What's new archive (2019-2023)

Meet the next generation of Google Analytics

As of October 14, 2020, a Google Analytics 4 property (formerly known as an "App + Web" property) is now the default when you create a new property. Universal Analytics refers to the previous generation of Analytics. This was the default property type for websites prior to October 14, 2020. Learn more.

2023 releases

• December 7, 2023
• December 6, 2023
• December 5, 2023
• December 4, 2023
• November 27, 2023
• November 14, 2023
• November 10, 2023
• November 2, 2023
• October 26, 2023
• October 23, 2023
• October 17, 2023
• October 3, 2023
• October 2, 2023
• September 19, 2023
• September 18, 2023
• September 13, 2023
• August 31, 2023
• August 17, 2023
• August 4, 2023
• August 1, 2023
• July 27, 2023
• July 20, 2023
• June 28, 2023
• June 26, 2023
• June 20, 2023
• June 15, 2023
• June 14, 2023
• June 9, 2023
• June 5, 2023
• June 1, 2023
• May 17, 2023
• May 2, 2023
• April 19, 2023
• April 17, 2023
• April 12, 2023
• April 6, 2023
• April 3, 2023
• March 22, 2023
• March 16, 2023
• March 14, 2023
• March 1, 2023
• February 15, 2023
• January 30, 2023
• January 10, 2023

December 7, 2023

New Campaign Manager 360, Display & Video 360, and Search Ads 360 reports

We're introducing the following new reports that enable you to analyze data from the 360 ad platforms you integrate with your Google Analytics 4 property:

• Campaign Manager 360 report
• Display & Video 360 report
• Search Ads 360 report

When you successfully integrate your various ad platforms, you can access the reports by selecting the integration-specific summary card added to the Acquisition overview report. For example, if you integrate with Display & Video 360, you will see View Display & Video 360 campaigns, which opens to the new Display & Video 360 report.

If you unlink a buying platform from your property, the report will still be accessible from the Acquisition overview report so you can continue to analyze historical data.

New traffic source dimensions

To power the new acquisition reports, we've added new traffic source dimensions that are available when you link to Campaign Manager 360, Display & Video 360, and/or Search Ads 360. The new dimensions are available at event, session, and user scopes.

With this update, you can now use cross-channel dimensions like Source, Session source, and First user source to understand cross-channel acquisition data. Then you can use the new integration-specific dimensions like SA360 source, SA360 session source, and SA360 first user source to analyze acquisition data for a specific buying platform.

Learn more about these new dimensions.

Improvements to Google Analytics 4 integration with AdSense

You can now establish links between Google Analytics 4 (GA4) properties and AdSense accounts directly from Analytics. If you're using GA4 subproperties or roll-up properties, you can now establish links between those properties and AdSense accounts independently from the source properties.

Learn more about the GA4 integration with AdSense.

December 6, 2023

Updates to preset date ranges in Explore

When you save an exploration with a preset date range (for example, the last 28 days), the exploration will now show the last 28 days from when you opened the exploration, rather than from when you created the exploration.

Learn more about adjusting the time frame in an exploration.

Warning about large properties that exceed event collection limits

When a standard property becomes Large or a 360 property becomes XL (collecting more than 25B and 250B billable events in the last 31 days respectively), the event-level data retention setting is automatically reduced to 2 months and event-level data older than 2 months becomes inaccessible and is permanently deleted. This change will impact very few Google Analytics properties.

If your property is on pace to reach these limits based on weekly event volume, we'll now send a warning email to all property administrators. When the limit is reached, we'll send another email to all property administrators notifying them that the data retention setting has been reduced.

Between these two notifications, you can reduce the number of billable events sent to the Google Analytics 4 property to remain within the current limits for your property size and keep the longer event-level retention. If you received the warning for a free property, you can also upgrade to 360 to get access to higher limits.

Learn more about the data retention settings.

December 5, 2023

Google Analytics 4 audience builder in Google Ads

Create and apply Analytics audiences, including predictive audiences, directly in Google Ads. Build better audiences by relying on the extensive behavioral insights available only in Google Analytics 4. You can create Analytics audiences in Audience manager, and when you create a campaign.

Learn more about the Google Analytics 4 audience builder in Google Ads.

Predefined and custom item-scoped dimensions in the GA4 audience builder, segment builder, custom report builder, and the Data API

We are adding additional dimensions to the audience builder, segment builder, custom reports builder, and the Data API in Google Analytics 4, enabling you to measure and activate using both pre-defined and custom item-scoped dimensions.

Item-scoped custom dimensions have been added to the audience builder, segment builder, custom reports builder, and the Data API.

The following predefined item-scoped dimensions have been added to the segment builder:

• Item ID
• Item name
• Item brand
• Item variant
• Item affiliation
• Item category
• Item category
• Item category 2
• Item category 3
• Item category 4
• Item category 5
• Item promotion name
• Item promotion creative slot
• Item promotion creative name
• Item list ID
• Item list name
• Item list position
• Item location ID

The following predefined item-scoped dimension have been added to the audience builder:

• Item list ID
• Item list position
• Item location ID
• Item promotion creative name
• Item promotion creative slot
• Item promotion name

December 4, 2023

Google Analytics 4 audience export with Google Ad Manager PPID

When you export Analytics audiences to Ad Manager, you can now use them for first-party segments using Publisher provided identifiers (PPID). First-party segments let you monetize your site or app more effectively by targeting campaigns to the highest value user.

To take advantage of this feature, turn on PPID targeting in your Ad Manager account and enable personalized advertising in the link between your Google Analytics property and Google Ad Manager. PPIDs will be automatically added to your existing Google Analytics 4 audiences when they are exported to Ad Manager. If you've already turned on these settings, no additional setup is required.

Learn more about using Analytics audiences in Google Ad Manager.

November 27, 2023

Improvements to data sampling and the (other) row

Google Analytics stores data from your website or app in two types of tables optimized for either performance or flexibility. With this update, Google Analytics now chooses the table that provides the most accurate results for each query, reducing the likelihood of seeing the (other) row and data sampling in reports and explorations.

As a result, you may now see the (other) row in explorations or data sampling in reports because Analytics chooses the table based on your query to provide the most accurate results and reduce the impact of data sampling and cardinality limits.

Learn more about how data is stored and displayed.

Turn on or off existing comparisons

To improve comparisons usability and navigation across reports, we've added a new toggle next to the comparison at the top of each report. The toggle will allow you to quickly turn on and off the selected comparisons as you look at your reports. When you move from one report with a comparison applied to another report, the comparison will be turned off by default.

Learn more about comparison toggles.

November 14, 2023

Admin redesign

We're introducing a new Admin experience in Google Analytics 4 properties. The new Admin experience organizes your settings into categories that make it easier to find what you’re looking for and discover what each administrative setting does. For example, all the settings that impact how data is shown in your reports are now grouped together. With this change, you’ll be able to complete your administrative tasks with fewer clicks and more confidence.

Learn more about Admin

Scheduled emails

As an administrator, you can now schedule standard and custom reports to be sent by email on a regular basis, enabling team members to receive periodic updates about your reports. The emailed report includes data for the specified date range with any filters or comparisons applied to the report when the email was first scheduled.

Learn more about scheduled emails

Increased Parameter Value Character Limit for GA4 360 Customers

Analytics 360 customers with Google Analytics 4 properties can now send string parameter values of up to 500 characters from web data streams.

Previously, Analytics 360 GA4 properties would truncate string parameter values from web data streams that exceed the 100 character limit. Now, web data streams can collect string parameter values up to 500 characters, giving you greater flexibility to collect URL and UTM combinations, campaign names, product bundle names, and other custom and predefined values.

Standard properties are not affected by this update and will continue to adhere to the current limits.

Learn more about the Analytics 360 feature limits

November 10, 2023

Integrate Salesforce Marketing Cloud with Google Analytics 4

You can now integrate Salesforce Marketing Cloud with a Google Analytics 4 property from the Sales Marketing Cloud interface. If you were using the Universal Analytics 360 integration with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, you can now use the same functionalities in Google Analytics 4.

For the first time, the integration is available to both Google Analytics 4 standard and 360 properties. Today, the experience is live in Salesforce Marketing Cloud for anyone who was using the integration with Universal Analytics 360.

The Google Analytics 4 integration with Salesforce Marketing Cloud lets you synchronize audiences created in Analytics to Marketing Cloud, and use those audiences in your Salesforce email and SMS direct-marketing campaigns.

To learn more about the Sales Marketing Cloud integration, see Salesforce Marketing Cloud audience integration.

November 2, 2023

Improved subproperty filtering of automatically collected events

We’re enhancing automatically collected events from web data streams in Google Analytics 4 to solve a filtering issue for some subproperties.

Going forward, all automatically collected first_visit and session_start events from web data streams will contain the same event parameters as the event parameters for the first client-triggered event in a session. This means those automatically collected events will be properly filtered in or out of a subproperty for consistent and predictable reporting.

You don't need to take any action to enable this as this launch will fix the issue going forward.

October 26, 2023

Item-scoped custom parameters in BigQuery Export and Measurement Protocol

Item-scoped custom parameters are now available in the GA4 BigQuery Export. We've also launched the ability to collect item-scoped custom parameters through GA4 Measurement Protocol.

October 23, 2023

New Google Analytics mobile app recommendation

We're introducing a new recommendation to install the Google Analytics mobile app, enabling you to stay connected to your business while on-the-go. The mobile app helps you monitor your business in real-time, build your own reports, and take actions to improve your account. The new recommendation includes a QR code so you can easily find the mobile app in the Apple App Store (for iOS) or Google Play Store (for Android). The recommendation is primarily visible on the Google Analytics 4 Home page if you haven’t recently used the app.

October 17, 2023

Update: First click, Linear, Time decay, and Position-based attribution models are going away for all properties

As a follow-up to our announcement from earlier this year, we will be removing the First click, Linear, Time decay, and Position-based attribution models from all properties in mid-October 2023. These models will be removed from both the Analytics user interface and Admin API. If your existing property is using one of the impacted models, it will be defaulted to Paid and organic data-driven attribution. In addition to Paid and organic data-driven attribution, the Paid and organic last click and Google paid channels last click models will also continue to be available.

Introducing calculated metrics in Google Analytics 4

Calculated metrics are metrics that combine one or more existing or custom metrics within a mathematical formula to produce a new and potentially more valuable metric. For example, an Item margin metric could be created using the Item price standard metric and the Item COGS custom metric.

With this update, you can adjust any metric to fit your business needs or logic. You can weight or discount existing metrics and create new metrics by combining standard and/or custom metrics.

These new metrics are typically more actionable than the original metrics from which they're created, as they contain the additional business logic that enables direct decision making and action in Google Analytics.

Learn more about calculated metrics in Google Analytics 4

October 3, 2023

Introducing data redaction

You can now configure your web data streams to perform client-side text redaction of email addresses and user-defined URL Query Parameters, reducing the likelihood of inadvertently submitting PII. For new web data streams, email redaction is enabled by default.

Learn more about data redaction

October 2, 2023

Exclude Google signals data from reports and explorations

If you've activated Google signals for your property, you can now turn off Include Google Signals in Reporting Identity on the Data Collection page in Admin to omit specific demographics and interest data from reports—specifically, data from signed-in, consented users.

This option is useful if your property uses the Blended or Observed reporting identity, as it can help reduce the likelihood of data thresholding. Google Analytics will still collect Google signals data when this option is turned off so you can use the Google signals data in audiences and conversions, and share the data with linked Google Ads accounts for remarketing and bid optimization.

