Your Google Analytics reports might look significantly different under this new policy.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has passed, and businesses have taken notice. It has caused companies who do business in the European Union to have to change their data retention policies to comply with the new law. Whether large or small, there are no companies that are exempt from the GDPR, Google included. Because of this, the search engine giant has had to make some distinct changes to how Google Analytics retains information.
Google Analytics, that helpful tool which helps you learn more about your website traffic, has some new default settings. User-level and event-level data will now be removed after a set amount of time has passed. For instance, if your user retention is set at 14 months, any data past that year will be removed. So if you don’t want to lose this data (which includes information like custom report data and event data) you will need to go in and update your data retention settings.
The good news is that if you’re currently an Infomedia client and we’ve set up Google Analytics, then you’re good to go. We’ve already changed your retention settings so they don’t expire. However, if you’re not an Infomedia client (or if you are and haven’t given us Analytics access), then it’s up to you to manually update your data retention controls. Google has even created an easy step-by-step tutorial for those who need help with the process.
If you’re looking for help with more Google Analytics related questions, or just want to get the tool set up for your own website, then contact our team at Infomedia and we’ll set up a no-commitment consultation about your needs.
