This post is the second in a series where I examine details related to different digital privacy laws in various states and explain how they influence the use of standard 3rd party tools such as Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads. You can view all posts here. I’ll update these posts as legislation and best practices evolve.
What is the Colorado Privacy Act?
The Colorado Privacy Act (CPA) is legislation aimed at safeguarding the privacy rights of Colorado residents. (Waves a tiny Colorado flag.) The Colorado General Assembly passed the CPA on June 8, 2021. It was signed into law by Governor Jared Polis on July 7, 2021. It became effective on July 1, 2023, with additional provisions becoming effective over time.
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Universal Analytics data is disappearing in 3 days, on July 1, 2024. The only way to access this data in the future will be if it’s been exported to another 3rd party service or CSV files. Once I started thinking about exporting Universal Analytics data, it took me only a short time to decide to use Looker Studio. It makes much more sense than manually exporting reports inside Universal Analytics, and it doesn’t cost anything. Here are some of the main benefits of this approach:
- Universal Analytics only allows you to export 5,000 rows at a time. Looker Studio doesn’t have that limitation. Using this approach, I’ve exported up to 250,000 rows of Universal Analytics data from Looker Studio.
- I can create pivot tables showing one dimension (examples: traffic source/medium, page, countries) and all the daily values for the entire account history. Doing this with medium, for example, allows you to see how many organic visitors there were every day.
An increasing number of states are rolling out digital privacy regulations. Each state’s legislation has different specifics regarding who needs to comply and how to comply. This blog post starts a series in which I’ll break down these privacy laws from different states and explore their implications for using digital tools and platforms such as Google Analytics and Google Ads. One caveat applies: I’m not a lawyer. I implement and manage cookie consent platforms, and I’m learning about this landscape like everyone else. I’m writing and sharing this information to deepen my understanding and to spark a conversation.
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