Learn more about activating Google signals

September 19, 2023

Introducing the new Checkout journey report

The new Checkout journey report in Google Analytics 4 shows the number and percentage of users who begin checkout on an ecommerce website or app and complete each of the subsequent steps in the checkout funnel.

The new report is now available in the Monetization topic of the Life cycle collection or the Drive online sales topic of the Business objectives collection on the left in Reports. If you don't see the report, an administrator or editor can add the report through the report library.

Learn more about the new report

September 18, 2023

Introducing user data export in BigQuery

We're excited to introduce user data export, a new type of export available through the existing BigQuery connector. You can now enable a new set of tables, where each row represents a unique user. The table contains useful user-scoped fields for modeling and analysis, including a user's:

• Current audiences
• Lifetime value (LTV)
• Predictive scores for purchase and churn probabilities
• User properties
• Device and geographic details

To get started, enable user data export from the BigQuery Links page in the GA4 Admin.

Learn more about user data export

September 13, 2023

New consent mode recommendation

Google Analytics surfaces a new recommendation when you've implemented consent mode in gtag.js, Google Tag Manager, or the Google Analytics for Firebase SDK, but the Google tags or Consent management platform are likely blocking cookieless pings.

This new recommendation notifies you that by unblocking cookieless pings, most reporting surfaces in Google Analytics 4 will use behavioral modeling, when model quality permits, to fill in gaps using machine learning to model the behavior of users who decline analytics cookies based on the behavior of similar users who accept analytics cookies. Learn more about unblocking Google tags when using consent mode.

August 31, 2023

View and delete AdSense links in Google Analytics 4

You can now view and delete established links between Google Analytics 4 properties and AdSense accounts. When you link your AdSense account to a Google Analytics 4 property, you can see it on the Admin page under AdSense Links.

Learn more about the Google AdSense integration

August 17, 2023

Introducing behavioral modeling in path and funnel reports

Behavioral modeling data is now available in any exploration or report that includes paths and funnels in Google Analytics 4. More specifically, this includes the path exploration and funnel exploration, as well as the user purchase journey report and custom funnel reports.

When website visitors or app users decline Analytics cookies or equivalent app identifiers your reports are missing data about them. Behavioral modeling fills in the data gaps by modeling the behavior of users who decline analytics cookies based on the behavior of similar users who accept analytics cookies.

Learn more about behavioral modeling

August 4, 2023

Match types, including regex, are now available in Reports

Google Analytics 4 Reports can now be further customized with Match Types. Report Filters now supports match types, including ‘begins with’, ‘exactly matches’, and regex.

Learn more about match types

August 1, 2023

Introducing the new Audiences report

The new Audiences report in Google Analytics 4 enables you to identify your most engaged and profitable audiences. It includes any audience with at least one user in the specified time period.

The new report is now available in the User Attributes topic on the left in Reports. If you don't see the report, an administrator or editor can add the report through the report library.

Learn more about the Audiences report

July 27, 2023

Google Analytics 4 audiences in Google Ad Manager

You can now use third-party segments with Google Analytics 4 audiences in Google Ad Manager. When you link your Analytics property to Google Ad Manager, with Google signals activated and ads personalization enabled in the link settings, audiences are automatically exported to Ad Manager. You can use the audiences as-is for targeting, or combine them with other audiences. You can also perform analyses on them.

Learn more about Google Analytics 4 audiences in Google Ad Manager

Set a default conversion value

You can now set a default value for a conversion event. This way, if the 'currency' and 'value' parameters are unset for the conversion event, Google Analytics uses the default value you set. If the event already has a value, the default isn't applied.

Learn more about default conversion values

July 20, 2023

Ecommerce dimensions and metrics are now available in the custom report builder

Google Analytics 4 adds ecommerce dimensions and metrics to the custom reports builder, enabling you to create your own ecommerce reports from scratch or edit standard ecommerce reports.

The following ecommerce dimensions are now available in the custom report builder:

• Item affiliation
• Item brand
• Item category
• Item category 2
• Item category 3
• Item category 4
• Item category 5
• Item ID
• Item list ID
• Item list name
• Item list position
• Item location ID
• Item name
• Item promotion creative name
• Item promotion creative slot
• Item promotion name
• Item variant
• Shipping tier

The following ecommerce metrics are now available in the custom report builder:

• Gross item revenue
• Gross purchase revenue
• Item refund amount
• Item revenue
• Items added to cart
• Items checked out
• Items clicked in promotion
• Items purchased
• Items viewed
• Items viewed in list
• Items viewed in promotion
• Purchase revenue
• Refund amount
• Shipping amount
• Tax amount

Updates to the revenue metrics in explorations

Google Analytics introduces the following new revenue metrics in explorations:

• Gross item revenue (The total revenue from items only, excluding tax and shipping)
• Gross purchase revenue (The total revenue from purchases made on your website or app)
• Refund amount (The total amount from refunds given on your website or app)

Google Analytics also removes the following duplicative revenue metrics from the Metrics picker in explorations:

• Ecommerce revenue
• Event revenue

To create explorations and see revenue from ecommerce transactions, use Purchase revenue. Existing explorations that use these removed metrics will continue to work, but new explorations should use the new revenue metrics instead.

We also recommend updating any explorations that use the Ecommerce revenue or Event revenue metric to now use the Purchase revenue metric.

June 28, 2023

New Import Conversions recommendation

If you've linked a Google Ads account, you may now see a recommendation to import your web and app conversions from Google Analytics 4 into Google Ads. By importing conversions into Google Ads, you can access Google Analytics data in Google Ads and better optimize bids for improved performance.

For eligible Google Analytics accounts, the card may appear at the top of the Advertising snapshot page, as a card on the Home page, or as a card on the Insights Hub page.

Learn more about recommendations

June 26, 2023

Introducing the Google Analytics 4 Audience Export API

With this launch, using the Google Analytics Data API v1, you can export the user IDs and device IDs of the users within an audience you’ve created in Google Analytics 4. Previously, you could only send this information to direct integrations like Google Ads or Firebase.

The Google Analytics Audience Export API is available in alpha to both standard and 360 properties, with higher limits for 360 properties.

Learn more in the developer documentation

June 20, 2023

Select which channels are eligible to receive conversion credit for web conversions shared with Ads

You can now select which channels are eligible for conversion credit for web conversions shared with Google Ads: Google paid channels (formerly, Ads-preferred) or Paid and organic channels (formerly, Cross-channel). The default setting for properties creating a link for the first time is Google paid channels.

• Google paid channels: Only Google Ads paid channels are eligible to receive conversion credit.
• Paid and organic channels: Paid and organic channels are eligible to receive conversion credit, but only credit assigned to Google Ads channels will appear in your Google Ads accounts.

You can see which channels are eligible for credit for each conversion in the Conversions summary, Conversions detail, and Campaigns tabs in Google Ads, and in Attribution settings in Google Analytics. To edit this setting, go the Admin > Attribution settings page in Google Analytics. You can change this setting at any time in Google Analytics, and it will take effect on conversions moving forward.

Learn more about channels eligible to receive conversion credit for conversions shared with Google Ads and importing conversions into Google Ads.

June 15, 2023

Google Analytics 4 integration with AdSense

Users may now establish links between Google Analytics 4 properties and AdSense accounts. When you link your AdSense account to a Google Analytics 4 property, your AdSense data from that account becomes available in GA4 reports and explorations. By combining AdSense data with other website metrics, such as traffic sources and user behavior, you can gain deeper insights and identify patterns that can help you to optimize your ad revenue.

Learn more about the GA4 integration with AdSense in the Google Analytics Help Center.

June 14, 2023

Improvements to reusing analytics.js website tags for GA4 properties

When migrating from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4, customers with websites tagged with analytics.js can use a feature called connected site tags to reuse their existing tag. We’re now launching improvements to this tag reuse, also allowing for enhanced ecommerce, custom dimensions and metrics, and other tag customization data to flow to GA4 properties. 

Learn more about this feature in the Google Analytics Help Center.

June 9, 2023

New Search Console recommendation

When Google identifies an unlinked Search Console account, you may now see a recommendation to link your Search Console account to Google Analytics. By linking your Search Console account, you get access to new Search Console dimensions and the Google Organic Search Queries and Google Organic Search Traffic reports, which enable you to analyze your search query and search traffic data.

For eligible Google Analytics accounts, the card will appear in the “Insights & Recommendations” section on the Home page, the Insights/Recommendations section in the Report snapshot and Advertiser snapshot reports, and the Insights/Recommendations hub.

Learn more about recommendations

June 5, 2023

Six new dimensions and metrics in the Google Analytics 4 audience builder

We've added five new dimensions to the Google Analytics 4 audience builder:

• Country
• Manual term (UTM Term)
• Mobile device info
• Minute
• New vs Returning

We also added a new metric: session duration.

June 1, 2023

Introducing the Business objectives collection

The new Business objectives collection provides a tailored set of reports based on information you provide about your business when you first set up Google Analytics. The new collection provides you with reports that will help you find information that's relevant to your business goals. With this update, GA4 further aligns with Google Ads and campaign objectives.

In your report library, you can change the reports available in the Reports module, including adding topics from the Business objectives collection and removing individual reports. If you have an existing property, you can add topics from the new collection in your report library. The Life cycle collection remains available to all users. Learn more about the new collection.

May 17, 2023

Multiple improvements to the Google Analytics 4 audience builder

We've updated the audience builder to give you more flexibility and control when you create audiences. The update makes new dimensions and metrics available in the audience builder, improves options for controlling event value and event count, and adds the option to match between two dates.

New dimensions and metrics in the audience builder

You can now create audiences using new dimensions and metrics in the Google Analytics 4 audience builder. This addition closes key parity gaps with the Universal Analytics audience builder. The following dimension and metrics are new in the audience builder:

• Item-scoped dimensions
  • Item ID
  • Item affiliation
  • Item brand
  • Item category
  • Item category 2
  • Item category 3
  • Item category 4
  • Item list name
  • Item name
  • Item promotion ID
  • Item variant
• Item-scoped ecommerce metrics
  • Item revenue
  • Items added to cart
  • Items checked out
  • Items purchased
  • Items viewed in list
• Event-scoped ecommerce metrics
  • Item-list click events
• Session-based metrics
  • Low engagement sessions

Low engagement sessions

We introduced a new metric, low engagement sessions. Use the metric to identify users who weren't engaged with your website or app. For example, you might build an audience of users who have more than three low engagement sessions in the last five days. Once you have identified them, you can advertise to them to encourage them to return. For example, retailers might use ad copy that highlights an upcoming sale or event.

Event value can be used on its own

Previously, you could only use the event value parameter to modify a specific event, such as to find only users who have completed "event X" where the event value was greater than 50.

Now, you can use event value by itself without scoping it to a particular event. For example, you might build an audience of users who have any event with a value greater than 50.

Full set of operators for event count

We've expanded operators you can use to build audiences using the event count metric. Previously, only greater than (>), less than (<), and equals to (=) were available, and only when selecting "the most recent time period".

Now, we've introduced the full set of operators, adding the below. These are available both when selecting "at any point in time" and "most recent time period".

• Greater than or equal to (>=)
• Less than or equal to (<=)
• Not equal to (!=)

Match between dates

We have introduced a "between match types" option for dates. For example, you could build an audience of users that visited your website during Black Friday, and advertise to them leading up to Black Friday the following year. The start date and end date are included in the match, so a range of November 24 to November 26 would include the 24th, 25th, and 26th.

