Google Connects GA4 and AdSense for Comprehensive Website Performance Data
Google announced the merging of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and AdSense, a significant move enhancing website performance tracking accuracy. The union of these platforms allows AdSense data to be viewed in GA4 reports, giving users a more extensive insight into their website’s performance.
With this new integration, Analytics will automatically collect events such as ad clicks, ad impressions, and ad queries. This automatic collection boosts the number of billable events for 360 properties and delivers accurate ad interaction reports, addressing discrepancies noted with prior Universal Analytics and AdSense integration.
To link a GA4 property with an AdSense account, users can navigate through the AdSense account settings to access the Google Analytics integration option. This new linked property setup supports inter-tag communication via shared IDs, enabling the match-up of each ad impression with corresponding GA4 events.
Additionally, the integration populates GA4 data using ad_impression and ad_click events, and the ad_query event for data joining. Once set up, the AdSense revenue data will be visible in the Explorations main menu of the GA4 property.
However, users may encounter discrepancies between AdSense account reports and those in the Analytics section. Issues could be due to iframes, blocking software, timezone settings, or missing Analytics data. Therefore, ensure proper Google tag setup and allow a 24-hour period for data appearance in reports after linking accounts.
In essence, the GA4 and AdSense integration brings a trove of data insights, potentially optimizing website performance and ad revenue. But users should be aware of its limitations and potential data discrepancies.
