Meet Kate
With over twenty years of experience in marketing, Kate is passionate about helping businesses cut through complexity and ‘busy work’ to create intentional growth strategies that actually make an impact on what matters most.
In addition to running her agency, Kate also teaches students the fundamentals of marketing at Husson University and Eastern Maine Community College, is an avid adventurer, and occasionally dusts off her journalism skills as a business and travel freelance contributor.
So what exactly is happening with Google Analytics, and what does that timeline look like?
So if you own a business, or do marketing, you’ve probably heard about the transition from Universal Analytics to GA4. It’s not anything new. Google actually released GA4 Back in 2020, they told us this was going to be happening last year, and they kind of started really poking and reminding us every time you logged in, it would say, Hey, we’re transitioning to GA4. And now it is officially happening in July. So as of July, you’re no longer going to have access to your Universal Analytics property. And so it’s very important that businesses set up their GA4 property. So where we are in the timeline now, right around March, Google started kind of doing it for people. So you may have logged in and seen that Google has created your property for you. Some accounts may not have had it created for them yet. But it’s really important that everybody kind of logs in and sees where they’re at because there are some critical action steps that you want to be able to take. So come July, you’re not left without the data that you need to make key decisions for your business.
So what exactly does this mean, for businesses like what should a business do?
So what it means for businesses just to kind of take a step back really quick. So Universal Analytics and GA4 are essentially different data models. So while Google does give you the option to let it migrate your Analytics account into GA4, it is advised that if you’re using it for anything that’s not super simple, like just tracking pageviews or sessions, kind of some of the more simple metrics, it really you should go in and make sure that you’re creating your data and your reports yourself. Because Universal Analytics is mostly focused on pageviews sessions, and user interactions with individual pages on your website, whereas GA4 is a little bit more focused on events. So everything in GA4 is an event. And it’s important to know how to create those events so that you have the right kind of data and know what is happening with your website.
How important is google analytics as a tool and what are some pros and cons of leveraging it as a tool?
So analytics, to me, is really the hub of how you get information if you’re in digital marketing, right? It’s really how you get the information and know what’s happening. It allows you to see how many people are coming to your website, where they’re coming from, what pages they’re landing on what pages they’re going to next. If you’re tracking something like a lead or a purchase, you can look through behavior flow and see exactly you know what path that person is taking. And through that information that you gather, you can then make decisions not only about what you do on your website and the user experience on your website, but where to invest marketing dollars in terms of you know, are you doing PPC campaigns, are you running social media is most of your sales or most of your activity coming from your email list? It really can give you perspective on where to focus, what areas to kind of try to improve, and give you a bigger picture of How all of your marketing is working by having that all kind of plugged in together.
If you could go back to your 20-year-old self, what would you tell yourself to do more or less of or differently with regard to your professional career?
So I have always been somebody who loves learning things I’m naturally curious. But I also have a little bit of shiny object syndrome, I guess you could call it. And I am constantly learning and reading. And while that is a very good characteristic to have. Sometimes I feel like in the past, I’ve almost information overloaded myself. And so now what I try to do is really be more strategic and focus on what it is that I’m trying to learn rather than kind of trying to get through 52 books in a year, you know, a book a week, I try to slow down and really then implement some of the things that I learned I really love. I think it’s a Tony Robbins quote where he says knowledge is not power, knowledge is potential power. Action is power, right? So if I could tell my younger self, anything else that would be to learn but focus more on learning through experience, so you truly learn it and not just can pass up a pop quiz about it the next day.
Connect with Kate
Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katebielinski/
Email Address: kate@katebielinski.com
Transcript
We've all heard it before. It's cool, you know, welcome to social capital, a weekly podcast that dives into social relationships and why the
Lori Highby:Hey, everybody, Lori Highby here, welcome to the social capital podcast. Our show notes are found at social capital podcast.com.
Lori Highby:business. But marketing is, is part of relationships, relationships are part of marketing. It's all about your brand, your personality. So what I'm
Lori Highby:I'm doing with this show. But I want you to know that I appreciate you and I'm thrilled to have you here for another amazing episode. That being said,
Lori Highby:heard me on social capital, I can't wait to hear from you. Social capital podcast is sponsored by Keystone click strategic digital marketing agency
Lori Highby:complexity and busy work to create intentional growth strategies that actually make an impact at what matters most. In addition to running her
Unknown:Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate being here.
Lori Highby:All right. So your zone of genius is actually quite broad, I would say you do a lot of things in the marketing space. But one thing that
Unknown:So if you own a business, or do marketing, you've probably heard about the transition from Universal Analytics to g4. It's not anything new.
Unknown:important that businesses set up their G for property. So where we are in the timeline now, right around March, Google started kind of doing it for
Unknown:you need to make key decisions for your business.
Lori Highby:Right. So what exactly does this mean, for businesses like what what should a business do?