May 2, 2023

Funnel reports

You can now create custom funnel reports, enabling you to see the steps users take to complete a task and evaluate how many users drop off between each step. This update gives you the flexibility to create relevant funnels for your specific business purposes and reference the information in Reports. Learn more

Additionally, Google Analytics provides a new User purchase journey report. The new report shows how many users drop off between each step in your purchase funnel, from starting a new session to completing a purchase. Learn more

April 19, 2023

Enhancements to the Home page

In Google Analytics 4 properties, the Home page includes the following new enhancements:

New welcome tutorial

Google Analytics adds a short tutorial to the Home page for new Google Analytics 4 users that introduces key concepts and settings to get you started with your new property.

New banner along the top of the Home page

Editors and Administrators who advertise with Google Ads using Google Analytics data will now see a banner titled "Verify your Google Ads settings" along the top of the Home page. The banner lists the key tasks you must complete to bid against your Google Analytics 4 data. The banner goes away when you mark all the tasks as complete in Setup Assistant.

Improvements to the Suggested for you section

The "Suggested for you" section now provides you with cards that are popular across all Analytics properties (to help new Google Analytics 4 users get started) and cards that you keep returning to.

Dismiss suggestions, insights, and recommendations

If Analytics surfaces a card in the "Suggested for you" or "Insights & recommendations" section that isn't relevant to you, you can dismiss the card by clicking the thumbs down button. Based on your input, Google Analytics can better curate the Home page for you in the future.

When you click the thumbs down button, Analytics will now remove the card from your Home page and you won't see the card again for the next 30 days. Note that the card will remain in view for the remainder of your session if you don't submit the feedback form that appears after you click the feedback button, but the card will be removed in future sessions.

You can still access all insights and recommendations from the Insights Hub, including the ones you dismissed.

Open the Setup Assistant from anywhere

Google Analytics 4 properties now include an action button to the bottom right of each page. When you hover over the button, you will see the number of tasks you have marked as complete in Setup Assistant. When you click the button, Analytics opens Setup Assistant so you can continue to complete the key setup tasks.

April 17, 2023

Upgraded attribution for web conversions imported into Google Ads

Google Ads now imports fractional, cross-channel web conversion credits from Google Analytics 4 properties, leading to more accurate measurement and better optimization.

Previously, web conversions were imported from Google Analytics 4 on a cross-channel last click basis and then attributed in Google Ads based on the attribution model you selected in your Google Ads account. This means that if the last click was not from Google advertising, then no conversion was imported into Google Ads. Today, with this upgrade, fractional cross-channel conversion credit will be imported into Google Ads (even if the last non-direct click was not Google advertising). For example, if data-driven attribution is selected for an imported conversion action, then all fractional, attributed Google credits as seen in Google Analytics 4 reporting will be imported into Google Ads regardless of the last touchpoint.

Learn more about importing conversions

April 12, 2023

Conversion counting method

The new counting method setting for conversion events in Google Analytics 4 properties allows you to decide how you want to count conversions. You can choose either Once per event (recommended) or Once per session (legacy). Most users should select Once per event. Select Once per session if it’s important for your Google Analytics 4 conversion count to closely match the conversion count in the corresponding Universal Analytics property.

Learn more

April 6, 2023

First click, Linear, Time decay and Position-based attribution models are going away

Google Analytics will be sunsetting First click, Linear, Time decay and Position-based attribution models from the attribution reports, property-level reporting-model setting, and Admin API. Starting in May, newly created properties will no longer be able to select these models. Starting in September, we will sunset these models for all other properties. Cross-channel data-driven attribution, Cross-channel last click, and Ads preferred last click will continue to be available.

Rules-based attribution models assign value to each advertising touchpoint based on predefined rules. These models don’t provide the flexibility needed to adapt to evolving consumer journeys. Data-driven attribution uses advanced AI to understand the impact each touchpoint has on a conversion. That's why we made Data-driven attribution the default attribution model in Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads. For these reasons, First click, Linear, Time decay, and Position-based attribution models across Google Analytics 4 will be going away.

Learn more about attribution in Google Analytics 4

April 3, 2023

Modify and create events using regular expressions

Google Analytics 4 adds two new options when creating or modifying an event in Google Analytics. The new options enable you to define conversions using regular expressions (regex) for web data streams. With this update, you will now be able to migrate destination and event goals that use regex from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4.

Learn more

March 22, 2023

Increased Number of Properties and Sub-Properties in an Account

Google Analytics has increased the number of Properties allowed in an account from the previous default value of 100 to 2000 (learn more). This change will allow for more flexibility in organizing properties and removes the need to request an increase from support. In addition, a new limit on the number of subproperties allowed on a property was introduced (learn more). This limit is set at 400; it may be increased via a request to support. These requests will be closely scrutinized and approved on a case by case basis.

March 16, 2023

Item-scoped custom dimensions

We are excited to announce that Google Analytics will now process item-level custom parameters from the ecommerce events on your website or app, which can be registered as custom dimensions and used in explorations.

Item-scoped custom parameters let you collect more information about items on your website or app, beyond the predefined parameters offered by default. For example, you can send item-scoped custom parameters to collect information about an item's color, size, product rating, and in-stock status.

You can register up to 10 item-scoped custom parameters for standard properties and 25 for Analytics 360 properties as custom dimensions.

Learn more

March 14, 2023

Happy Pi Day

Custom channel groups

Google Analytics now lets you create custom channel groups, either from scratch or by using Google’s default channel group as a starting point, so you can create and customize your own channels. Custom channel groups are available to all clients and you can use them across custom reports and explorations to see a current and historical views of your campaign channels.

You can edit the names of channels to fit your company preferences, adjust the criteria for any channel, and add or remove channels to enable broader or more specific views of your channel data.

Learn more

March 1, 2023

User Access Management for Analytics Features in Google Ads

In the next few months, the Google Analytics 4 audience builder will be embedded in Google Ads to simplify Google Analytics 4 audience creation and apply them to yourGoogle Ads campaigns. To enable this feature, a new model for cross product access management is being introduced for Google Ads. This model enables a Google Analytics 4 property Admin to set the explicit permissions available to users in a linked Google Ads account. The Google Analytics admin can assign roles to the different permissions in Google Ads (e.g. Administrator, Standard, Read only). The assigned roles will determine access to Analytics features embedded into Google Ads, such as creating Analytics audiences from within Google Ads. Learn more about user access for Ads integration

February 15, 2023

Improvements for large scale data

Google Analytics introduces the following new features that enhance the reporting experience, especially for properties with large and complex data:

• Data quality icon at the individual card level: Previously, the Data quality icon appeared at the top of the Reporting snapshot report and the overview reports. However, different messages can apply to different cards. With this update, Google Analytics more precisely shows which messages apply to each card in a report.
• A new "(other)" row message in the data quality icon: The "(other)" row appears when a report is affected by cardinality limits, which results in the less common data beyond the limits grouping into an "(other)" row. In this new message, you now have several ways to reduce or eliminate these cardinality limits.
  • All properties now have a one-click option to create the same report in Explore. The "(other)" row never appears in Explore because it uses raw, event-level data.
  • Google Analytics 360 properties also have access to expanded data sets, allowing you to flag up to 100 reports per property as high priority. Google Analytics permanently removes the "(other)" row from the reports you've flagged.
• New sampling controls for Google Analytics 360 properties: The following new sampling controls allow you to adjust the level of precision and speed in your explorations:
  • More detailed results: Uses the maximum sample size possible to provide results that are the most precise representation of the full data set
  • Faster results: Uses a smaller sampling size to give faster results (option selected by default)

Learn more about these new features

January 30, 2023

Improved search for properties and accounts in Google Analytics 4

We've updated the search bar at the top of Google Analytics to allow you to find information about your current property or account, and to navigate to the other Google Analytics 4 properties you have access to.

Find data stream details

The following search terms allow you to open the details for a web or app data stream in the property you are using:

• the keyword "Tracking"
• a web stream measurement ID (i.e., "G-XXXXXXX")
• an app stream ID (i.e., "XXXXXXX")

Find the current property and account settings

The following search terms allow you to open the settings for the property you are using:

• the keyword "Property"
• the current property ID or property name

The following search terms allow you to open the settings for the account you are using:

• the keyword "Account"
• the current account ID or account name

Go to other Google Analytics 4 properties

The following search terms allow you to navigate to a different Google Analytics 4 property from the one you are using. Analytics shows you up to 7 properties that match the search query.

• the property ID or property name of the other property
• a web stream measurement ID (i.e., "G-XXXXXXX") in the other property
• an app stream ID (i.e., "XXXXXXX") in the other property

Learn more about search in Google Analytics 4

January 10, 2023

Introducing new ecommerce dimensions and metrics

Google Analytics now provides an item-scoped and event-scoped version of each ecommerce metric, enabling you to analyze information about your products or services and separately analyze important ecommerce interactions.

For example, you can now easily analyze Items purchased by item name, which shows the number of times each item was purchased. You can also now see Items purchased and purchases by country, which shows you the number of items purchased and the number of purchases for each country.

You can now find the following ecommerce dimensions and metrics in Explorations and the Data API:

• Item affiliation
• Item variant
• Items added to cart
• Items checked out
• Items clicked in list
• Items clicked in promotion
• Items viewed
• Items viewed in list
• Items viewed in promotion
• Shipping amount
• Shipping tier
• Tax amount

Analytics also renames the following metrics:

• Add to carts (previously called Add-to-carts)
• Item-list click events (previously called Item list clicks)
• Item-list view events (previously called Item list views)
• Item view events (previously called Item views)
• Items purchased (previously called Item purchase quantity)
• Promotion clicks (previously called Item promotion clicks)
• Promotion views (previously called Item promotion views)

Note: When you use an item-scoped dimension in an exploration, such as "Item ID" or "Item category", be sure to use item-scoped metrics such as “Items purchased” rather than event-scoped metrics, such as “Purchases”. The former will give you the count of items. The latter will give you a count of purchase events.

Learn more about the new dimensions and metrics

2022 releases

• December 21, 2022
• December 14, 2022
• December 13, 2022
• December 8, 2022
• December 5, 2022
• November 7, 2022
• November 3, 2022
• November 2, 2022
• October 14, 2022
• October 5, 2022
• September 29, 2022
• September 14, 2022
• September 1, 2022
• August 16, 2022
• August 5, 2022
• July 29, 2022
• July 28, 2022
• July 22, 2022
• July 11, 2022
• July 8, 2022
• June 28, 2022
• June 13, 2022
• June 2, 2022
• May 31, 2022
• May 20, 2022
• April 22, 2022
• April 6, 2022
• March 18, 2022
• March 14, 2022
• March 4, 2022
• February 11, 2022
• January 7, 2022

December 21, 2022

Recreate Universal Analytics audiences in Google Analytics 4

Use the GA4 Migrator for Google Analytics Google Sheets add-on to recreate many of the audiences in your Universal Analytics property in a Google Analytics 4 property. Audiences based on dimensions and metrics that are the same in Universal Analytics and GA4 can be recreated as is. When the audiences use dimensions and/or metrics that differ between Universal Analytics and GA4, you can edit the audience definitions in the spreadsheet to use the relevant GA4 dimensions and metrics.

For each audience, the spreadsheet includes information about whether the audience is available for recreation; if it isn't, the spreadsheet has information about why. Editable audience conditions are included so you can modify them before recreating them.

Learn more about the audience migration tool

Personalize the Home page

You can now personalize the content on the Home page to make the content more relevant to you. When you personalize the Home page, other people in your property won't see your changes.

