How to add Google universal analytics to Google analytics 4 only?

Question

I have create a Google analytics 4 property and been running and gathering data for while now.

I need some external tools to integrate with it and I saw developers reporting that GA4 does not have an API yet, so it does not support any integrations.

I saw that you can create a dual UA and GA4 property but I was unable to find how to add UA to existing GA4 property.

In short: How do I add universal analytics view without loosing any data or integrate with external tools i.e. slack bot posting regular updates? (work around with big Query?)

user_14466144 · Answer

GA4 does have an API. You can use the Google Analytics Data API v1 to fetch analytics data. The developer's site for this API has more information: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/data/v1. The API is currently available at an Alpha (preview) stability. The API will be entering Beta shortly.

user_5640200 · Answer

When you read about creating dual Property it means tracking with both GA4 and Universal Analytics separately. They are 2 different scripts that track data in different platforms with different model.

Therefore you can create a new Universal Analytics Property in your Google Analytics Account and insert that code in the pages of your site, however it will start tracking from that moment on, you cannot have the history, both because you cannot transport data from a Property to the another (even if they were 2 Properties of the same type), and because GA4 has a completely different data collection model.

In any case, from the moment you start tracking with Universal Analytics then you can query the data with the relative API (i.e. Analytics Reporting API).

How to add Google universal analytics to Google analytics 4 only?

2 Answers