Unknown:So what it means for businesses just to kind of take a step back really quick. So Universal Analytics and G four are essentially different
Unknown:Because Universal Analytics is mostly focused on pageviews sessions, user interactions with individual pages on your website, whereas G four is a
Lori Highby:Yeah, this is totally different shift. I mean, I don't even know the answer to this question. But do you know how long Universal
Unknown:Very, very long time, I believe it was like 2011 2012, that it was released, it went through a couple updates and whatnot. But the big
Unknown:happened within a marketing event now. So it's not as cut and dry. And then the other thing that g4 is a little bit better with is if you have a
Lori Highby:Yeah, I mean, seriously, it's, yeah, when he's 2011. I mean, the internet internet marketing, I mean, it's called the internet marketing
Lori Highby:micro events. So it totally makes sense, actually, to look at your data from an event perspective, as opposed to, you know, what, what they've been
Unknown:So analytics, to me is really the hub of how you get information if you're in digital marketing, right? It's really how you get the
Unknown:information that you gather, you can then make decisions not only about what you do on your website and the user experience on your website, but
Unknown:that all kind of plugged in together.
Lori Highby:I love that. All right. This is a great time to pause for a quick commercial break from our sponsor.
Unknown:Social capital is sponsored by Keystone, click OK to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Keystone click is a strategic digital marketing agency focused
Lori Highby:I want to ask a fun question for you. If you could go back to your 20 year old self, what would you tell yourself to do more of less of
Unknown:So I have always been somebody who loves learning things I'm naturally curious. But I also have a little bit of shiny object syndrome, I
Unknown:know, a book a week, I try to slow down and really then implement some of the things that I learned I really love. I think it's a Tony Robbins quote
Lori Highby:Oh, I am so on board with that. There's there's something I don't know what I when were while but I see this memory show up on Facebook
Lori Highby:read the same message 100 different ways. But until you actually take action and do something, that's where you're really going to learn
Unknown:Exactly, yeah, it's good to kind of take in one like write read one book a year, if that's all you read, but you really hone in on that and
Lori Highby:Totally. All right, I'm gonna give you the opportunity to interview me, what's something that you'd like to ask me?
Unknown:Oh, I didn't know I was going to be doing fun. So I know you've been in marketing for a very long time as well. If you could kind of start
Lori Highby:from an agency owner perspective, or just as a marketer perspective?
Unknown:Either or, I mean, I don't, I don't want to make you talk about some of your biggest marketing mistakes. We've all had that right.
Lori Highby:I'm an open book. I am sure I've talked about it. But oh, that's such an interesting question. You know, one of the big things that I
Lori Highby:route, because like you, I like shiny objects, I want to, you know, learn the best practices for all the things. And I think, you know, from a
Lori Highby:skill that's somewhat obsolete now, I mean, you know, you see how fast things have changed, as we talked about with, you know, it took a while for
Lori Highby:a long winded, roundabout way to answer that question, I guess.
Unknown:Right. So I love that answer. Because I feel like whether you're specializing in a service, or a product, or you're specializing in an
Unknown:industries that struggled during the pandemic, I mean, they had a very, very hard time and wished that they had not been niche down. So I think
Lori Highby:I mean, there's some skills, you know, like, you think of some really high end development, you know, some very specific code bases that,
Lori Highby:curiosity, I'm always curious and always want to know, what's what's happening, it kind of makes me think of, and this is, so a random tangent,
Lori Highby:what those three very unique hobbies are. I'm like, Are you kidding me? I have so many hobbies, I have to like, pick and choose what not to do. So
Lori Highby:I'm gonna buy all the things do oil painting, you know, it's just whatever. Yeah,
Unknown:I 100% know what you mean? Because I feel like I'm the same way. And it's the same even if I did somehow retire early, I feel like I would
Unknown:beekeeping and now I know all about beekeeping and if I didn't travel so much I would definitely have a beehive next week so it definitely there my
Lori Highby:I'm all okay with that. I'm not worried about that at all. I am enjoying all of the new life experiences and trying to get as many of
Unknown:And I when I hear you talk about cycling it makes me want to you know do cycling so yeah, well,
Lori Highby:usually Premier League Do some bike riding together then?
Unknown:I will do that. That sounds awesome.
Lori Highby:All right. So okay, if anyone was interested in getting in contact with you, what's the best way that they could reach you?
Unknown:So they can email me at Kate at katebielinski.com Or they can find me on LinkedIn. Also at Kate Bielinski
Lori Highby:Awesome. All right. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Kate, it was great conversation, and I'm excited to be back on the
Unknown:Thank you so much for having me. It was a blast.
Lori Highby:All right. Well, this wraps up episode of social capital. A huge thank you to Kate for taking the time to connect with us. As mentioned
Unknown:That's all for this episode of the social capital podcast. Visit social capital podcast.com are shownotes more episodes, and to see who will