How to Remove Universal Analytics from Google Tag Manager
Overview
Google is sunsetting Universal Analytics on July 1st, 2023 for standard users. If you are a 360 customer, you get an extra year and Universal Analytics will be sunset on July 1st, 2024. [Google Article]
When Universal Analytics stops working for you, you should delete any UA tags from Google Tag Manager because:
- They are unnecessary.
- It will help with site speed (any unnecessary tags/triggers/variables increase the load size of your GTM container).
- It will clean up your view in Google Tag Manager.
How to Remove Universal Analytics Tags in GTM
Navigate to Tags:
- Log into your Google Tag Manager.
- Use the left-hand menu to click on the "Tags" tab.
- (See Figure 1)
Figure 1
Locate Universal Analytics Tag:
- Use the search function and type "Google Analytics: Universal Analytics".
- This will show you any tag with the type of "Google Analytics: Universal Analytics".
- (See Figure 2)
Figure 2
Delete Universal Analytics Tags:
- Select all of the tags that appeared in your search.
- After selecting all of the Universal Analytics tags, locate and click on the "Delete" button or trash icon in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
- (See Figure 3)
Figure 3
Publish Changes:
- After making the desired changes, return to your tracking workspace overview page.
- Locate and click on the "Submit" button in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
- An additional overview page will appear, click on the "Publish" button.
- (See Figure 4)
Figure 4
What Other UA References Could I Delete in GTM?
Triggers:
- For this, sort your triggers based upon the number of tag references.
- (Figure 5)
Figure 5
Delete Universal Analytics Triggers:
- Select all of the triggers that appeared in your search.
- After selecting all of the Universal Analytics tags, locate and click on the "Delete" button or trash icon in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
- (See Figure 6)
Figure 6
Variables:
- You can delete any Google Analytics Settings Variables.
- (See Figure 7)
- And any Constant UA ID variable.
- (See Figure 8)
Figure 8
Folders:
- If you have any empty folders after deleting all these tags/triggers/variables, you can delete those folders.
- (See Figure 9)
Figure 9
How to Remove Universal Analytics Server-Side Tracking
- To remove your UA server-side tracking, simply delete the destination in your app. [How do I do that?]
If you're using your own GTM server container instead of Elevar's server, you will need to delete the UA Tag and/or Client in your Server Container.
Updated 4 months ago
