[UA] Activate Google signals

This article is about activating Google signals in Universal Analytics. For information about activating Google signals in Google Analytics 4, go to [GA4] Activate Google signals for Google Analytics 4 properties.

In this article:

• Introduction
• Data from users who have Ads Personalization turned on
• Data sharing with other Google products
• Use cases
• Using Roll-Up Reporting with Google signals activated
• Unsupported features
• Activate Google signals
• Ads Personalization settings
• Next steps

Introduction

When you activate Google signals, these existing Google Analytics features are updated to also include aggregated data from Google users who have consented to Ads Personalization:

Existing Google Analytics feature	With Google signals activated
Remarketing with Google Analytics Create remarketing audiences from your Google Analytics data, and share those audiences with your linked advertising accounts.	Audiences that you create in Google Analytics and publish to Google Ads and other Google Marketing Platform advertising products can serve ads in Cross Device-eligible remarketing campaigns to Google users who have consented to Ads Personalization. Note: You need to activate Google signals in order to populate audiences that you export to YouTube. Analytics creates separate custom models for ecommerce transactions and goal completions on your site based on the cross-device conversion data from users who have signed in to their Google accounts and who have consented to Ads Personalization. Learn more about cross-device conversion exports
Advertising Reporting Features Google Analytics collects information per your measurement-code configuration, as well as Google advertising cookies that are present.	Google Analytics collects additional information about users who have consented to Ads Personalization. Learn more
Demographics and Interests reports Google Analytics collects additional information from the DoubleClick cookie (web activity) and from Device Advertising IDs	Google Analytics collects additional information about users who have consented to Ads Personalization. Learn more NOTE: If you deactivate Google signals, Analytics stops collecting this additional information. If you deactivate and then reactivate Google signals, you will have no demographic or interests information for the period during which Google signals was deactivated.
Cross Device reports (in beta) Connect data about devices and activities from different sessions so you can get an understanding of user behavior at each step of the conversion process, from initial contact to long-term retention.	Based on aggregated data from users who have consented to Ads Personalization, Google Analytics models behavior for your whole user base across device types. The data is user based rather than session based. This behavior modeling does not require User-ID views.

 

Additionally, you might be eligible for Store Visits in Analytics. Learn more about the eligibility requirements.

Data from users who have Ads Personalization turned on

When users have Ads Personalization turned on, Google is able to develop a holistic view of how those users interact with an online property from multiple browsers and multiple devices. For example, you can see how users browse products on your site from a phone, and later return to complete purchases from a tablet or laptop.

Because of the large volume of data generated by users who have Ads Personalization turned on, Google is able to estimate from that data the cross-device behavior of your entire user base.

By default, Google signed-in data expires after 26 months. However, if the Data Retention setting is set to anything shorter than 26 months, the Google signed-in data will respect this shorter time frame.

The Cross Device reports include only aggregated data. No data for individual users is ever exposed.

Data sharing with other Google products

Data is not shared with other Google products as a result of activating Google signals: your Analytics-account data-sharing settings and product-linking settings determine whether your data is shared with other Google products.

Use cases

As a...	I would like to...	So I can...
Publisher	Report on cross-device user counts (including 1-Day, 7-Day, 30-Day actives)	Accurately report on the number of users instead of devices
Publisher	Report and understand different groups of users based on the different device combinations they use	Help focus my resources and efforts on the most valuable / promising set of users
Publisher	Understand the customer journey across devices by analyzing user-based reports (active users, funnels, pathing)	Optimize user experience for the full customer journey across devices
Marketer	Report on and understand my cross-device marketing performance (e.g., channels, campaigns, etc.)	Optimize ad spend based on cross-device usage
Marketer	Remarket to users across devices	Offer highly relevant ads based on cross-device usage

Using Roll-Up Reporting with Google signals activated

To use Roll-Up Reporting, you need to activate Google signals for the Roll-Up Property and at least one Source Property. To ensure the best data models, you should activate Google signals for the Roll-Up Property and all Source properties.

When you use Roll-Up Reporting with Google signals activated, users are deduplicated across devices, and also across the domains of your Source Properties.

To activate Google signals when using Roll-Up Reporting:

1. Sign in to Google Analytics.
2. Click Admin.
3. Under ACCOUNT, select the Account that the Roll-Up Property belongs to.
4. Under PROPERTY, select the Roll-Up Property.
5. From the Property list, select Data collection.
6. In the Data collection for Google signals section, switch the toggle On.
7. Navigate to each Source property where you want to enable Google signals and in the Data collection for Google signals section, switch the toggle On.

Note: After you activate Google signals for a Roll-Up property and one or more Source properties, the activation toggle no longer shows in the Data Collection for Google signals section of the Roll-Up property's configuration. To deactivate Google signals, open the Source property configurations where Google signals data collection is active and switch the toggle Off.

Learn more about Roll-Up Reporting

Unsupported features

The following functionality is not supported for the properties for which Google signals is activated:

Google Analytics feature	Unsupported functionality
BigQuery Export	Additional data collected by Google signals is not exported to BigQuery.
Dashboards	You cannot yet use data collected by Google signals in dashboards.
Custom reporting	You cannot yet use data collected by Google signals in custom reports.
Custom Tables	You cannot yet use data collected by Google signals in custom tables.
User-ID views	You cannot yet access Google signals in User-ID views.
Segments	You cannot yet apply segments to the Cross Device reports.
Intra-day hourly data processing	The Cross Device reports do not yet display intra-day data.
Mobile-app properties	Cross Device is not yet enabled for app properties.
Reporting API	You cannot yet use data collected by Google signals in the Reporting API.
Looker Studio	You cannot yet use data collected by Google signals in Looker Studio reports.
Smart Lists	You cannot yet use data collected by Google signals to generate Smart Lists.

Activate Google signals

To report on cross-device user journeys and/or remarket to signed-in Google users, you need to activate Google signals.

To activate Google signals, you need the Editor role for the relevant property.

1. Sign in to Google Analytics..
2. Click Admin, and navigate to the property in which you want to activate Google signals.
3. In the PROPERTY column, click Tracking Info, then Data Collection.
4. Click GET STARTED in the blue notification banner at the top of the page, and follow the prompt in the blue dialog.
   
   Click through the information and activation panels.
5. Read the information about Google signals, then click CONTINUE.

   

6. Activate Google signals.
   • Select the properties for which you want to activate Google signals (all properties of the account, this property only, or a specific subset of properties in the account).
   • Click ACTIVATE if you want to activate Google signals immediately.
   • Click DECIDE LATER to activate at a later time.

   

Before you activate Google signals, you also see a dismissable message (“Activate Google signals”) in Analytics that provides access to the same information and activation panels. If you dismiss the message before you activate, or decide to active later, follow the preceding steps.

After you activate Google signals, the switch for the feature is set to ON.

With Google signals activated, you can:

• Show Cross Device remarketing ads to Google users who have left Ads Personalization turned on.
• See new user-based data in the Cross Device reports. Keep in mind that this new data is available starting from the date you activate Google signals.

To change the setting, navigate to Property column > Tracking info > Data Collection.

When you activate Google signals, that control replaces the ones for Remarketing and Advertising Features.

Ads-personalization settings

You may enable or disable ads personalization for any property on a going forward basis. This setting applies regardless of whether Google signals is enabled; changing the ads personalization setting does not affect the collection of data under Google signals. When disabled, Google signals data is collected for measurement purposes only and the collection of this data will not be used for ads personalization. Learn more

Next steps

Take a look at the Cross Device reports.

Tips for interpreting data from Cross Device reporting.