[GA4] Default channel group

This article is for GA4 properties. Default channel grouping for Universal Analytics (UA) properties is covered in this article.

We recently made improvements to default channel grouping for Google Analytics 4 properties. Learn more

Channel groups are rule-based definitions of your website's traffic sources that let you monitor the performance of all of the channels sending traffic to your website. 

When you navigate to the Acquisition > Traffic acquisition report, you'll see that the data is organized by the Session default channel group dimension. (Click to choose a secondary dimension.)

Default channel definitions

These definitions reflect Analytics' current view of what constitutes each channel. The following definitions are provided for your reference and may evolve as the market changes.

Channel definitions aren't case sensitive and can't be edited.

 

Channel	Definition
Channels for Google Ads traffic (See Analytics' list of sources and categories)
Paid Search	Traffic is Google Ads AND Google Ads ad network type is one of ("Google Search", "Google Partners")
Paid Video	Traffic is Google Ads AND Google Ads ad network type is one of ("YouTube Search", "YouTube Videos")
Display	Traffic is Google Ads AND Google Ads ad network type is one of ("Google Display Network")
Cross-network	Traffic is Google Ads AND Google Ads ad network type is one of ("Cross-network") Cross-network includes Performance Max and Smart Shopping.
Paid Social	Traffic is Google Ads AND Google Ads ad network type is one of ("Social")
Channels for Display & Video 360 traffic (See Analytics' list of sources and categories)
Display	Traffic is DV360 AND DV360 creative format is one of (“Standard", "Expandable", "Native site square", "Backdrop", "Templated app install interstitial", "Deprecated","Native app install", "Native app install square", "Native site", "Templated app install", "Lightbox”)
Paid Video	Traffic is DV360 AND DV360 creative format is one of ("Native video", "Video", "Templated app install video", "Flipbook")
Audio	Traffic is DV360 AND DV360 creative format is one of ("Audio")
Paid Other	Traffic is DV360 AND DV360 creative format is one of ("Publisher hosted", "Tracking", "Unknown")
Channels for Search Ads 360 traffic (The following are channels for non Google Ads traffic; the channels for Google Ads traffic are the same as those listed at the beginning of this table under "Channels for Google Ads traffic") (See Analytics' list of sources and categories)
Paid Search	SA360 engine account type is one of ("bing", "yahoo gemini", "yahoo.jp", "baidu", "admarketplace", "naver", "360.cn", "yandex")
Paid Social	SA360 engine account type Is one of ("facebook", "twitter")
Channels for manual traffic (See Analytics' list of sources and categories)
Direct	Source exactly matches direct AND Medium is one of ("(not set)", "(none)")
Cross-network	Campaign Name contains "cross-network" Cross-network includes Performance Max and Smart Shopping.
Paid Shopping	(Source matches a list of shopping sites OR Campaign Name matches regex ^(.*(([^a-df-z]|^)shop|shopping).*)$) AND Medium matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|paid.*)$
Paid Search	Source matches a list of search sites AND Medium matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|paid.*)$
Paid Social	Source matches a list of social sites AND Medium matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|paid.*)$
Paid Video	Source matches a list of video sites AND Medium matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|paid.*)$
Display	Medium is one of (“display”, “banner”, “expandable”, “interstitial”, “cpm”)
Organic Shopping	Source matches a list of shopping sites OR Campaign name matches regex ^(.*(([^a-df-z]|^)shop|shopping).*)$
Organic Social	Source matches a regex list of social sites OR Medium is one of (“social”, “social-network”, “social-media”, “sm”, “social network”, “social media”)
Organic Video	Source matches a list of video sites OR Medium matches regex ^(.*video.*)$
Organic Search	Source matches a list of search sites OR Medium exactly matches organic
Email	Source = email|e-mail|e_mail|e mail OR Medium = email|e-mail|e_mail|e mail
Affiliates	Medium = affiliate
Referral	Medium = referral
Audio	Medium exactly matches audio
SMS	Medium exactly matches sms
Mobile Push Notifications	Medium ends with "push" OR Medium contains "mobile" or "notification"

 

unassigned is the value Analytics uses when there are no other channel rules that match the event data.

(other) is the value Analytics uses for an aggregated row due to cardinality limits. Learn more

You may see inconsistent data from Analytics integrations for default channel groups if your reports or explorations include dates prior to June 15, 2022. For example, a channel that should be identified as Organic Shopping can be misidentified as Organic Search. Data from June 15, 2022 and later is not subject to this type of inconsistency. You can accurately identify the data from each integration by using the source platform dimension.

Analytics' list of sources and categories

Download a spreadsheet of GA4 default-channel-group sources and categories

If you would like us to add your search, social, video, or shopping site to the list or if you would like to make a change to your current listing, contact us at [e-mail]. Google Analytics reviews these requests at least once per year and often more frequently. Inclusion is based on Google’s assessment of a number of factors including but not limited to whether a significant volume of traffic is sourced from a given search engine, social site, or shopping site.