Personalize the metrics and dimensions

You can now change the metrics on the overview and realtime cards. On the overview card, hover over a metric to see a drop-down menu so you can change the metric.

On the realtime card, you can also choose from a number of dimensions (e.g., Audience, City) or let us choose a dimension for you (i.e., Choose for me).

Restore your choices

Whether you change the metric, dimension, or date on a card, we'll restore your choices in future sessions. For example, we'll populate a card with City the next time you visit Google Analytics when you choose the dimension in your current session.

Additionally, when you return to a report using the Recently accessed section, you'll see all the changes you made to the report. For example, if you changed the primary dimension, you'll see the dimension applied when you select the report from the Recently accessed section.

Try our Suggested cards

When you're new to a property and haven't viewed a card frequently, a new Suggested for you section will appear. The section surfaces cards that are popular across all Google Analytics 4 properties to help you find useful information in your property.

Provide feedback

You can now give a thumbs up or thumbs down when hovering over the top right of a card in the Suggested for you, Because you view frequently, and Insights sections. The feedback options allow Google Analytics to provide you with more helpful information in the future.

December 14, 2022

Grow your business with a Google Ads credit

Google Analytics now provides Google Ads users with a one-time Ads credit to help you reach more potential customers using your Google Analytics data. The new recommendation will appear along the top of the Advertising snapshot report or in the Insights & Recommendations section of the Home page for eligible Google Analytics accounts.

December 13, 2022

Evaluate your landing pages

We've added a new Landing page report to help you evaluate the effectiveness of the first pages people land on when they visit your website. Understanding where users first land on your website can help you to optimize your user experience and marketing efforts.

You will see the Landing page report in the Engagement topic in the left navigation automatically. If someone removed the Engagement topic, you can add the report through the report library. Learn more about the report

December 8, 2022

Introducing behavioral modeling in Realtime reporting

Behavioral modeling data is now available in Realtime reports and cards with realtime data in Google Analytics 4. Realtime behavioral modeling extends the benefits of modeled data already available in other reports. When website visitors or app users decline Analytics cookies or equivalent app identifiers your reports are missing data about them. Behavioral modeling fills in the data gaps by modeling the behavior of users who decline analytics cookies based on the behavior of similar users who accept analytics cookies. This feature will be rolling out gradually over the next few weeks.

Learn more about behavioral modeling

Reduction in required permissions for BigQuery export

Starting on Dec 8, 2022, Google Analytics 4 no longer requires EDITOR permissions on a client’s Cloud Project in order to export data into a dataset within that Project. Going forward GA4 will only require BigQuery.USER permissions, which uses a much reduced set of overall permissions. This change reduces and aligns the ongoing permissions required to maintain the existing GA4 BigQuery export and removes excess permissions that were never needed or used in order to improve client security.

December 5, 2022

Introducing new session metrics

We've updated reports and explorations to include the following new session metrics:

• Average session duration: The average duration (in seconds) of users' sessions.
• Views per session: The number of app screens or web pages your users viewed per session.

These new metrics help you answer questions like:

• Which groups of users average the most time on my website per session?
• Do certain users leave my website too quickly?
• Are users fully exploring my app?

Learn more about the metrics

November 7, 2022

Reusing Google tags created via Google Ads in GA4 Properties

We have updated the Google Analytics Setup Assistant to be able to reuse more existing website tags when creating Google Analytics 4 properties. In addition to working with Google tags created via Google Analytics, the Setup Assistant can now reuse Google tags created via Google Ads so that your newly created GA4 property can receive website data without you having to retag your site.

November 3, 2022

Add custom dimensions and metrics as primary dimensions in saved reports

You can now add custom dimensions and metrics to your custom reports as primary dimensions, enabling you to more easily report on custom information that's important to your business. Additionally, the dimensions and metrics pickers in the Reports Builder have been updated to allow for easier navigation to help you find dimensions and metrics quickly. Learn more about customizing reports

November 2, 2022

Introducing new date and hour dimensions in Google Analytics 4

We're launching new date and hour dimensions now available across both Google Analytics 4 explorations and reporting customization:

• Hour is the hour when an event was collected.
• Nth hour is the number of hours since the start of a specified date range.
• Date + hour is the date and hour when an event was collected.
• Week is the week of the event, a two-digit number from 01 to 53. Each week starts on Sunday, and January 1st is always in Week 1.
• Month is the month of the event, a two-digit integer from 01 to 12.

Use these dimensions to quickly answer questions like:

• How did my online sales data trend, hourly, after our Superbowl commercial aired?
• What months do I see the most traffic on my website?
• Are users of my app more likely to convert in the evening hours, or during the day? What about users of my website?

Learn more about time dimensions in Google Analytics 4.

October 14, 2022

FTP Data Import is now available for all clients

You can now set up a regular daily, weekly, or monthly schedule for all data import types (item, cost, user, event) that will retrieve data from any FTP server of your choosing. You will still be able to manually import a file on-demand, but now you can also have the assurance that data will be kept current and accurate via automatic imports per the schedule of your choosing. You can make this selection in the existing data import configuration page today! Learn more

October 5, 2022

Greater compatibility across UA and GA4 ecommerce implementations

Google Analytics now makes it easier to start using Google Analytics 4 ecommerce reports without needing to change your ecommerce implementation. To make it easier to use GA4 ecommerce reports, you can now do one of the following:

• Recommended Fully migrate and re-implement ecommerce to send GA4 ecommerce events to ensure you take advantage of all Analytics features in the long-term.
• New Use your UA ecommerce implementation to populate GA4 ecommerce events.
• New Replace your UA ecommerce implementation with GA4 ecommerce events and use your GA4 ecommerce events to populate your UA property with ecommerce data. This option allows you to continue to use your UA ecommerce reports, while enabling you to fully migrate to Google Analytics 4 when you are ready.

For information about how to migrate your ecommerce implementation from UA to GA4, see the new GA4 ecommerce migration guide.

Google Analytics also provides a new ecommerce migration helper tool to help you:

• Identify the version and API/library you currently use to send ecommerce data
• Validate how your Analytics tags in Tag Manager interpret your ecommerce events
• See the corresponding event for each ecommerce implementation

September 29, 2022

Measure form interactions automatically

To help you measure when users interact with and submit forms on your website, Google Analytics now provides a new Form interactions enhanced measurement option. When enabled, the new measurement option collects the following events:

• form_start shows you the first time a user interacts with a form in a session
• form_submit shows you when a user submits a form

The new option is enabled automatically for all newly created web data streams. If you already have a web data stream, you can turn this on by navigating to Enhanced Measurement. Learn more

September 14, 2022

Get more from Analytics with recommendations

Google Analytics now surfaces tailored recommendations to help you get the most useful and accurate data and take advantage of new, relevant features as they become available. Google finds recommendations by looking at your property's history, your settings, and trends across Google Analytics.

Recommendations appear in the Insights & Recommendations section of the Home page and contextually throughout Google Analytics at the top and to the right of the relevant pages. For example, you may now see the following recommendation to link your Google Ads account to help you get more detailed attribution data and bid on your Analytics conversions.

You might not see any recommendations if your property recently started running, but be sure to check back again soon. Google Analytics regularly discovers and launches new recommendations for you.

September 1, 2022

Changes to the Search Queries threshold in Google Analytics

Today we're updating the Google Ads Search Queries report in Universal Analytics and the Google Ads query, First user Google Ads query, and Session Google Ads query dimensions for your explorations in Google Analytics 4 to meet a higher privacy threshold. These thresholds ensure user anonymity by only reporting on terms that have seen sufficient search volume across Google searches. The update in Google Analytics 4 ensures that metrics will now be more consistent with what you're seeing in your Google Ads reports. Due to differences in data models, with this update, search query terms reporting in Universal Analytics will be more limited than Google Ads reports.

August 16, 2022

Improvements to Data-Driven Attribution

We've made changes to the Data-Driven Attribution model that improves model accuracy for conversion types with low conversion volume or short data history. As a result, we will assign fractional credit for more conversion types than before. This affects properties for which data-driven attribution is selected in the property-level Attribution Settings and Advertising workspace. Learn more about data-driven attribution.

August 5, 2022

Access Logging API

We’ve heard from large global companies with teams working in different time zones that they need an automatic way to monitor access to their accounts for audit purposes. So we’re introducing Google Analytics 4’s Access Logging API. This alpha API supports Analytics 360 properties and provides a list of users who access the properties' data as well as details on the access. Depending on the dimensions requested, the API can return email address, IP, the access surface, the Google Analytics reportType, and the timestamp of access. The report can be aggregated to show the count of accesses as well as the last access time. This API supports a number of interesting audit journeys for access and property management, such as “Remove users who no longer login” or “help me identify properties that do not get viewed”. Learn more

July 29, 2022

Admin API audience-management feature

Audience-management functionality has been added to the Alpha version of the Google Analytics Admin API. Audiences let you segment your users in the ways that are important to your business. Similar to audience management via the Analytics UI, the new Admin API audience methods let you programmatically create, update, lookup, and archive your Analytics audiences.

See the details in our developer documentation.

July 28, 2022

Change cookie settings in Google Analytics 4

You can now change cookie expiration and cookie update settings using the Analytics interface. This new method of managing Analytics cookies is an alternative to editing global site tag code or using Google Tag Manager. Learn more

July 22, 2022

Apply filters to detail reports

Anyone with access to a property can now apply filters to a detail report to see a subset of the report data. For example, you can now apply a filter to see only the data from Android apps while filtering out data from iOS apps. Google Analytics removes the filter when the person who applied the filter leaves the report. Learn more

Create filtered custom reports

Anyone with the Editor (and above) permissions to a property can now create filtered custom reports, enabling you to create a more guided reporting experience. For example, you could create two filtered custom reports. In one report, you display only mobile data, and in the other report, you display only web data. Learn more

July 11, 2022

Introducing new dimensions and metrics in Google Analytics 4

We're excited to release new dimensions and metrics, enabling you to see bounce rate, additional UTM parameter values, and conversion rate across various surfaces, including explorations, segments, audiences, reports, and the Google Analytics Data API.

Bounce rate

In Google Analytics 4, Bounce rate is the percentage of sessions that were not engaged sessions. In other words, Bounce rate is the inverse of Engagement rate, which is the number of engaged sessions divided by the total number of sessions in a specified time period.

Bounce rate is available in Explorations and Reporting Customization.

Bounce rate is calculated in Google Analytics 4 in a different way from how it's calculated in Universal Analytics. To learn more about how the calculations are different between Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4, see [UA→GA4] Comparing metrics: Google Analytics 4 vs Universal Analytics.

UTM term and UTM ad content

We've added new dimensions that surface the utm_content and utm_term parameter values in Explorations, Reporting, and the Audience Builder. Both parameters have a user-scoped and session-scoped dimension.

The following new dimensions enable you to see the value assigned to the utm_content parameter across user and session scopes:

• First user manual ad content
• Session manual ad content

Additionally, the following dimensions enable you to see the value assigned to the utm_term parameter across user and session scopes:

• First user manual term
• Session manual term

Conversion rate

The following new metrics let you report on the conversion rate for any conversion event:

• User conversion rate is the percentage of users who triggered any conversion event.
• Session conversion rate is the percentage of sessions in which any conversion event was triggered.

July 8, 2022

Web Data Support for Google Ad Manager Integration

Google Analytics 4 web data reporting is now supported through links established to Google Ad Manager publisher networks. With this addition, publishers will now be able to report on Google Ad Manager web and app ad monetization in Google Analytics 4 and will be able to report on Google Analytics 4 behavioral data across web and app in Google Ad Manager Analytics reports.

