Google recently sent an email to all Google Analytics users letting them know of an important change regarding data retention controls and privacy that will take place on May 25, 2018. To sum up the main point of the announcement, basically, if you want to keep your historical analysis capabilities, you need to change your data retention settings in Google Analytics. If your settings aren’t updated, all of your data may be automatically deleted. It is absolutely crucial that you go in and change your settings immediately, because this update will be in effect on May 25th. If you do not, Google may permanently delete much of your historical data. This could affect your reports and your segmentation processes because the historical data needed may be deleted.
How do you change these settings?
1. Login to your Google Analytics account, and scroll down until you see the gear icon that says “Admin”.
2. Next, click on “Tracking Info”.
3. Lastly, click on “Data Retention”.
This is where you will see the options of how long you want to retain your data. Google gives you the option to save your data for 14, 26, 38, or 50 months. There is also an option for it to never automatically expire.
If you are an American-based company and you don’t have any clients from Europe, we recommend that you select the “Do not automatically expire” option. However, you still want to make sure that you are complying with the regional requirements of GDPR, so you may want to consult someone for legal advice if you are unsure.
If you are one of our current clients, we have already changed these settings for you and your data history will be saved. However, if you are not one of our current clients and are in need assistance in changing your Google Analytics data retention settings, we can help you out at no charge. Click here to schedule a meeting with us.
