Set up a property

Properties are where you send data and set up reporting views

Only users with edit permission can add a property to a Google Analytics account.

Learn more about properties.

To set up a property:

  1. Sign in to your Google Analytics account. Click Admin in the menu bar at the top of any page.
  2. In the Account column, select the account from the dropdown that you want to add the property to.
    If you have a lot of accounts, use the search box to help you find the right one.
  3. In the dropdown in the Property column, click Create new property.
  4. Select Web site or Mobile app.
  5. Enter the Website or App Name.
    If you plan on tracking more than one app in your account, use a very specific and descriptive name that includes the edition or version number. This will help you keep your app properties organized.
  6. (Web only) Enter the Web Site URL.
    You cannot create a property if your URL isn’t formatted correctly. See how to correctly format your domain name.

    Select the protocol standard (http:// or https://). Enter the domain name, without any characters following the name, including a trailing slash (www.example.com, not www.example.com/).

    Most domain hosts only support UTF-8 characters in the URL. It's a good idea to use either UTF-8 characters or punycode for symbols and any non-UTF-8 characters (including Cyrillic characters) in your domain name. Try a punycode converter for help with this.

  7. Select an Industry Category.
  8. Select the Reporting Time Zone.
    This will be used as the day boundary for your reports, regardless of where the data originates. See more about how the Reporting Time Zone setting works.
    • The time zone setting affects how data appears in your reports. For example, if you choose United States, Pacific Time, then the beginning and end of each day is calculated based on Pacific Time, regardless of whether the session are detected from in New York, London, or Moscow.
    • If your Analytics account is linked to a Google AdWords account, the time zone is automatically set to your AdWords preference and you will not see this option. This ensures accurate reporting on your AdWords campaigns.
    • Changing your time zone affects data going forward, and is not applied retroactively. You may notice a flat spot or a spike in your report data around if you update your time setting after you’ve already been using this property. Your reports might also refer to the old time zone for a short period after you update this setting.
  9. Click Get Tracking ID.
    Your property is created after you click this button, but you must set up the tracking code to collect data.

Next Steps

Setting up a property is only one of things you need to do to use Google Analytics. Follow these other steps to finish the process and get the most out of your data.

Set up the tracking code

There are different versions of the tracking code. Use the one that’s right for your environment.

  • Web content: See how to set up the web tracking code. Anyone familiar with HTML can complete this step, but developers should refer to our analytics.js JavaScript Developer Guide for more details.
  • Mobile apps: Download the SDK that's right for you, and use our Developer Guides for Android and iOS to learn how to integrate the SDK in your app. You can download the SDKs from the Tracking Info page in your account property or from the Developer Guides.
  • Other digital devices: To collect data from digital devices like information kiosks, game consoles, or appliances, use the Measurement Protocol.

After you complete the basic set up, you can customize your tracking code to collect data that isn't tracked automatically. We recommend setting up Event tracking, which lets you track rich media like videos, and Ecommerce tracking, which lets you integrate any product or sales data with your other data.

Read a non-technical overview about how Google Analytics works.

Set up and customize your reporting views

A view is the lens through which you view your data. It’s the part of a Google Analytics account that contains reports, and that you can customize with filters.

One view is automatically created for each property, but we strongly recommend you create duplicate views to make sure you always have access to the raw data you collect.

You can also get more actionable data when you set up additional reporting features, like Goals and Segments.

Learn more about views, how to create a view, and why you should create a copy of your original view.

These recommendations are only a few of the ways you can customize Google Analytics. Explore this help center to find more options you can set up yourself, or use the Solutions Gallery to find templates you can use without additional set up.