires the enhanced ecommerce GA4 schema, not UA’s
- Bounce rate is gone, replaced by engagement rate
- Average session duration is replaced by user engagement metrics
- Some reports look fundamentally different
Plan for a learning curve. Most teams take two to four weeks to feel comfortable in GA4 after migration.
What if your developer is unavailable?
If you cannot get GA4 installed properly this week, the contingency is to install via Google Tag Manager using a no-code workflow. GTM templates for GA4 are well-documented and most marketing teams can install a basic GA4 setup themselves in a few hours.
Validation still requires care. If you ship a broken install, no data is worse than late data.
What is the right post-deadline play?
After July 1:
- Monitor GA4 daily for the first two weeks to catch issues fast
- Compare GA4 numbers against any other source you have (Google Ads, CRM, server logs)
- Configure custom reports for the metrics your team relied on in UA
- Train your team on the new data model
For help with GA4 migration, validation, or post-migration audits, see our analytics support, SEO services, or browse Frostbite locations.
Where can I read more?
Google’s GA4 migration guide is the official source. Search Engine Journal’s GA4 deadline coverage has been updated weekly with practical migration tips.
FAQs
What exactly happens on July 1, 2023?
Universal Analytics standard properties stop processing new hits. UA 360 gets a one-year extension. Historical UA data remains accessible until at least July 1, 2024.
Can I still install GA4 after July 1?
Yes. The deadline is for UA shutdown, not for GA4 setup. But every day after July 1 without GA4 is a day of lost analytics data.
Will my Google Ads conversions break?
Yes, if you have not switched the conversion source from UA to GA4. Switch this week.
How long does GA4 migration take?
For a single-site small business, two to four hours. For complex multi-site or e-commerce setups, two to four weeks.
What is the biggest gotcha in GA4?
Data thresholding. GA4 obfuscates some metrics when audience sizes are small, which can make reports look different from UA. Adjust expectations.
The GA4 deadline is real and final. If you want a hand validating your migration before July 1, request a Frostbite analytics snapshot.
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