[GA4] Configure your GA4 property using Setup Assistant

Access the Setup Assistant from your GA4 property. It provides all the settings you need to finish configuring your Google Analytics 4 property.

1. In Google Analytics, click Admin.
2. Make sure you are in the correct account and property.

3. Click Setup Assistant on the left side of the screen.

Settings

All users can access the Setup Assistant, but you need the Editor role on the property to make any changes.

Note: Setup Assistant does not backfill your new Google Analytics 4 property with your Universal Analytics historical data. Your new GA4 property only collects data going forward.

Data collection

Collect website and app data

You can start to collect data by adding some measurement code to your website or app. The measurement code collects user data from your site or app.

For websites

After you've created an account and property, follow these steps:

1. Add a web data stream to your Google Analytics 4 property.
2. Set up the measurement code on your website.

For apps

After you've created an account and property, follow these steps:

1. Add an app data stream to your Google Analytics 4 property.
2. Add the Firebase SDK to your app.
3. Add the Google Analytics for Firebase SDK to your app.

What's next

Once you complete the steps, click the Actions menu to mark the “Collect website and app data” row as complete. When you mark the row as complete, all users of the property will see the same status.

Property settings

Turn on Google signals

By turning on Google signals, you can collect additional data about users who have turned on ads personalization and who have signed in to their Google Accounts. Learn more about Google signals

Turn on Google Signals

1. In Setup Assistant, click the Actions menu to the right of the “Turn on Google signals” row.
2. Click Manage Google signals.
3. In Data collection, turn on Google signals data collection.

What's next

Once you complete the steps, click the Actions menu to mark the “Turn on Google signals” row as complete. When you mark the row as complete, all users of the property will see the same status.

Set up key events

A key event is a Google Analytics event on your website or app that's important to the success of your business. Your key events are a select group of the automatically collected, recommended, and custom events that are most important to your business. For example, a user purchasing from your store or subscribing to your newsletter are examples of common key events.

As an administrator of Google Analytics, you can mark any event as a key event. Whenever a user triggers the event on your website or app, the event is recorded as a key event in Google Analytics and displayed in Google Analytics reports.

Mark an event as a key event

1. In Admin, under Data display, click Key events.
   Note: The previous link opens to the last Analytics property you accessed. You can change the property using the property selector. You must be a Marketer or above at the property level to make a new event as a key event.
2. Click New key event.
   If you don't see the button, you don't have the necessary permissions.
3. Enter the name of the new event.
   • Note: Special characters can't be used when naming a new event.
4. Click Save.

Mark an existing event as a key event

1. In Admin, under Data display, click Events.
   Note: The previous link opens to the last Analytics property you accessed. You can change the property using the property selector. You must be an Editor or above at the property level to mark an existing event as a key event.
2. In the Existing events table, select the toggle under Mark as key event.
   If you can't select the toggle, you don't have the necessary permissions

If you’ve recently created an event or haven't created the event yet, check Mark events as key events for information about how to mark new and existing events as key events.

What's next

Once you complete the steps, click the Actions menu to mark the “Set up key events” row as complete. When you mark the row as complete, all users of the property will see the same status.

Define audiences

Audiences are groups of your users who share attributes. You can share audiences with the advertising products you use, like Google Ads, so you can market to specific groups of users. Learn how to Create, edit, and archive audiences.

What's next

Once you complete the steps, click the Actions menu to mark the “Define audiences” row as complete. When you mark the row as complete, all users of the property will see the same status.

Verify consent settings

Set up your property to record consent from end users in the European Economic Area (EEA) to allow their personal data to be shared with Google for advertising purposes. To ensure there is no impact to your ads personalization and measurement, verify your consent settings for the Google tag and other data sources. Learn how to verify and update consent settings in Google Analytics..

What's next

Once you complete the steps, click the Actions menu to mark the “Verify consent settings” row as complete. When you mark the row as complete, all users of the property will see the same status.

Google Ads

Link to Google Ads

By linking your Google Ads account, you allow data to flow between Google Analytics and Google Ads. For example, you can create conversions in Google Ads based on Google Analytics key events, check your Google Ads campaigns and Google Ads dimensions in Analytics, and make your Analytics audiences available in Google Ads to use as remarketing lists. Learn more about linking to Google Ads Learn more about linking to Ads

You can skip this step if you don't have a Google Ads account or don't wish to link your account.