Learn more about the integration in Google Analytics 4 and Google Ad Manager.

June 28, 2022

Updates to the Recently Viewed section in Search

We've expanded the Recently viewed section in the search results of Google Analytics 4 properties to include links that navigate back to custom reports, Explore, Admin page, Advertising hub, and Configure. Previously, the section only surfaced links to recently viewed standard reports.

June 13, 2022

EU Domains for Google Analytics 4

Analytics introduced additional domains for traffic collection with Google Analytics 4 in June to ensure that EU-based traffic data is only collected through servers based in the EU.

If your sites use a content security policy and has visitors from the EU and you have not already updated your content security policy configurations, please work with your site administrators to include the following Analytics domains on the connect-src and img-src directives for all sites using Google Analytics 4 to resume traffic collection for your site and app visitors based in the EU:

• region1.google-analytics.com
• region1.analytics.google.com

Alternatively, you may consider including *.google-analytics.com and *.analytics.google.com to account for future domain updates with Analytics.

June 2, 2022

Introducing Behavioral modeling for consent mode

Companies that implement consent requirements for Analytics cookies will experience data loss from their Google Analytics reporting proportional to the amount of users who decline Analytics cookies. This results in incomplete measurement scenarios, preventing companies from getting answers to questions like:

• How many Daily Active Users do I have?
• How many new users did I acquire from my last campaign?
• What is the user journey from landing on my website to actually making a purchase?
• How many of my site visitors are based in Germany vs. the UK?
• What is the difference in user behavior between mobile vs. web visitors?

Behavioral modeling for consent mode aims at filling this data gap by modeling the behavior of users who decline analytics cookies based on the behavior of similar users who accept analytics cookies. The training data used for modeling is based on the consented user data from the property where modeling is activated.

For example, behavioral modeling estimates data based on user and session metrics, such as daily active users and conversion rate, that may be unobservable when identifiers like cookies or user IDs are not fully available. Without modeling, you have a less complete understanding of user behavior on your site based only on the observed data you have available.

Learn more about behavioral modeling

May 31, 2022

Dynamic lookback in Analytics audiences

When you build audiences in Analytics, you can configure the audience definition to dynamically include or exclude users who satisfy the value of the event_count parameter within the last N days. This option is available only when you use events as the basis for the audience.

Using include and exclude condition groups, you can, for example, create audiences of:

• Users who were inactive for more than N days
  (Exclude users when session_start event_count > 0 in last N-day period)
• Users who triggered an event (e.g., purchased) in the last N days
  (Include users when purchase event_count > 0 in last N-day period)
• Users who haven't triggered an event (e.g., purchased) in the last N days
  (Exclude users when purchase event_count > 0 in last N-day period)
• Users who triggered an event (e.g., purchased) less than N times in the last N days
  (Exclude users when purchase event_count > 3 in last N-day period)
• Users who triggered an event (e.g., purchased) more than N times in the last N days
  (Include users when purchase event_count > 3 in the last N-day period)

The maximum lookback window is 60 days, which is enforced by the audience builder.

May 20, 2022

Conversion Modeling for Consent Mode and App conversions

In a continuous effort to provide accurate measurement and attribution while respecting user privacy, Google Analytics 4 is introducing new types of conversion modeling for users implementing Consent Mode and for app users with Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT). Modeling will help to fill in the gaps where observed data is unavailable. In the case of Consent Mode, some countries require consent to use cookies for advertising activities. Events collected via cookieless pings will not have attribution data and conversion modeling comes in to attribute these conversions to the right channel. In the case of ATT, when IDFA is not accessible to attribute installs, conversion modeling will reattribute these installs to the right Google Ads or YouTube campaigns. If the property is not eligible for modeling, these conversions will remain in the Direct channel.

Learn more about Conversion Modeling in Google Analytics 4

Linked Users

A new model for cross-product access management is being introduced, starting with Firebase. This model, called Linked Users, enables a Google Analytics 4 property Administrator to set the explicit permissions available to users in other products. The Analytics Administrator can assign roles to the different permissions in Firebase (e.g., Firebase/Editor, Firebase/Viewer). This enables some new use cases, such as restricting revenue and cost data in the Firebase UI. It also enables the Analytics Administrator to disable the viewing of data altogether in that UI. Over time we intend to expand this functionality to other Google products. Learn more

Funnel API

A new runFunnelReport method is being introduced to the Google Analytics Data API. This method returns a customized funnel report of your Google Analytics event data. Funnel exploration lets you visualize the steps your users take to complete a task and quickly see how well they are succeeding or failing at each step.

This method is introduced at alpha stability with the intention of gathering feedback on syntax and capabilities before entering beta. Please complete the Google Analytics Data API Funnel Reporting Feedback to give your feedback on this API.

April 22, 2022

Changes to tagging settings in Property Change history

For a brief period, users will no longer be able to view changes to their tagging settings in Property Change History. This includes changes to Cross Domain measurement, Internal traffic, Unwanted referrals and Session timeout.

This change is temporary and the information will be available to users in the Web stream details page in an upcoming launch.

Mark conversions directly on the event table

Users with the Editor role are now able to mark and unmark an event as a conversion directly on the event report, without having to navigate to the configure area.

April 6, 2022

Introducing Autosuggest for Search in Google Analytics 4

The search box at the top of Analytics now provides suggestions to help you find information. Analytics shows useful queries as you type, bolding the suggested portion of the text. You can use the up and down keys to highlight a suggestion and press enter to accept one. For example, when you start typing "user", you will see the following suggestions in the Search panel.

March 18, 2022

Android SDK changes for advertising ID permissions

Apps that update their target API to 31 (Android 12) will need to declare a Google Play services normal permission in the Android manifest to use the advertising ID. For apps that do not declare this permission and target Android 12, the advertising ID will automatically be removed and replaced with a string of zeros.

The new version of the Google Analytics for Firebase Android SDK will include the com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID permission in the SDK's manifest file that is automatically merged into the app manifest by the Android build tools. To learn more about the AD_ID permission declaration, including how to disable it, see Advertising ID in the Play Console Help.

March 14, 2022

Happy Pi Day

Google Analytics 4 Integration with Search Ads 360

Users can now establish links between Google Analytics 4 properties and Search Ads 360 advertisers. Linking to Search Ads 360 supports the following features:

• Users will gain access to dedicated Search Ads 360 reporting and will see attributed Search Ads 360 traffic appear in their Google Analytics 4 cross-channel reporting
• Google Analytics 4 conversions will be exported to Search Ads 360 and will be available in Search Ads 360 reporting

Additionally, users accessing the integration through the New Search Ads 360 Experience will gain access to the following:

• Google Analytics 4 website and app-engagement metrics will be exported to Search Ads 360 and available in Search Ads 360 reporting

Learn more about the Google Analytics 4 integration with Search Ads 360.

Google Analytics 4 Governance: subproperties and roll-up properties

Clients will now be able to govern, split up, and control access to filtered data with GA4 subproperties. This will support regional, product-line, and many other use cases for 360 clients who have strict data-governance requirements. In addition, clients will also be able to roll up and unify multiple source properties for cross-brand use cases. Both new property types are fully functional properties (unlike Views and Roll-ups from Universal Analytics) and clients will be able to independently configure everything from admin settings, conversions, and audiences, as well as link independently to Ads (all other integrations coming soon!)

Learn more about subproperties and roll-up properties.

Japan's Amended APPI will come into force on April 1, 2022

In June 2020, the Japanese government introduced a set of amendments to the existing Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI). The Amended APPI will come into force on April 1, 2022.

The Amended APPI, amongst other things, includes rules relating to the processing of “personal-related information” (“PRI”) of Japanese users. The Amended APPI will require companies to, when providing PRI of Japanese users to a third party who will likely associate that data with 'Personal Information', confirm with the recipient that the recipient has obtained consent from data subjects to the recipient's processing, and record recipient's confirmation. PRI typically takes the form of information collected by identifiers that do not in themselves identify a specific individual (for example, a cookie ID) and are not stored alongside Personal Data (as defined in the APPI).

If you receive PRI (referred to in the policy as non-personally identifiable user information) relating to Japanese users from Google in connection with your use of Google's platform products, you must not merge that information with personally-identifiable information unless, prior to such processing, you have obtained all legally required consents from the user and have provided Google with accurate and complete information about the processing via the Google Ads Data Protection Terms Troubleshooter.

Your handling of PRI must conform to the requirements of the Amended APPI as well as the Platforms program polices by April 1, 2022.

March 4, 2022

New Home page for Google Analytics 4 properties

We're excited to announce a new Home page to Google Analytics, which you can access by going to Home in the left navigation. The Home page surfaces information that's relevant to you based on your behavior in Analytics. You can use the page to monitor traffic, navigate around Analytics, and get insights about your websites and mobile apps. The Home page provides more personalized content as you continue to use Analytics.

The Home page has the following parts:

• Overview shows metrics that are relevant to you based on your behavior in Analytics
• "Users in last 30 minutes" shows activity as it happens using data from the Realtime report
• “Recently viewed” provides links to parts of Analytics that you visited most recently
• “Because you view frequently” shows cards that you view often
• "Insights" shows unusual changes, emerging trends, and other insights about your sites and apps

New Predict top spenders template in Template Gallery in Explorations

Marketers are always analyzing which marketing channels will help them acquire top spenders/customers. However, predicting the future can be time consuming and technically challenging. GA4 Predictive Metrics, when used in the User Lifetime technique in Explorations, can solve this exact problem.

We recently created a Predict top spenders template in the Template Gallery in Explorations. This template makes these powerful predictive metrics much more discoverable and the template removes the guesswork out of how to use them in Explorations. This new template quickly helps answer questions like, “What are my top performing marketing channels going to be in the near future?” And with that information a marketer may decide to reallocate more of their marketing budget towards those high-potential marketing channels.

To access this feature, go to Explore > Template gallery > Use Cases > Predict top spenders. Note that this template will only surface for properties that are eligible for the predicted revenue metric.

GBRAID and WBRAID support in Google Analytics 4

Starting in early March 2022, more granular campaign details are now available for GBRAID and WBRAID within Google Analytics 4. Learn more

February 11, 2022

Google Analytics 4 Integration with Display & Video 360

Users may now establish links between Google Analytics 4 properties and Display & Video 360 advertisers. Linking to Display & Video 360 supports the following features:

• Users will see attributed Display & Video 360 traffic appear in their Google Analytics 4 cross-channel reporting.
• Eligible Google Analytics 4 audiences will be exported to Display & Video 360 for use in campaign targeting.
• Google Analytics 4 conversions will be exported to Display & Video 360 for use in Display & Video 360 Custom Bidding algorithms.

Learn more about the Google Analytics 4 integration with Display & Video 360

BigQuery Export Filtering in Google Analytics 4

Event-level filtering is now available for BigQuery data exports in Google Analytics 4 to help users better manage which data are exported to BigQuery. Users can select from a list of existing (previously collected) events or manually define event names to be excluded from daily and intraday exports. Learn more about event filtering

January 7, 2022

Cross-channel Data-driven attribution

The cross-channel data-driven attribution model (DDA) is now available in the Attribution reports (Conversion Paths and Model Comparison) within the Advertiser Workspace.

