Preserving 9 Years of Universal Analytics Data in a Looker Studio Backup

01// The broken state

Stirling Brandworks needed a complete backup of its Universal Analytics data spanning 2014 to 2023 (2.74 MB in total) before the platform was retired in the move to Google Analytics 4. The goal was to preserve historical insights so the agency could keep making decisions informed by past performance after the transition.

02// What we changed

1. aDesigned and built a Looker Studio report to back up the client's Universal Analytics data and present it across Audience, Behavior, and Acquisition views.
2. bAudience: surfaced Users, Sessions, Page Views, Pages per Session, Average Session Duration, and Bounce Rate in scorecards, with time-series graphs for users and sessions and a bar chart comparing Page Views against Pages per Session.
3. cCaptured technology breakdowns (browser, operating system, screen resolution, device category) in pie charts, plus 1-, 7-, 14-, 28-, and 30-day active user metrics.
4. dBehavior: backed up Page Views, Unique Page Views, and Average Time on Page in scorecards, with bar charts comparing Page Views vs. Unique Page Views and Bounce Rate vs. Exit Percentage, and tables for top, landing, and exit pages.
5. eAcquisition: used a pie chart for traffic-channel share and a drill-down table covering Channel Group, Source/Medium, Campaign, and Referrer for granular analysis.
6. fAdded flexible date-range selection and customizable filters (channel, source, medium, referrer, campaign) so the report can be refined and updated as needs change.

03// The outcome

Stirling Brandworks needed historical Universal Analytics data retained ahead of the GA4 transition. We backed up 2.74 MB of data spanning 2014 to 2023 into an interactive Looker Studio report covering audience, behavior, and acquisition analysis, keeping the legacy insights accessible after UA shutdown.