Link your Google Ads account

1. In Setup Assistant, click the Actions menu to the right of the “Link to Google Ads” row.
2. Click Manage Google Ads links.
3. Click Link.
4. Click Choose Google Ads accounts.
5. Select the Google Ads accounts you want to link.
6. Click Confirm.
7. Click Next.
8. (Recommended) Leave the default settings enabled and then click Next.
9. Review your settings and click Submit.

What's next

Once you complete the steps, click the Actions menu to mark the “Link to Google Ads” row as complete. When you mark the row as complete, all users of the property will see the same status.

Bid on GA4 conversions

After you set up key events, you can create Google Ads conversions based on your Google Analytics key events to report on campaign performance and fuel manual or Smart bidding decisions to help optimize your campaigns.

To learn how to bid on Google Ads conversions that are based on key events, follow the steps in Create conversions in Google Ads based on Google Analytics key events.

What's next

Once you complete the steps, click the Actions menu to mark the “Bid on GA4 conversions” row as complete. When you mark the row as complete, all users of the property will see the same status.

Target ads to GA4 audiences

To make your audiences available in Google Ads for remarketing, link to Google Ads, keep the default option as Enable Personalized Advertising, and turn on Google Signals. If you disable personalized advertising, you can still export your audiences to Google Ads, but you can't use them for personalized ads.

What's next

Once you complete the steps, click the Actions menu to mark the “Target ads to GA4 audiences” row as complete. When you mark the row as complete, all users of the property will see the same status.

(Optional) Advanced setup

Manage users

As an administrator, you can add, remove, and modify users to your Google Analytics 4 property. You can also create, remove, and modify groups of users to simplify the process of aligning users, organizational structures, and permissions. Learn more about managing users and user groups

Add users to a property

1. In Setup Assistant, click the Actions menu to the right of the “Manage users” row.
2. Click Manage users.
3. In Property access management, click + and then Add users.
4. Enter the email address for the user's Google Account or Google Workspace account.
5. Select Notify new users by email to send a message to the user.
6. Select the permissions you want. Learn more about permissions
7. Click Add.

The email address you use to add a user and the password associated with that address become the Analytics login credentials for that user.

What's next

Once you complete the steps, click the Actions menu to mark the “Manage users” row as complete. When you mark the row as complete, all users of the property will see the same status.

Import data

You can import cost, item, user, and offline event data from external sources and join the data with data in your Google Analytics property. For more information on how to import data into Google Analytics, check About Data Import.

What's next

Once you complete the steps, click the Actions menu to mark the “Import data” row as complete. When you mark the row as complete, all users of the property will see the same status.

Link to BigQuery

BigQuery is a cloud data warehouse that lets you run highly performant queries of large datasets.

You can export all of your raw events from Google Analytics 4 properties to BigQuery and then use an SQL-like syntax to query that data. In BigQuery, you can export your data to external storage or import external data for the purposes of combining it with your Analytics data.

For instructions on how to link to BigQuery, view Set up BigQuery Export.

What's next

Once you complete the steps, click the Actions menu to mark the “Link to BigQuery” row as complete. When you mark the row as complete, all users of the property will see the same status.

Set up user IDs

The User-ID feature lets you associate your own identifiers with individual users so you can connect their behavior across different sessions and on various devices and platforms.

Analytics interprets each user ID as a separate user, so by associating a user ID with an individual user, you can get more accurate user counts and a more holistic story about a user's relationship with your business.

For instructions on how to set up the User-ID feature, view Send user IDs.

What's next

Once you complete the steps, click the Actions menu to mark the “Set up User-ID” row as complete. When you mark the row as complete, all users of the property will see the same status.

Use measurement protocol

The Google Analytics measurement protocol for Google Analytics 4 allows developers to enhance web and app streams by sending events directly to Google Analytics servers via HTTP requests. This makes it easy to measure interactions that happen server-to-server and offline.

For instructions on how to set up and use measurement protocol, check Measurement Protocol (Google Analytics 4).

What's next

When there's no more work to do, click the Actions menu to mark the “Use measurement protocol” row as complete. When you mark the row as complete, all users of the property will see the same status.