Aries Systems Corporation

To make informed, data-driven business decisions and improvements, it is critical for organizations to capture and harness metrics across multiple facets of their operations. Many publishers currently leverage reports to measure the success of their journal processes and scholarly output, as well as keep pace with the ever-evolving publishing landscape and remain competitive. To have an even greater, more strategic impact, publishers and societies can take advantage of Google Analytics (GA) to measure user engagement across their business websites and their web-based editorial/production workflow management systems. Google Analytics allows for more granular insights into data such as journal login or main page traffic, which linked resources get the most clicks, and the behavior/workflow of their visitors (such as Authors, Editors, Reviewers, and more).

In March 2022, Google announced that they will retire their legacy Universal Analytics for standard properties on July 1, 2023 to formally transition to their next generation of analytics – Google Analytics 4. Standard Universal Analytics was founded in the desktop web experience, rooted in a fragmented session-based measurement model that is outdated. Google Analytics 4 accommodates advancements in technology by introducing a cross-platform, event-based model that tracks website and app data in the same property. This upgraded iteration, in which all user interactions are captured as events, unifies and expands reporting and analytics for a more wholistic view of engagement.

As the world prepares for UA to stop processing new data in the coming weeks, publishers should consider the impact this has to their current analytics and explore potential new opportunities for reporting.

Publishers currently capturing analytics against their Editorial Manager® (EM) and/or ProduXion Manager® (PM) sites today via Google’s Universal Analytics will need to update their analytics site to add the Google Analytics 4 property. Once complete, EM/PM customers must then provide their updated Google tag ID to their dedicated Aries Account Coordinator (AC) to ensure continued data capture from their EM/PM sites. Google tag IDs typically stat with a “G-” or in some cases follow the gtag.js format. New Google Tag IDs must be submitted to your Aries Account Coordinator by Friday, June 2 to ensure the EM/PM site tags are updated before Google’s discontinuation of their legacy analytics.

Not currently using Google Analytics to capture data against their EM/PM sites, but interested in collecting these insights in the future? To get started, please refer to Google’s instructions on how to set up ana analytics account and site. Once both the account and site have been created, a Google Tag ID will be generated. Contact your Aries Account Coordinator with your Google Tag ID to have it added to your EM/PM sites (fees may apply).