Google Analytics is a powerful tool that helps you keep track of how people use your website. It provides information about your users, such as where they're coming from, how long they stay, and how they move through your website.
With Google Ads, the focus is on getting users to your website, but that's only half the battle: Google Analytics fills the gap by providing insight into what users do once they arrive. When using both together, you can track things like which ads lead to the most clicks and conversions, so you can optimize your campaigns to focus on your best-performing ads.
Setup
Setup involves linking your Analytics and Google Ads accounts, and turning on auto-tagging.
Linking Google Analytics and Google Ads
If you use the same login for both your Google Analytics account and your Google Ads account, they are already linked. Otherwise, you'll need to manually link them according to these directions.
This one-time setup cannot be performed via the API, so you'll need to log in to the Google Ads UI to link the accounts.
Linking goes both ways, so in addition to getting Analytics data in your Google Ads account, you'll also be able to access Google Ads data in your Google Analytics account.
Turning on auto-tagging
Auto-tagging is an account-wide feature that applies to all ads and campaigns in your account. When enabled, tracking information is added to the URL so the landing page can determine which specific ad was clicked. With this information, Google Analytics can understand the relationship between a given visit to your landing page and the ad that triggered that view from Google Ads.
When using Google Analytics with your Google Ads account, it's essential to turn
on auto-tagging, if you haven't already. This is done by setting the boolean
value in the
Customer class
within CustomerService
to true. Auto-tagging can also be enabled
via the Google Ads UI.
Reporting
Once you've successfully linked your Googe Ads and Google Analytics accounts and imported the Analytics data into Googe Ads reports through the Googe Ads UI, the additional Analytics columns begin appearing in your Google Ads reports. These columns show statistics about what users do on your website after clicking an ad. These statistics aren't just for your landing page, but for your site as a whole. The table below describes the four Google Analytics columns in the AdWords API.
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
BounceRate |
The percentage of clicks that hit your site, but didn't do anything else; they just landed and left. |
AverageTimeOnSite |
Average time users were on your site after clicking an ad. |
AveragePageviews |
Average number of pages on your website users visited after clicking an ad. |
PercentNewVisitors |
An estimate of the percentage of users clicking an ad who have never visited your site before. |
The API supports all Analytics report types. Analytics columns are available in these reports, so you can break down the data at whatever level you like within your account. To ensure the columns are correctly populated, verify your setup steps from Add Google Analytics Data to Google Ads Reports.
Analytics API
Linking your Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts allows you to see some basic statistics from Google Analytics, but it also allows you to fetch Google Ads-specific data using the Google Analytics API.
Once you sign up for the Google Analytics API, you can use it to run queries
that fetch Google Ads data using the Core Reporting API. You can get fields like
CampaignID, AdGroupID, and CriterionID to match up data from Google Analytics
with its source in Google Ads. You can read about how to set up and make
these requests in the Google Analytics article on Google Ads
integrations. We also
provide a list of Google Ads dimensions available in the Google Analytics
API.
Remarketing
Note that remarketing via the AdWords API is independent from remarketing set up in Google Analytics+Google Ads accounts. You cannot share remarketing lists between the two, and each method has its own reporting. For more information about remarketing in Google Analytics+Google Ads, read these two articles:
Resources
- Linking your Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts
- Report Definitions
- Google Analytics API
- Dimensions & Metrics Explorer: Lists and describes the dimensions and metrics available through the Analytics Core Reporting API.