Your guide to Google Analytics Data (GA4)

This guide contains detailed information about collecting data from Google Analytics Data (GA4).

Introduction

This guide contains detailed information about using Google Analytics Data (GA4) in Adverity.

To create a datastream to collect data from Google Analytics Data (GA4), follow the steps in our guide to Collecting data in Adverity. If these steps are not detailed enough, refer back to this Google Analytics Data (GA4) guide for detailed configuration instructions.

Limitations

Collecting data from Google Analytics Data (GA4) comes with the following limitations:

You can select a maximum of nine dimensions when choosing what data to collect using your Google Analytics Data (GA4) datastream.
Google Analytics Data (GA4) only retains data for 26 months. As a result, you can only fetch data for the past 26 months.

Google Analytics Data (GA4) uses estimates in some data calculations. As a result, when comparing data from Google Analytics Data (GA4) with data in Adverity, we recommend comparing data at the row level, as this will be more accurate than comparing totals.

Creating a datastream to collect data from Google Analytics Data (GA4)

This section of the Google Analytics Data (GA4) guide contains information specific to Google Analytics Data (GA4). Not all steps in the datastream creation process will be described here. If a step is not described here, follow the process in our guide to Collecting data in Adverity.

Authorization: Allow Adverity to access Google Analytics Data (GA4)

Google Analytics Data (GA4) uses the same authorization as Google Analytics.

If you choose Access using your credentials or Access using someone else's credentials, in Set up or edit Properties, you or the person granting access must choose one of the following options:
- Choose Grant access to all Properties, including those created in the future to allow Adverity to access all existing Properties and all Properties created in the future.
- Choose Select specific Properties to which you want to grant access to determine the specific Properties that you want Adverity to access. Adverity will not automatically have access to Properties created in the future. You will need to grant Adverity access to any Properties created in the future.
If you use your credentials to grant Adverity access to Google Analytics Data (GA4), all the Properties available to you using your credentials will be visible in the Authorizations page to all Adverity users with permission to edit this authorization.

If someone else uses their credentials to grant Adverity access to Google Analytics Data (GA4), the same applies to the Properties available using their credentials.

This is important to consider if you do not want all Adverity users with permission to edit the authorization to be able to see the details of the Properties. For more information about user permissions, see Managing user permissions.

Configuration: Choose the data you want to collect from Google Analytics Data (GA4)

To choose what data to collect and customize the Google Analytics Data (GA4) datastream configuration, follow these steps:

(Optional) Rename your datastream.

In Property IDs, select the property IDs on which you want to collect data. For more information about property IDs, see the Google documentation.

In Dimensions and Metrics, change the list of fields that you want to see in your data extract. For information on combining different dimensions and metrics, see the Google Analytics Data (GA4) documentation.

(Optional) In Metadata fields, Event scoped custom fields and User scoped custom fields, select the custom fields to include in the data extract.
(Optional) In Dimension filter and Metric filter, enter a valid JSON expression to use for data collection. For more information, see Google Analytics Data API documentation.

For example, the following expression filters the values of the eventName column. In this example, only entries in which the value of the eventName column is equal to session_start will be collected.
```
{
	"filter":{
		"fieldName":"eventName",
		"stringFilter":{
			"matchType":"Exact",
			"value":"session_start",
			"caseSensitive":true
		}
	}
}				
```

What's next?

Apply Data Mapping to your collected data to harmonize data collected from different sources in Adverity.
Store your data in Adverity Data Storage for further analysis in Adverity.
Transform your data to meet your needs by creating and applying enrichments to your datastream.

Troubleshooting Google Analytics Data (GA4)

I see an error message when fetching data from Google Analytics Data (GA4)

The Resource Exhausted Error for Property ID [ID] error message appears because the Google Analytics Data (GA4) API has a daily request limit per customer. The limit refreshes every 24 hours.

To resolve this issue, collect your data over several smaller fetches, e.g. using shorter date ranges.