Website analytics from Google and other platforms has become the key performance indicators for communication practitioners. The omnipresence of different metrics, mediated through data dashboards, has an important impact on the world of communication. However, little is known of the imaginaries inscribed in these platforms, yet these imaginaries also govern the understanding of digital communication as a professional activity. We work with the theoretical idea of sociotechnical imaginaries, that is, a set of visions sustained by infrastructures, practices, and more or less shared meanings of social life (Jasanoff & Kim, 2015). Similarly, the technical imaginaire (Flichy, 2007), algorithmic imaginaries (Bucher, 2017), and data imaginaries (Tupasela et al., 2020) are emerging as collectively held understandings of what technology, data and algorithms do.

In our paper, we discuss Google’s switch from the analytics platform Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 (GA4). We conduct a semiotic analysis of the analytics dashboards and map the related environment of instructional pages, videos and tutorials to uncover the imaginaries. While the surface-level argument claims GA4 to be better, the discontinuation of third-party cookies and change of user-tracking possibilities means that Google will often have to operate with much less data about the audiences than in Universal Analytics. The related environment of instructional pages, videos and tutorials demonstrates a diverse ecosystem of actors who are seeking to capitalise on Google's data collection interest and support the imaginary with their promotional materials directed towards communication practitioners.

The data dashboard is imagined as the one-stop site for an overview of the audiences, their interest and engagement; data is supposed to be precise, immediate, and actionable. However, there is also a clear link to imagining the work of the communication – success or failure in digital communication and reaching the audiences is imagined through the data on the dashboard. The role of AI and algorithms as supporting imaginaries related to audiences confirms the expectation of unlimited digital surveillance but also indicates the limitations of the data collection of the GA4. Communication practitioners in different fields rely on the data from Google and other platform players to help them understand the reach of their messages. But we find that in the ecology of complex relationships, messy data and diversity of actors looking to capitalise on the data provisions, the idea of the audiences is diluted and abstract. The research fills the gap in audience studies, demonstrating that despite the promises and fears Google Analytics is still supporting desperately seeking audiences (Ang, 1991).