To see Google Ads campaign information for a given ad in your Analytics reports, your Analytics web property must be linked to the Google Ads account that owns the ad.
When Analytics isn’t able to join the Google Ads campaign information with the Analytics session information, then you see (not set) as the Campaign dimension value in the Analytics reports. Even when your accounts are linked, there are still some circumstances in which Analytics cannot join the data. For example, if someone posts one of your ad URLs on social media, the GCLID parameter will expire, and users who click the link are not attributed to the campaign.
Google Ads information can be missing from Analytics for a few other reasons:
In this article:Google Ads account not linked to the Analytics view
In order for Analytics to be able to retrieve Google Ads ad information, Analytics must be linked to Google Ads. Linking a Google Ads account to an Analytics view requires two steps:
- The Analytics web property must be linked to the Google Ads account that owns the ad
- The Google Ads data must be made available on the Analytics view whose reports you are viewing
Learn how to link Analytics to Google Ads.
Google Ads GCLID parameter lost in redirects
Google Ads auto-tagging adds the GCLID parameter to ad destination URLs as a way to signify to Analytics which Google Ads creative brought the user to your site. If the GCLID parameter gets lost in a URL redirect or because your site uses a URL rewrite engine, then Analytics has no way to determine which ad one of your site’s visitors came from.
How to determine if redirects to your website are dropping the GCLID parameter.
Manually tagged ad destination URLs missing information
If you aren’t using Google Ads auto-tagging and are instead manually tagging your Google Ads ad destination URLs, make sure that they’re fully tagged.
Learn more about manual tagging.
Non-click billable events
There are some ad formats where the billable event is not a click to the site. If you are tracking these kinds of ads, you'll typically see a larger clicks and sessions discrepancy than for other ad formats.
Learn more about ad formats with expected Google Ads Clicks / Analytics Sessions discrepancies.
