Google rolled out a significant update to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), allowing users to compare their performance with other businesses in their industry.
Why we care: This new feature will provide valuable context for advertisers trying to understand their performance relative to their peers, potentially informing strategic decisions and goal-setting.
How it works.
- Users can access benchmarking data if their property has the “Modeling contributions & business insights” setting enabled in Admin > Account Settings.
- Benchmarks are refreshed every 24 hours.
- The summary displays:
- Your trendline.
- Median in your peer group.
- Range in your peer group (25th to 75th percentile).
Key features.
- Customizable peer groups: Users can select from various categories to find the most relevant comparison group.
- Data privacy: Google assures that benchmarking data is encrypted, protected and aggregated to maintain privacy.
- Wide range of metrics: Covers acquisition, engagement, retention and monetization.
The big picture. This update addresses a long-standing need in the analytics community for comparative data, allowing businesses to gauge their performance more accurately within their industry context.
What’s next. Users are encouraged to check their GA4 accounts for this new feature and explore how it can enhance their analytics insights.
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About the author
Anu Adegbola has been Paid Media Editor of Search Engine Land since 2024. She covers paid search, paid social, retail media, video and more.
In 2008, Anu’s career started with
delivering digital marketing campaigns (mostly but not exclusively Paid Search) by building strategies, maximising ROI, automating repetitive processes and bringing efficiency from every part of marketing departments through inspiring leadership both on agency, client and marketing tech side.
Outside editing Search Engine Land article she is the founder of PPC networking event – PPC Live, host of weekly podcast PPCChat Roundup, and brand evangelist at ClickTech.
She is also an international speaker with some of the stages she has presented on being SMX (US), SMX (Munich), Friends of Search (Amsterdam), brightonSEO, The Marketing Meetup, HeroConf (PPC Hero), SearchLove, BiddableWorld, SESLondon, PPC Chat Live, AdWorld Experience (Bologna) and more.