DDA and all rules-based attribution models have also been added to the property-level Reporting Attribution Model selector in Admin > Attribution Settings. Users with the Editor role can modify this setting. It applies to the Total Conversions, Total Revenue, Total Ad Revenue, and Purchase Revenue metrics in any report where you can use event-scoped traffic dimensions (e.g., Campaign, Source, Medium):

• Conversion Details report (Reports > Engagement > Conversions > Select conversion to see details)
• Explore (Create an exploration and select an event-scoped dimension and any relevant metrics)

Learn more

2021 releases

• December 10, 2021
• November 15, 2021
• November 5, 2021
• October 15, 2021
• September 17, 2021
• August 20, 2021
• August 13, 2021
• August 6, 2021
• July 23, 2021
• July 1, 2021
• June 25, 2021
• June 17, 2021
• April 23, 2021
• March 12, 2021
• February 19, 2021
• January 22, 2021

December 10, 2021

Expanded availability of Churn probability metric

Analytics recently expanded availability of the Churn probability metric, one of GA4’s predictive metrics, so that many customers who weren’t previously eligible to use this metric are able to do so going forward. This was made possible due to increased resource investment from Analytics.

As a reminder, the Churn probability metric predicts how likely it is that recently active users will not visit your app or site in the next seven days. Using this metric you can build a predictive audience, for example, the suggested audience “Likely 7-day churning users”, which includes active users who are not likely to visit your site or app in the next seven days. You can then use this audience to help retain, via Google Ads, the people who might not return to your app or site.

In addition to building audiences, you can also use predictive metrics to analyze your data with explorations. For example, you can use the user-lifetime technique to identify which marketing campaigns are likely to lead to the most churn. With that information you may decide to reallocate your marketing budget.

Search Console integration

We are thrilled to announce that GA4 now supports an integration with Google Search Console! When your properties are linked, users will have access to two new reports in Google Analytics 4: 1) Google Organic Search Traffic, which provides insight into how organic search performance translates to on-site action, and 2) Queries, which provides insight into the Google search queries that drove users to your site. After linking, these new reports can be accessed via two new tiles in the Acquisition Overview report, and Admins can optionally add them to collections via reporting customization. A Search Console property can be linked with at most one Google Analytics 4 web stream. Universal Analytics linking is still supported and unaffected when you link to Google Analytics 4. You can find more details here.

Import Google Ads links from Universal Analytics

We’re proud to announce the launch of a critical new feature supporting the GA4 migration: importing Universal Analytics to Google Ads account links! Ads/Analytics account linking is vital for advertisers to be able to use their property data in conjunction with advertising campaigns; this opens the door for using conversions, audiences, and property stats for advertising purposes. With this new tool, customers can quickly import UA/Ads links into their GA4 properties. And, a user only needs to be an Analytics editor to copy these links; this bypasses the normal requirement to be an admin on both accounts to link them.

You can find this feature in:

• The Setup Assistant when you're creating a GA4 property based on your UA property
• Your GA4 property under Admin > Product Linking > Google Ads Linking when that GA4 property is connected to a UA property and when the UA property has Google Ads links

November 15, 2021

Improvements to Default Channel Groupings

We recently made the following changes to improve the quality of default channel groupings:

• New channels: We added the following additional channel groupings (see detailed definitions here):
  • Organic Shopping
  • Paid Shopping
  • Organic Video
  • Paid Video
  • Paid Other
  • Audio
  • SMS
  • Mobile Push Notifications
• YouTube is Video, not Social: Previously if Google Ads auto-tagging was enabled, traffic acquired by paid ads on Youtube was in Channel “Video”, and traffic acquired with source=”youtube”, utms, and no gclid was in Channel “Organic Social” or “Paid Social”. After this update, source = ”Youtube” is either Channel “Organic Video” or “Paid Video”. Channel “Paid Video” occurs if a gclid or utm_medium indicates paid.
• Channels are more accurate and more often classified:
  • All rules are case insensitive.
  • Paid mediums now additionally include CPA and CPV. Google Analytics 4 recognizes all mediums that match regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|paid.*)$ as Paid. Based on the source, GA4 will categorize traffic with a paid medium as either Paid Search, Paid Social, Paid Shopping, Paid Video or Paid Other.
  • Display mediums now additionally include expandable and interstitial.
  • Tagging utm_medium=organic on a social site is now classified to channel “Organic Social” and no longer classified as “Organic Search”.

November 5, 2021

User-roles update

Access Management (previously called User Management) has been updated. The “Manage Users” Permission has been retired and replaced with an Administrator Role that combines User Management and Editor. Edit, Collaborate, and Read & Analyze have been renamed to Editor, Analyst, and Viewer. The “None” option has also been introduced, which indicates that the user has no role for a particular resource, but may have roles for others (e.g., may have a role for a property but not for the account). Two new metric restrictions are added as well. “No Cost Metrics” will restrict viewing of cost metrics on Google Analytics 4 properties. “No Revenue Metrics” will do likewise on revenue related metrics. You can find more details here.

October 15, 2021

Google Analytics for Firebase Updates

Google Analytics for Firebase has a new, yet familiar look! Changes introduced with Google Analytics 4 are now available in the Analytics section of Firebase. This update brings a flavor of Google Analytics 4 to Firebase, resulting in a similar experience between interfaces. More details can be found here.

September 17, 2021

Attribution Insights

We are introducing a new set of insights focused on conversion paths. These insights show the most common individual first-touch and last-touch channels, as well as the most common channel combinations for multi-touch paths. You can further analyze the data in the Conversion Paths report. Learn more

August 20, 2021

Unsampled explorations (360 only)

We are introducing a new feature in Exploration, the ability to request unsampled results when a query returns sampled data.

Google Analytics 4 360 properties have significantly higher sampling limits and in most cases your results won’t be sampled, but if they are, you can now re-run the query with a much higher sampling limit by clicking Request unsampled results as you see in the screenshot below.

 

Once requested, unsampled results are usually returned within 30 minutes, and they can be accessed either by clicking on the link included in the completion email or by refreshing the browser page.

For more information see this help-center article.

August 13, 2021

Archiving custom dimensions and metrics

This launch improves transparency on what happens when a user archives a custom dimension/metric and all the consequences/impact that action will have throughout different feature areas in GA4 (ie audience, explorations, etc.).

In the Custom Definitions table, when a user is about to archive a custom dimension or metric a summary card appears that shows the user a list of audiences and saved explorations that use that custom dimension/metric and an explanation lets users know that the components using this custom dimensions/metric will be affected if the user follows through with archiving.

Archiving a custom dimension or metric affects any audience, Exploration, or segment that is based on that dimension or metric. Audiences become invalid and stop accumulating users. Any remarketing lists based on exported audiences continue to function but don't accumulate any new users. Explorations and segments also become invalid and won't load when they contain archived custom definitions. If you'd like to load an Exploration or segment, remove the archived custom definition. Learn more

August 6, 2021

Conversion modeling

Regulatory and browser changes (such as GDPR, ITP, the phasing out of Chrome’s third-party cookie support, ATT, etc.) impact Google Analytics’ ability to join some conversion events with previous engagement events, which may leave gaps in attribution reporting. New conversion modeling in Google Analytics 4 will help fill in these gaps where observed data is unavailable, enhancing your understanding of the customer journey, while respecting user consent choices. All Google Analytics 4 properties will start modeling to provide more accurate conversion-channel reporting in core reports like Event, Conversions, and Attribution reports,as well as in Explorations, where certain event-scoped dimensions are selected. We will continue to enhance modeling capabilities to account for more gaps in observed data in the future. More details can be found here.

July 23, 2021

360 Self-Service Upgrade/Downgrade for Google Analytics 4 Properties

Organizations that are currently Google Analytics 360 customers for Universal Analytics properties can now self-service upgrade their Google Analytics 4 properties to 360 as well. While 360 for Google Analytics 4 properties is still in Beta, customers will benefit from premium data processing pipelines, larger feature limits, and new 360 features that will rollout throughout the 360 Beta. Users with the Org Admin or Billing Admin role can make these changes within the Google Marketing Platform admin settings. Please see Google Analytics 360 Beta to learn more and for details on how to upgrade.

360 Usage & Billing Preview for Google Analytics 4 Properties

Organizations that have been participating in the 360 Beta for Google Analytics 4 can now monitor usage for properties on the Beta program and also preview Google Analytics 4 pricing based on actual processed event volume. Org and Billing admins can view usage and preview billing by visiting the Analytics Usage report in Google Marketing Platform. Learn more

Predictive metrics now available for use in Audience & Segment Builder with additional model-quality statistics

Previously in Google Analytics 4 properties, you could only create predictive audiences via the suggested-audiences library. The modification of conditions built with predictive metrics was not supported.

But predictive metrics are now available for use in the audience builder and the segment builder metric pickers. And, you can now modify conditions built with predictive metrics.

When you're modifying a condition built with a predictive metric, you now see an interactive graph that explains the tradeoffs between prediction precision and the number of users that are included based on that predictive metric. For example, as you raise the lower bound of which users are included (a more precise prediction), you lower the number of users that can be included.

Default prediction configuration for churn probability, set to include 80th to 100th percentile of users (top 20% of users).

 

Modified prediction configuration for churn probability, set to include 40th to 100th percentile of users (top 60% of users).

July 1, 2021

Advertising workspace

The Advertising workspace makes it easy for advertisers to find reporting, tools, and resources to help them achieve their advertising objectives with Google Analytics 4 properties. As part of this launch, the workspace will contain the Advertising snapshot and Attribution reports (more details below). Additional capabilities and reports will launch in future releases.

Advertising snapshot

This is the landing page for the Advertising workspace. The snapshot provides you with a quick overview of all reports in the workspace and other helpful resources for advertisers. For now, this includes summary tiles for the model comparison and conversion paths reports, an insights tile which surfaces insights for the property, and education tile which links to helpful information for advertisers who are new to Google Analytics 4 properties.

Model comparison

This report lets you compare campaign performance using various attribution models and assess how each impacts the value of your marketing channels so that you can determine which model best suits the needs of your business. You can understand the percentage by which conversions and revenue increase or decrease under different attribution models. Learn more

Conversion paths

This report lets you understand the customer path to conversion and assign credit to the touchpoints in that journey. It has two sections: the data visualization and the data table. The visualization shows how conversion credit is distributed early, mid, and late touchpoints. The data table shows the paths users take to complete conversions, as well as metrics like Days to conversion and Touchpoints to conversion. Learn more

Attribution Settings in Admin

We are introducing an Attribution Settings page in Admin, where you can configure your reporting attribution model and lookback window:

• Use the Reporting attribution model section to select which attribution model you want to use to calculate conversion credit in your reports within your Analytics property. Changing the attribution model will apply to both historical and future data.
• Configure the lookback window to determine how far back in time a touchpoint is eligible for attribution credit. For Acquisition conversion events (first_open and first_visit), the default lookback window is 30 days. You can switch to 7 days if you have different attribution needs. For all other conversion events, the default lookback window is 90 days. You can also choose 30 days or 60 days.

Learn more

Deprecating last-engagement models

On June 22, 2021 we started deprecating the cross-channel last engagement and ads-preferred last engagement attribution models. We will also be removing the option to select an attribution model at the report level (with the exception of Attribution reports), and instead introduce a property-level setting in Admin. Last-engagement models will not be included as options in the property-level setting.

Data API is now Beta

Programmatic access to the GA4 property’s data has reached its next stability milestone. The Google Analytics Data API is now in Beta. At this stability stage, breaking changes are uncommon and require 90 day notice. Additionally, the API supports more metrics and dimensions than it did in the alpha version.

June 25, 2021

AdMob Mediated Revenue

AdMob mediated revenue will now be incorporated into ad revenue metrics throughout Google Analytics 4 when you enable data flow between the two products. The data will appear in reports as Ad Revenue, and in the coming weeks will be factored into user LTV (e.g., for use in the Audience builder).

