This article is a guide to migrating a BLOX VMS account from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
Google will not record data into legacy Universal Analytics accounts after June 30, 2023 (unless your analytics account is a Google 360 Universal Analytics account, for which the sunset is June 30, 2024)
BLOX VMS now supports the new GA4 Measurement IDs. To track your video data, you will need to make a new GA4 Property in your analytics account.
You may already have a GA4 property set up with a measurement ID for your website, whether that site is hosted on BLOX CMS, Rayos CMS, or another CMS. At this time, there is not a known standard/universal method for BLOX VMS video players to obtain a GA4 measurement ID from the site; and having the BLOX VMS player use the same Measurement ID on your site would lead to duplicate page view data that you are trying to track for your site.
Please follow these steps to generate a new property and measurement ID. In Your Google Analytics account, click on the “Admin” gear at bottom left. Then click “Create Property”. Give your property a name (we suggest including “BLOX VMS” in the name), and confirm your time zone and currency. Hit Next, and fill out the Business details. Hit next and fill out your business objectives (we recommend “Examine user behavior”) and hit create.
The next section, Data collection, is where you generate the Measurement ID that BLOX VMS needs. Under “choose a platform” select “Web”. On the following screen, populate your site URL, and provide a name for this data stream under “Stream name” (again we suggest including “BLOX VMS” in the name). Under “Enhanced Measurement”, Video engagement should be included by default. Important: Do not remove this or video data will not track.
Click “Create stream”. On the next screen, you’ll see MEASUREMENT ID. This starts with “G-” followed by an alphanumeric string. Copy that string. Open a support ticket with BLOX Digital or BLOX VMS to have this ID populated in your BLOX VMS account (see bullets below for additional considerations on timing of this changeover). If you manage a group of accounts, please provide a separate GA4 measurement ID for each account.
Please note the following:
Once we place the measurement ID in your BLOX VMS account, this will stop data reporting to Universal Analytics. Your options therefore are:
1. Ask BLOX Digital to wait until Friday, June 30, 2023 (last day of month) to add the measurement ID to your account – this will cause least disruption to any monthly reports but leaves little time to verify data flow into GA4.
2. Ask BLOX Digital to add the measurement ID immediately. This will give you more time to verify data is populating, but will be more disruptive to June 2023 analytics.
The above said, there are some fundamental differences between Universal and GA4 so disruption within and even between months may be unavoidable. You can learn more about differences between the platforms here.
As with Universal Analytics, The GA4 measurement ID placed in your BLOX VMS account will track video views in the BLOX VMS player on desktop and mobile web browsers only. It will not track views in native players on other platforms such as apps or if you are using another player. (BLOX OTT GA4 analytics will continue to be configured separately).
Additional notes for BLOX CMS-hosted websites
An extra wrinkle here for websites that are hosted on BLOX CMS only, is that which measurement ID your video views will record to (the one for your site or the one for BLOX VMS) depends on whether you are using the CMS native or VMS (external) player.
If your site is hosted on BLOX CMS and your site is configured to use the BLOX CMS native player for video on demand and you only do video on demand (you do not live stream), those views will record into the measurement ID you configure for your site. Read more on how to configure your BLOX CMS website for GA4. In such case, you may not need to configure a separate measurement ID at this time.
If your site is hosted on BLOX CMS and your site is configured to use the BLOX CMS native player for video on demand, but you also use BLOX VMS players for live stream event or channel assets, those will record into the measurement ID you provide for BLOX VMS, so it is still necessary to provide a separate ID.
If you aren't sure which player is in use on your site for VOD or Live content, please consult the screenshots below. The BLOX VMS player has blue accents and while playing back, the player looks like this:
The BLOX CMS native player looks like this:
