[GA4] Link Google Ads and Analytics

Link your Google Ads account to your Analytics property to see the full customer cycle, from how users interact with your marketing (e.g., clicking ads) to how they finally complete the goals you’ve set for them on your site or app (e.g., making purchases, consuming content).

If you're making the switch from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 and need to migrate multiple Google Ads links, you can use the import tool instead of manually linking.

In this article:

• Benefits
• Limits
• Before you begin
• Create links
• Next steps
• Edit links

Benefits

When you link your Google Analytics 4 property to your Google Ads account, data flows between both products. This allows you to:

• See your Google Ads campaigns in the Acquisition overview report
• Access new Google Ads dimensions in the User acquisition report
• Import Analytics conversions into your Google Ads account
• Enhance your Google Ads remarketing with Analytics audience data
• See your Google Ads campaigns in the Advertising workspace, including the Attribution reports

Limits

You can link Google Analytics 4 properties to individual Google Ads accounts and to Google Ads manager accounts.

You can create up to 400 links per property. If your current Google Ads setup exceeds this limit, consider creating a Google Ads manager account and linking that to your Analytics property.

Note: A link to a Google Ads manager account counts as 1 link.

Before you begin

To link a property to Google Ads, use a Google account that has the following permissions. If your account doesn’t have these permissions, ask your Analytics or Google Ads administrator for help.

• In Analytics, you need to have the Editor role for the property that you want to link.
• In Google Ads, that same Google account needs administrative access.
• If you link to a Google Ads manager account, any data that you import from Analytics will be available to all of your client accounts.

Create links

1. In Google Analytics, click Admin.
2. Make sure you are in the correct account and property.

3. Under PRODUCT LINKS, click Google Ads Links.
4. Click Link.
5. Click Choose Google Ads accounts, then select the Google Ads accounts you want to link.
6. Click Confirm.
7. Click Next.
8. The option to Enable Personalized Advertising is on by default.
9. Expand the Enable Auto-Tagging option to enable auto-tagging or to leave your auto-tagging settings as they are.
   
   If you enable auto-tagging when you link to a manager account, then auto-tagging will be enabled on all Google Ads accounts directly linked to the manager account.
10. Click Next, then review your settings.
11. Click Submit to link your accounts with the current settings.

Next steps

When you create a link between your Google Ads account and your Google Analytics 4 property, you'll automatically begin seeing Google Ads data in your Google Analytics 4 reports. This link also makes data from your Google Analytics 4 property available to use in Google Ads. However, to take action on this data, you still need to sign in to Google Ads and do at least one of the following:

• Import conversions (for bidding)
• Add audiences to a campaign or ad group (for remarketing).

For enhanced remarketing and reporting, you also need to activate Google Signals.

Edit links

1. In Google Analytics, click Admin.
2. Make sure you are in the correct account and property.

3. In the Property column, under PRODUCT LINKS, click Google Ads Links.
4. In the list of linked accounts, click the arrow at the end of the row for the one you want to edit.
5. Turn Enable Personalized Advertising on or off.
6. Click to delete the link. (Learn more about unlinking in the following section.)

Learn more about using your Analytics data in Google Ads.

Unlinking Google Ads accounts from Analytics

Either a Google Ads Admin or an Analytics user with the Editor role can unlink the linked Google Ads account(s).

If you delete a link, then data stops flowing between the linked Google Ads account and the Analytics property.

• Google Ads data (e.g., clicks, impressions, CPC, etc.) from unlinked Google Ads accounts is not fully visible in Analytics reports. If auto-tagging is enabled and appends a Google Click ID (gclid) to the end of your URL, unlinked Google Ads traffic will still appear in reports by default with a source/medium of google/cpc or using available UTM values and related ad clicks will not be used for Ads-preferred attribution.
• Historical Google Ads dimensions (e.g., Campaign name, Ad group ID) collected before the link was deleted will continue to be available in Analytics. Any new data for these dimensions resulting from clicks from an unlinked Google Ads account will appear as (not set), along with Google Ads metrics (e.g., Cost, Clicks) for all date ranges.
• Analytics remarketing audiences stop accumulating new users in unlinked Google Ads accounts.
• Unlinked Google Ads accounts stop importing conversions from Analytics.