Note: This article is about Universal Analytics (UA). Starting July 1, 2023, standard UA properties will stop processing data (July 1, 2024 for UA 360 properties). If you are still using UA, make the switch to Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
If the flow of your website user experience moves between more than one domain (e.g. example-products.com to example-checkout.com), you should set up your Universal Analytics tags to measure those visits as one. Without this functionality, Google Analytics will treat this user as two separate visitors, which will inflate the number of users that appear in your reports. This occurs even if both domains use the same Tag Manager container and Analytics account.
To configure a Universal Analytics tag in Tag Manager to measure user interaction across multiple domains:
- In Tag Manager, open your Google Analytics Settings variable or Universal Analytics tag for editing.
- To find your Google Analytics Settings variable, click Variables and then click the appropriate variable in the list.
- To find your Universal Analytics tag, click Tags and then select the appropriate tag in the list.
- Navigate to More Settings > Cross Domain Tracking.
Note: The preferred method is to make changes to the Google Analytics Settings variable, so that changes are shared across multiple tags. In Universal Analytics tags, click Enable overriding settings in this tag to expose the More Settings option.
- In the Auto Link Domains field, enter a comma-separated list of domains.
- To receive incoming links from other domains, navigate to More Settings > Fields to Set and add a field with a Field Name of allowLinker and a Value of true.
- Save your changes and publish the container.