As you probably already know, Google will pull the plug on Universal Analytics (UA) as of July 1, 2023. As of July 1, new data will no longer appear in your Google Analytics account. But what happens to the existing data in your UA account? And how can you export this data?
Google has indicated they will store your old Universal Analytics data for one year, until July 1, 2024. After this date, you will no longer have access to this data, regardless of whether you have a Google Analytics 360 or a free account. It is, therefore, recommended to have your data exported from UA before this date.
What options are there to export historical data from Universal Analytics?
At the time of writing, you will have the following options to export your Universal Analytics data:
- Export to CSV, TSV, Excel (XLSX), Google sheets of PDF. This is a manual export
- Export to Google-Sheets by using an add-on. This will make use of the Google Analytics Reporting API.
- Export to cloud storage, via the Google Analytics Reporting API.
- Export to cloud storage / Google sheets via a third-party add-on. This is done via the Google Analytics reporting API. Consider, for example:
- Export to BigQuery, only possible for Google Analytics 360 accounts
The first option will only be useful for small data sets. Please note that this is a manual export. So, you will have to export each report manually. The second option is only useful for Google Sheets users. Although you do not have to manually export all reports, you will be bound by the API quota, which can increase costs depending on the amount of data. This, of course, also applies to options three and four, where you will also have to spend money on the third-party add-on for the fourth option. Howeer, option four will give you the advantage that the export will be more streamlined. You will not create additional costs due to self-made inefficient queries. Also keep in mind that when using the API, you will encounter data sampling. The last option is an excellent way of exporting, but is only possible if you have a Google Analytics 360 account. (The costs start at $150,000 per year.)
At the time of writing, there is unfortunately no good and easy way to get your historical data from Universal Analytics.
