Use the Advertising section in your Google Analytics 4 property to get more insight into your most important user journeys. The reports in this section help you better understand the ROI of your media spend across all channels, make informed decisions about budget allocation, and evaluate attribution models.
In this article:Before you begin
To get the most out of the Advertising section, make sure to link your Google Analytics 4 property to your Google Ads account(s). When you link to Google Ads, your Advertising section reports contain detailed Google Ads campaign data. Learn more
About attribution and attribution models
Attribution is the act of assigning credit for conversions to different ads, clicks, and factors along a user's path to completing a conversion. An attribution model can be a rule, a set of rules, or a data-driven algorithm that determines how credit for conversions is assigned to touchpoints on conversion paths.
The Attribution reports within the Advertising section give you a better understanding of how your advertising efforts work together to drive conversions. These reports allow you to explore different rules-based attribution models and determine which one might work best for your business. Learn more
About the reports
All users of your Google Analytics 4 property can access the Advertising section. Reports within the section look and function slightly differently than other Google Analytics 4 reports. There are currently 4 reports in the Advertising section:
- Advertising snapshot: Get a quick overview of business metrics, and then dig deeper into the areas you want to explore. Learn more
- Performance: Understand which channels and campaigns received conversion credit. Learn more
- Model comparison: Compare how different attribution models impact the valuation of your marketing channels. Learn more
- Conversion paths: See your customers’ paths to conversion, and learn how different attribution models distribute credit on those paths. Learn more
Use these reports to answer questions like:
- What roles did referrals, searches, and ads play in conversions?
- How much time passed between a customer's initial interest and their purchase?
- What are the most common paths customers take leading up to conversions?
Selecting an attribution model
All users can select attribution models for their personal use within the reports in the Advertising section. When you select an attribution model in this section, it doesn't affect how other users see data, or how data is calculated in reports outside of the Advertising section.
Other Google Analytics 4 reports with conversion and revenue data use the property-level reporting attribution model. Only users with the Editor role on the property can change the reporting attribution model in Admin, under Data display > Attribution settings. Administrators can also select conversion windows in the Attribution settings. Learn more