June 17, 2021

Offline-event data import

You can import offline events from sources that don't have an internet connection or that otherwise cannot support real-time event collection via the SDKs or Measurement Protocol. Once you upload events, they are processed as though they were collected via our SDKs, and use the timestamp you provide or the timestamp of the upload. Learn more

Renaming of Analysis to Explorations

We’ve designed a more modular left navigation as part of the Google Analytics 4 property foundation, to organize like-reports and tools into easily discoverable workspaces, for a more focused, immersive and relevant reporting experience out-of-the-box.

As part of this design, we are renaming Analysis in Google Analytics to “Explorations” and you should start to see the renamed workspace appear in your properties in the next few weeks. Functionality from the former Analysis has not changed, everything you were able to do previously is still available in the Explorations Workspace.

“Explore” in the left navigation will open the Explorations main page where you can start a new exploration by clicking on any of the templates, or access your saved explorations (your previously created analyses will be unchanged) from the list on the bottom half of the page.

 

In addition to renaming the Analysis module, we have renamed what was previously known as the “Exploration” technique to “Free Form” technique, and have updated the product UI and documentation accordingly.

April 23, 2021

Gaming concepts in Analysis

We have added a series of metrics in Analysis commonly used by gaming properties, but also useful for a variety of other apps or sites.

The metrics added are a combination of user metrics (e.g. users who at at least one purchase in the last 7, 30 or 90 days) and revenue metrics (e.g. average purchase revenue of all your visitors ARPU or average revenue of only visitor who purchased ARPPU).

BigQuery user-engagement queries

For more efficient event logging, Google Analytics will begin measuring user engagement time on apps as a parameter on automatically collected events and as a result, reduce the number of dedicated user_engagement events sent by the SDK. This change was announced previously and does not impact features in the GA4 interface, like reporting or Analysis. However, if you are using BigQuery, you may need to alter your queries slightly, as described in this blog post and article.

March 12, 2021

Conversion counts in Google Analytics 4 properties

To improve measurement when third-party identifiers aren't available, we're releasing a fix on March 15, 2021 that updates conversion count metrics for app conversions in Google Analytics 4 properties and Google Analytics for Firebase. As a result of this update, app conversion counts will be more closely aligned to the event counts you see in your reporting.

February 19, 2021

Contribution Analysis V1

Analytics Intelligence regularly scans your data for anomalies in metrics. If anomalies are found, Analytics Intelligence may now identify granular user segments that demonstrate these anomalies. You can create an audience from a user segment for root cause identification in Analysis, or you can export it for ad campaign targeting. Learn more

Google Ads metrics/dimensions and session scope available in Analysis

We have introduced more useful metrics and dimensions in Analysis:

• Session scoped acquisition dimensions
  
  Until now in Analysis you could see which source/medium/campaign (and other acquisition dimensions) drove a user or an event by selecting the appropriate dimension. We just added a set of new dimensions to give you the ability to see which source/medium/campaign drove a session.
• Google Ads dimensions and metrics
  
  If your Google Analytics 4 property is linked to a Google Ads account, you can now explore campaign data, like impressions and clicks, alongside user behavior data in the Analysis module.

Introducing user-scoped custom dimensions and a unified table to manage custom dimensions and metrics in GA4

User-scoped custom dimensions are now available in Google Analytics 4 properties and are populated from collected user properties. "This launch eliminates the need for marketers and developers to think about "slots." User properties become aliases for (user scoped) custom-dimension slots, allowing developers to focus on tracking meaningfully named data points without having to associate each data point with an arbitrary slot number.

Additionally The ‘User Properties’ section in Google Analytics has become ‘Custom Definitions’ and has been updated locally with a table that unifies the management (create, edit, archive) of custom dimensions/metrics of all scopes. Previously, a user had to go to the 'All Events' table for event-scoped custom dimensions and metrics, and to the 'User Properties' section to register a user property. Instead of having to go to the relevant scope section in Reporting (e.g. the 'User Properties' section for user-scoped custom dimensions), there is now one unified management table for all current and future custom dimensions and metrics of all scopes.

Learn more.

January 22, 2021

Cohort technique in Analysis: new calculation types and per-cohort size metrics

Two new capabilities are available in the Cohort technique within the Analysis module: rolling and cumulative calculations.

Standard calculation lets you identify users that return in each specific period after being included in the cohort.

Rolling calculation lets you identify users that return in every period after being included in the cohort.

In the example below, standard calculation tells you that there are 35 users who were acquired on November 23rd and then came back to your site 3 days later. Rolling calculation tells you that 6 of these users came back every day from November 23rd to 3 days later.

 

 

Cumulative calculation lets you cumulate the selected metric for users who have returned in any period after being included in the cohort.

In the example below, standard calculation tells you that users who returned to your site on day 3 after their first visit on November 23rd purchased $29.60 worth of products on that day. Cumulative calculation tells you that users who were acquired on November 23rd purchased $5,173.43 worth of products during the first 4 days after acquisition.

 

 

Per cohort size metric displays the results relative to the size of each cohort, letting you quickly and easily compare the behavior of cohorts of different sizes.

In the example below, while the metric type ‘Sum’ lets you see the total number of returning users on day 3, the metric type ‘Per cohort user’ allows you to see that the November 22nd cohort is the best performing one after 3 days of retention.

 

 

2019-2020 releases

• December 17, 2020
• December 11, 2020
• November 20, 2020
• November 4, 2020
• September 29, 2020
• September 18, 2020
• September 10, 2020
• September 3, 2020
• August 21, 2020
• July 24, 2020
• June 26, 2020
• June 12, 2020
• May 29, 2020
• May 20, 2020
• April 21, 2020
• April 3, 2020
• March 20, 2020
• March 6, 2020
• February 21, 2020
• February 7, 2020
• January 23, 2020
• December 23, 2019
• December 9, 2019
• November 14, 2019
• November 1, 2019

December 17, 2020

New predicted revenue metric in Google Analytics 4

We introduced a new predictive metric to Google Analytics 4 properties. The predictive revenue metric predicts the revenue expected from all purchase conversions within the next 28 days from a user who was active in the last 28 days. This metric can help drive growth for your business by reaching the people most likely to be top spenders via Google Ads.

Analytics now has a new predictive audience that you can create in the Audience Builder. Using the predicted revenue metric, we will suggest the audience “Predicted 28-day top spenders,” which includes users who are likely to generate the most revenue in the next 28 days, based on the total value of their purchase conversions.

In addition to building audiences, you'll soon be able to use the predictive revenue metric to analyze your data with the Analysis module. For example, you can use the User Lifetime technique as an indicator about which marketing campaigns are most likely to acquire top spenders. Then use that information to reallocate your marketing spend to campaigns with higher predicted revenue.

The predicted revenue metric is available in GA4 properties using purchase events or automatically collected events, once necessary thresholds are met.

December 11, 2020

Modify and create events (web)

Google Analytics events that come into a Google Analytics 4 property can now be edited without any tagging changes required. Edits will take place immediately, and impact any events received from that point forward. This helps you clean up event data that may not follow common standards, and also helps with conversion measurement for specific events and parameters. Learn more

BigQuery Export

Google Analytics 4 property data exports no longer require a linked Firebase project. This means that Google Analytics admins can audit and configure data exports to BigQuery from the Google Analytics Admin page. Firebase admins can continue to configure exports for linked properties using the Firebase Console. You can also specify the Google Cloud Platform region when configuring new exports, giving you more control over your data. For more information, see this article.

November 20, 2020

Web RLSA

Google Analytics 4 audiences are now supported in Google Ads Search campaigns! Just link Google Analytics with Google Ads, and be sure to enable the Ads personalization setting on the link. You also must have Google Signals enabled. Once set up, all of your Google Analytics 4 audiences will begin populating in Google Ads. Attach them to your new or existing campaigns to get started. For detailed steps and more information, see this article.

Data filters

In the course of navigating your site or app, internal users and developers naturally send Analytics data to your property. You can now use Internal Traffic Filters and Developer Traffic Filters to ensure that this data does not permanently impact your Analytics reports. For detailed information, see this article.

Cross-domain measurement

Google Analytics 4 now supports cross-domain measurement in web data streams. This feature allows user and session identifiers from first-party cookies to persist when users navigate between different domains that are tagged with the same Measurement ID (i.e., reporting within the same data stream). This improves the accuracy of your reports when you have important user journeys across different domains (for example, when the domain of your main site is different from the domain of your ecommerce site). In Google Analytics 4, this can be easily set up directly from the interface by any user who has Edit permissions at the property level. For more information and detailed instructions, see this article.

November 4, 2020

Conversions Insights

Insights make it easier for customers to discover important information about their data and take meaningful action. In this launch, we provide customers with new attribution insights focused on last-click attribution. For example, Advertisers can see the campaigns that drove the most conversions and revenue in the past month.

September 29, 2020

More flexible reporting: Introducing event-scoped custom dimensions and metrics in App + Web Properties

Event-scoped custom dimensions and metrics are now available in Google Analytics App + Web properties. Previously similar functionality was presented as “custom parameter reporting”, and individual registration was required for every event:parameter pair, which was both labor and quota intensive.

With this launch, registered parameters graduate to property-wide custom event-scoped dimensions or metrics, preserving all historical aggregates. Going forward, custom dimensions and metrics can be registered once at the property-level, simplifying the workflow and significantly preserving quota.

Parameter names will essentially be aliases for dimension/metric so that developers can focus on tracking meaningfully named data points.

With the scope of an existing custom dimension/metric having increased from event level to property level, we have preserved historical event-scoped aggregates, and new aggregates seamlessly extend historical aggregates. In cases where a parameter was registered for multiple events, we disambiguated between parameters by assigning a dimension/metric name that includes the currently assigned event name (e.g., “custom_dimension_name [event_name]”). As a best practice users should remove duplicate custom dimensions and metrics that were registered across multiple events to help preserve quota. Learn more

September 18, 2020

Visualize App + Web data in Data Studio

You can now add data from App + Web to your Data Studio reports and dashboards. You can visualize the fields available in the Google Analytics App+Web reporting API. These APIs are currently in trusted tester beta (to become a trusted tester, sign up here).

Learn more

September 10, 2020

Chrome v85 Referrer Changes

In late August, Chrome is making user-centric privacy changes to referrer and browser-version fields. While these are positive changes, they impact Google Analytics’ ability to report on organic referrals from Chrome. We recognize the value that organic traffic brings to our customers so in an effort to support Chrome’s privacy changes and help our customers, moving forward we will rely on a list of established search engines to identify organic traffic. This list can be found in our help center. If there are search engines missing from this list, please follow the established process (also outlined in our help center) to get additional search engines approved.

We will continue to support Universal Analytics Custom Organic Search Sources. You may need to adjust your existing Custom Organic Search lists by removing the query parameter to support Chrome v85+ users.

As part of this change, clients will no longer know the exact subversion of Chrome in Google Analytics but will still know the browser and major version number.

This change impacts both Universal Analytics as well as our App + Web (beta) properties. Since we do not actively support our legacy ga.js tag, some Organic traffic will be categorized as Referral traffic moving forward. We encourage you to update your tagging to Google’s global site tag to maintain visibility of Search Engines in Organic traffic reports. If you need to update your tags, this is also a good time to configure App + Web properties to reduce future implementation efforts.

September 3, 2020

A New Change History

We have updated Google Analytics' Change History feature to a new format that supports structured data output and detailed before-and-after states. Change History has also been expanded to support both Account and Property admins by offering versions that are scoped to each level.

