If you are actively involved in online marketing in Switzerland, this upcoming year will bring some major changes. You should keep these two events saved in your calendars:
- July 1st 2023: Google will replace Universal Analytics with Google Analytics 4.
- September 1st 2023 the new Swiss Data Protection Act comes into force.
To keep you apprised of these two key important dates, we have summarized the most important information for you.
Google Analytics 4 replaces Universal Analytics
The Google Analytics version, “Universal Analytics” is still the currently widely used by digital marketers in Switzerland and abroad. From the 1st of July 2022, this tool will be completed replaced by Google Analytics 4. This means that no further data will be recorded in Universal Analytics as of that date. The existing data will remain available for approximately half a year before Google completely removes this version from circulation.
You should take note of the following if you wish to continue working with Google Analytics:
Firstly, we recommend that your migration to Google Analytics 4 take place as soon as possible. This will allow you to already record data now and will allow you to have almost a year of historical data when the switch is enforced.
Furthermore, all existing dashboards must also be migrated. Dashboards based on Universal Analytics data will no longer function after July 1st as data will no longer be collected in Universal Analytics.
The new Swiss Data Protection Act
According to the latest news, the new Swiss Data Protection Act will enter into force on September 1st 2023. Although the general content of the new law is already known; Switzerland’s new data protection law will be similar to the GDPR law of the EU, it is not yet clear what the recommendations of the FDPIC (Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner) will look like in detail or how they will be implemented. In order to be well prepared, we recommend taking the following precautions already:.
- Implement a cookie consent solution that is easily adaptable to be able to react to any legal changes.
- If your website also caters to users outside of Switzerland, especially in the EU region, make sure to adapt your cookie consent solution for these visitors according to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.
- In Switzerland, under the current data protection law, cookies can be collected by default the first time a user lands on your website. However, we recommend already giving all users the option to refuse cookies and thereby respect their privacy.
- Currently, no penalties can be allocated for the collection of data. Under the new Swiss data protection law however, fines can be imposed if user data is collected without consent. This means that, at the very latest, on September 1st 2023 a cookie consent solution must be implemented on your website for Swiss and EU users.
If you would like advice or support in implementing the GA4 migration or a suitable cookie consent solution, we would be very happy to help.
