How to Integrate GA4 with Google Ads and Marketing Platforms

Businesses can utilize the new Google Analytics 4 to help unlock insight into customer behavior. If you’re already using Google Ads, you can integrate GA4 with it a valuable addition to your analytics toolkit. This integration helps keep your strategies up-to-date and enhances your ability to drive more sales.

Linking your Google Ads account to GA4 gives you a complete picture of the customer cycle from the initial interaction to conversion. The benefits of integrating it properly allow data flow between the two and provide you with the following:

• The ability to view your Google Ads campaigns and see reports, including the User Acquisition and Attribution sections. 
• Enhance your Google Ads marketing with audience data.
• Import analytics conversions into your Google Ads account.

Once you integrate, you can export GA4 conversions to Google Ads and use them within marketing platforms for your promotions and campaigns. Both accounts will work toward the same goal.

Why Integrate GA4 with Google Ads and Marketing Platforms?

Before diving into the integration process, let’s explore why this integration is so valuable:

1. Holistic Data Analysis

Integrating GA4 with Google Ads and other marketing platforms allows you to consolidate data from various sources. By centralizing this data, you gain a comprehensive view of your marketing efforts, enabling better-informed decisions for your ad campaigns.

2. Enhanced Attribution Modeling

GA4 provides advanced attribution modeling. It allows you to understand the customer journey more accurately. Integrating it with Google Ads ensures that you can attribute conversions to the correct marketing channels and campaigns. 

3. Improved ROI Tracking

With integrated data, you can track the ROI of your marketing campaigns more effectively. This enables you to allocate your budget to the most profitable channels and strategies.

4. Streamlined Campaign Optimization

Real-time data synchronization facilitates quicker campaign optimizations. You can make data-driven adjustments to your Google Ads campaigns and marketing strategies for better performance.

How to Integrate Google Ads to Integrate GA4

Integrating Google Ads with Google Analytics 4 (GA4) allows you to track and analyze the performance of your Google Ads campaigns within your analytics data. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to set up this integration:

1. Google Analytics Admin Settings: open your account, select the desired property, then scroll down and click the ‘Admin’ button.

2. Select Google ads links from the ‘property’ column.

3. Click on the ‘Link’ option.

4. Select ‘Choose Google Ads accounts.’

5. Then, choose the Google Ads accounts that you want to link.

For the Google Ads where you only have ‘Admin’ access, you can only see those. Once you’ve linked, then click the ‘Next’ option.

6. Choose your Settings – You can enable personalized advertising, auto-tagging, and access to Analytics features from Google Ads.
   1. Turning off personalized advertising means Google cannot collect data regarding user interests and demographics. 

2. Turning off auto-tagging means Google will not add tracking codes to web pages when someone clicks on them, so you must manually add them. If not, you won’t be able to track the performance of your marketing ads.

7. Save and Enable the Integration – Once you have configured the data import settings, save the configuration. It should enable and integrate GA4 with Google.

8. Verify Integration – Wait for some time (usually a few hours or more) to allow data to flow from Google Ads to GA4. To verify that the integration is working correctly, check your GA4 reports for data related to your Google Ads campaigns.

That’s it! You’ve successfully integrated Google Ads with Google Analytics 4. You can now analyze the performance of your Google Ads campaigns alongside other analytics data in GA4 to gain valuable insights into your marketing efforts.

If your business isn’t familiar with interpreting and locating data and analytics, you may utilize Pathlab’s programmatic advertising services to help you understand and benefit your customers to increase engagement. 

The services also offer integration for your technological tools. Before you begin the integration, you must ensure that you have the correct permissions for allowance on both accounts. In GA4, you must look at the Editor permission and Google Ads it shows on the Admin level access.]

Data Import

When linking the two platforms, the data that’s imported includes the following:

• Conversion data – the type, source, value, medium, campaign, and date of each conversion from Google Ads campaigns.

• Cost data – the cost per click, cost per conversion, total cost, value, cost per acquisition, and cost per lead of Google Ads campaigns.

• Attribution data – model, percentage, and attribution value of each conversion from Google Ads campaigns.

You can find the Google Ads campaigns by searching under ‘Reports,’ then ‘Acquisition,’ ‘Acquisition Overview,’ and lastly, ‘View Google Ads campaign card.’ The card provides an overview of your campaigns that includes metrics of costs, clicks, and more. You can also select different dimensions, such as query and keyword text.

Once integrated, you can create exploration reports for Google Ads in GA4, which gives your business the flexibility to add in whatever metrics you’re looking to track and get insight from. Whichever method you choose depends on your company’s needs. 

Additional Tips

Use the same conversion goals and metrics analysis between both platforms to ensure you compare the same data. You should also utilize the same attribution model in both areas.

Use the same data sources and time frames to ensure equal comparison. You can quickly identify discrepancies between Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads to understand your marketing performance and make quick and effective decisions regarding your campaigns.
Don’t try to connect all of your Google ads to Integrate GA4 simultaneously, but rather start with just one account to test it before you bring in the rest. GA4 also doesn’t use the same data model, so some things may not be available as accurate since it’s newer and still developing.