[GA4] What the value (not set) means in your reports

(not set) is a placeholder name that Analytics uses when it hasn't received any information for a dimension. The reasons why (not set) appears as a dimension value in a report vary depending on the dimension. While standard reports display a default set of dimensions, you can customize many of them to change the dimensions they display. The "(data not available)" value is a related value that can appear in reports. You typically can’t take action to reduce it, as opposed to "(not set)" values where action is generally possible.

On this page

• Google Ads dimensions
• Session source / medium dimension
• Landing page dimension
• Content group dimension
• Custom-defined User ID dimension
• Custom parameters
• Consent mode

Google Ads dimensions

If you notice (not set) as a dimension in your Advertising reports, check for these common causes:

Google Ads account and Analytics property are not linked

Check if Google Ads and Analytics are linked and fix it if they're not.

Auto-tagging is not enabled

Check if auto-tagging is enabled and learn how to enable it.

Traffic from unlinked Google Ads accounts

If the GCLID parameter remains attached to your Google Ads final URLs, check if there are any other Google Ads accounts advertising your website that aren't linked to your GA4 account. Traffic from unlinked Google Ads accounts will appear as (not set) in the Google Ads reports because it's not possible to map these key events to a particular click.

Manually tagged destination URLs with incomplete or incorrect UTM parameters

If you manually tag destination URLs with UTM parameters instead of using auto-tagging, (not set) can appear for URLs with incomplete or incorrect parameters. These URLs can stem not only from Google Ads accounts, but from any other source such as social networks, blogs, or other websites. When Analytics doesn't receive the necessary parameters to identify where traffic from manually tagged URLs comes from, (not set) appears.

Learn more about Traffic-source dimensions, manual tagging, and auto-tagging.

Use Analytics URL builders to add UTM parameters to identify the campaigns that refer traffic.

Session source / medium dimension

Session source / medium will report (not set) for sessions where the automatically collected event session_start is missing. This can happen if your GA4 config tag trigger isn't set to use the "Initialization" trigger type. Follow these steps to change your trigger type:

1. Go to https://tagmanager.google.com.
2. Sign in to your Google Account. Learn how to Create a Google Account.
3. In Tag Manager, click the “Accounts” tab, then select your container. Learn more about how to Find your way around Tag Manager.
4. In the “Workspace” tab, go to Tags, then click the name of your Google tag. For example, “Google tag”.
5. Click the Triggering section then click “+”.
6. On the pop-up window, click Initialization - All pages.
7. Remove your previous trigger by clicking the “-” right next to your previous trigger type.
8. Click Save.

If the session source / medium is reported as (not set), your traffic will be shown as Unassigned in the default channel group as there are no channel rules that match the event data.

Landing page dimension

(not set) can appear for the landing page dimension when a session doesn't have a page_view event.

Content group dimension

If you combine the content group dimension with automatically collected events such as session_start and first_visit, the content group dimension can appear as (not set). That is because automatically collected events don't accept the content_group parameter. Thus, there's no valid data for this combination.

(not set) can also appear when your event sends the content_group parameter but it's an empty value, for example (content_group: "").

Learn more about how to configure content groups using the Google tag, Tag Manager, or Firebase.

Custom defined User ID dimension

Generally, it's recommended that you don't register a user ID as a custom dimension. If you use a custom defined User ID dimension, (not set) can appear.

Learn more about best practices for User-ID.

Custom parameters

For an event with custom parameters, you may notice (not set) as a parameter value during the first 24 hours after you register a custom parameter. Check that it's been more than 24 hours since creation. After the initial 24-hour period has passed, you should have the expected parameter values.

For session_start or first_visit, all event parameters from the first event collected are retained. When using these automatically collected events, parameter values may appear as "(not set)" if they weren’t included in the first event that triggered the session_start or first_visit.

Consent mode

Below are common consent mode implementation errors that can lead to (not set) issues in Google Analytics:

• Using the default command to set all the consent values, including those for updating consent after the user interacted with the consent banner. As a result, the user_engagement event isn't sent, and the initial event with the session_start parameter is lost. To update the consent status, you should use the update command.
• Sending additional events with denied consent despite users initially granting consent. These additional events with denied consent are treated as a separate session, which won’t have a session_start event.