Learning Google Analytics

Chapter 6. Data Activation

Data activation is the business end of the project, where we expect to generate return on investment, impact, and value. When we talk about data activation in this chapter, we embrace many different applications, but the most common definition is when you are able to use your data to inform business decisions or change user behavior. Without the ability to change anything, your data project will have no influence and may as well not exist.Your data project can create influence in many ways: it could be a one-off insight that the CEO keeps in mind when allocating budgets, a day-to-day metric tracker data analysts use to decide where to work next, or an autoupdating website feature that adjusts prices or content automatically. All can be regarded as data activation, but some will be harder to measure or have less impact than others.

Because of this, data activation can be regarded as the most important consideration if you’re looking to make data projects beyond only educational reasons or a proof of concept. You should at least outline how you’re going to activate your data when you’re scoping out the project, so we go into how to keep this a priority in the next section.

GA4’s data activation integrations are most likely the key reason to use GA4 over other analytics solutions, especially if you’re using other Google digital marketing services in your business online, such as Google Ads. It is a key differentiator for the product and one of ...