Previously Change History was a free text feature that had different information depending upon what was being modified. Going forward, all changes will be recorded in a standard structure of: Who, What, Where, & When. The “Who” is the modifying user, be it a user or an automated process. The “What” is the object being modified. The “Where” is the location of the modification, be it an account- or a property-linked object. The “When” is the timestamp of the change, in your browser’s timezone. This help center article explains how to use it.

For Objects that are implemented in the new Admin API (currently in alpha), we offer detailed before and after representations of the modified object. This enables new support journeys that require detailed representations of changes that may impact reporting or data exports.

With this new Change History, we hope to improve the support, security, and audit experience across Google Analytics.

August 21, 2020

Google Analytics Mobile App

We have redesigned the Google Analytics mobile apps to help you quickly access your Google Analytics data anywhere and anytime. The apps support both Universal Analytics and App + Web properties.

Please update to the latest version on Android and iOS as the old apps will stop working at the end of September.

July 24, 2020

New predictive capabilities in Google Analytics App + Web

We are introducing two new predictive metrics to App + Web properties. The first is Purchase Probability, which predicts the likelihood that users who have visited your app or site will purchase in the next seven days. And the second, Churn Probability, predicts how likely it is that recently active users will not visit your app or site in the next seven days. You can use these metrics to help drive growth for your business by reaching the people most likely to purchase, and by retaining, via Google Ads, the people who might not return to your app or site.

Analytics will now suggest new predictive audiences that you can create in the Audience Builder. For example, using Purchase Probability, we will suggest the audience “Likely 7-day purchasers”, which includes users who are most likely to purchase in the next seven days. Or using Churn Probability, we will suggest the audience “Likely 7-day churning users”, which includes active users who are not likely to visit your site or app in the next seven days.

In addition to building audiences, you can also use predictive metrics to analyze your data with the Analysis module. For example, you can use the User Lifetime technique to identify which marketing campaign helped you acquire users with the highest Purchase Probability. With that information you may decide to reallocate more of your marketing budget towards that high potential campaign.

In the coming weeks these metrics will be available in properties that have purchase events implemented or are automatically measuring in-app purchases once the necessary thresholds are met.

Cohort technique in Analysis: any events as inclusion/return criteria

We are rolling out 2 new features in the Analysis Cohort technique:

Any event as inclusion and return criteria

You can now select any event as an inclusion or return criteria for your analyses to discover unique insights such as:

• How your newly acquired cohorts convert on the event that is most relevant to your business (e.g. purchases):
   
  
• How cohorts of different user segments behave along important journeys, like comparing level completion rates of free and paid users:
   
  

Natural-language titles

Dynamic charts titles that accurately describe the results of your cohort analysis. You will see above the cohort results a sentence that describes the data displayed and it changes as you change the tab settings.

The dynamic title of the first example above is highlighted here:

 

 

June 26, 2020

Bot-traffic exclusion in App + Web properties

We have started automatically excluding bot traffic from your App + Web properties. Bot traffic is identified using a combination of Google research and the International Spiders and Bots List, maintained by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). In Universal Analytics, users had to enable bot exclusion per property. Automatic exclusion ensures, to the best of our ability, that your Analytics data in your App + Web properties does not include events from known bots. You can find more information in this Help Center article.

June 12, 2020

Conversions Details report upgrade

We have upgraded the Conversions Details page to support advanced analysis and ensure consistency with the rest of App + Web reporting. You can apply comparisons (which let you compare and filter data) and secondary dimensions to your conversions data, similar to other App + Web reports.

May 29, 2020

Audience limit for App + Web properties increased from 50 to 100

As part of a regular audit of feature usage, we have increased the number of audiences you can create in an App + Web property from 50 to 100.

May 20, 2020

Pre-defined search queries in App + Web properties

You can now simply click on predefined search queries to get quick insights about your Google Analytics data. Google Analytics Search lets you ask a wide range of questions about your Analytics data in natural language, and get instant answers.

April 21, 2020

Pre-defined templates for creating custom insights in App + Web properties

The new pre-defined templates for custom insights will help you set up up to five custom insights with one-click. Custom insights are used to monitor unexpected behavior of core business metrics. Learn more

Performance cards on Behavior dashboard

There are two new Performance cards and reports in the default reporting view for App + Web properties. These help answer questions like:

• Where is the traffic coming to my website coming from? Does content on this page need to be improved?
  • Metrics: Conversions, Interaction with a Specific Event
• How are my different paid media channels performing against each other?
  • This includes both Google and non-Google campaigns.
  • Metrics: Best/Worst Performing Campaigns, Best/Worst Performing Audiences, Cost/Conversions across all Campaigns

Updated Google Ads linking flow

We have updated and improved the Google Ads linking workflow from App + Web properties. This new linking experience offers streamlined workflows to create, edit, or delete links, and provides a consistent and consolidated view across all existing Google Ads account links.

April 3, 2020

ecommerce_purchase events are now configurable as conversions

If ecommerce_purchase is already a conversion in your property, it will remain a conversion (with the option to unmark it as one). New properties have the option to mark ecommerce_conversion as a conversion (similar to any other event)

This is a follow up to purchase becoming a default conversion and unifies purchase across app and web, minimizing confusion and configuration errors.

March 20, 2020

Analytics Intelligence Search History

Analytics Intelligence Search History is stored for better personalization of Analytics search results. You can now see activity saved in your account by clicking Admin, and then in the Property column, clicking Analytics Intelligence Search History.

Users with Edit permission can delete any or all of the past search activity on a property

Advanced edits in Analysis

The new “Edit in Analysis” functionality in the App + Web Analysis module allows for easier exploration of your Analysis reports without having to rebuild them.

If you need to make an edit or change to any Exploration report, for example, change to a different visualization, look at different segments of your users, or break data down by more dimensions, you can now click Edit in Analysis in the customization panel to recreate the same report.

March 6, 2020

Cohort technique in Analysis

The new Cohort technique in the Analysis module in App + Web properties allows for a more granular understanding of user behavior over time across different cohorts.

This technique allows for granular analyses of user behavior over time across different cohorts. It's now possible for users to answer questions like:

• Among the users acquired last week, how many purchased, and how long did it take to purchase after they were acquired? How is this behavior different from users acquired the previous week?
• Do users acquired during Black Friday week generate more revenue over time compared to users acquired in other weeks?
• Among users who made a purchase last week, how many purchased again after that, and how long after the first purchase? How does this behavior change over time?

Learn more, or try it out in your App + Web property in “Cohort analysis” within the Analysis module.

New Realtime reporting in App + Web properties

All App + Web properties now have a new Realtime reporting experience. You can create comparisons with Realtime data, and see how users move through your marketing funnel, from acquisition to purchase, in real time, so you can take action faster.

February 21, 2020

Deprecation of Network Domain and Service Provider Data Fields

Starting February 4, 2020, the Network Domain and Service Provider data fields are no longer populated. The fields will remain in the product for legacy usage, but will no longer be updated.

As we continue to evolve our product, we regularly review how we process and make data available, and this change was a result of this examination.

If you relied upon these fields for spam detection, be sure you have enabled Bot/Spider filtering in your View settings. Google Analytics is constantly working to ensure the cleanest and safest data environment for our users, and will continue this process.

February 7, 2020

Paths to a selected event (backward pathing)

New functionality within Path Analysis (in the Analysis module) in App + Web properties lets you select a desired event or page and explore how your users got to it.

You can select an event, like a purchase or conversion, and analyze the different paths your users take to reach that event and use that insight to improve the user experience.

For example, you may determine unexpected paths to purchase outside your intended purchase funnel, uncovering user behavior that will help you streamline your site.

 

Or, you can select an event you want to avoid, like an app uninstall, and see the sequence of events that preceded that action so you can optimize the user experience and reduce uninstalls.

January 23, 2020

Web conversions enabled for bidding in Google Ads

As a follow-up to the launch of web-conversion export from App + Web properties, conversions exported to Google Ads (except for remarketing conversions) will by default be enabled for bidding moving forward. Conversions previously exported will be editable in Google Ads so Advertisers can manually enable them for bidding.

A notice will appear in your Google Ads account:

 

Use the following column in your Google Ads account to enable bidding:

Up to 14 months retention of event and user data for Analysis in App + Web properties

Analysis in App + Web properties just got a lot more powerful. You can now enable up to 14 months of retention for user-level and event-level data so you can conduct longer term analysis. Learn more

By changing the settings in the Admin panel as shown below to 14 months, your event-level data will stop expiring at the 2-month mark, and you will be able to run analyses over a longer time range.

 

As data accumulates over time in your App + Web property, you will be able to:

• Run analyses over a full quarter or year
• Compare key metrics vs. the same month last year to identify trends net of seasonality
• Look for user behavior in Funnels and Pathing over a longer period of time

To enjoy this new data-retention policy, you have to enable it in the Admin panel (Admin > Property column > Data Settings > Data Retention). Event-level data will continue to be deleted after 2 months until you perform this change.

December 23, 2019

New search functionality in App + Web properties

You can now do the following with search in App + Web properties:

• Navigate to pages within Admin. For example, if you want to add a new user to your App + Web property, simply search “add user” to see the relevant user-management page in the search results.
  
  
• Search for configuration details like Measurement ID (also known as Tracking ID in Web properties), Property ID or Account ID.
  
  
• See relevant App + Web specific help articles right in the search results.
  
  
• Use assistive auto-complete suggestions by pressing Tab to search faster.

Purchase events are now conversions by default

App + Web properties now have purchase events marked as conversions by default. This ensures that important transactions that happen on a website are automatically included in the Conversions report to help you understand how your marketing efforts are driving these transactions (similar to ecommerce_purchase for apps). This also ensures that purchase events are automatically available for import in Google Ads for properties that are linked to Google Ads.

December 9, 2019

Get instant answers via search

You can now ask questions about your Analytics data in natural language, and get quick answers to a wide range of questions. While searching for instant answers, be specific about the metric, dimension, and timeframes to get the desired response. For example, you can search for “conversions from united states last week” and see the answer in the search results. Click a search result to open the Insights panel and get more details. Learn more

NPA events and user properties

You can now mark specific events and user properties as “NPA” (non-personalized advertising signals) to signify that this data should not be used for personalized advertising purposes, while preserving measurement and content-personalization use cases. Learn more

November 14, 2019

Multiple Web Streams in App + Web properties

You can now create multiple web streams in App + Web properties (for a total of 50 streams across app and web). This release lets you measure multiple websites in the same property and distinguish them within the reporting interface. We expect this to be useful in properties where users want to analyze multiple sources of data independently. Learn more

Web-conversion export in App + Web properties

You can now export your web conversions from Google Analytics App + Web properties to Google Ads to use in reporting and bidding. Previously, this feature was only available for app conversions (Firebase). With this release we now have parity in actionability in Google Ads between app and web conversions from Google Analytics App + Web properties. Learn more

November 1, 2019

Insights

You can now see automated insights, metric changes that Analytics identifies as important to your business, and also create custom insights that are triggered by metric changes for which you set thresholds. Insights gets smarter over time as it learns about your business. Learn more

Analysis

Paths along unique nodes now allow you to perform a path analysis that displays only the changing values of your nodes.

For example, if you want to see how your users navigate through the pages on your website or screens in your app and there are multiple events tracked for each page or screen, this option within Path analysis displays only one node for each page or screen, even if the user completed many consecutive events on that page or screen. However, if the user then comes back to that page or screen after they've opened another page or screen, it will appear again as a unique node in the path. Learn more