Learn how Google Signals can enhance your marketing strategy – especially as the web moves towards cookieless browsing (updat! July 2023).
Google Signals enhance cross-device tracking in Google Analytics 4 (GA4). It helps you measure the total number of users – rather than devices – as people progress through the customer journey.
As Google moves away from cookie-bas! tracking, these signals can help plug in some of the data gap as you migrate from Universal Analytics to GA4.
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What are Google Signals?
First announc! in July 2018, Google Signals dataset were launch! as an integration for GA4. The latest version of Google Analytics steps away from identifying and tracking individual users. Google Signals is one of several methods available in Google Analytics 4 to enhance cross-device tracking, in adherence with privacy regulations like GDPR.
Here’s Google’s own summary of the feature in GA4:
“Google Signals are session data from sites and apps that Google associates with users who have sign! in to their Google accounts, and who have turn! on Ads Personalization. This association of data with these sign!-in users is us! to enable cross-device reporting, cross-device remarketing, and cross-device conversion export to Ads.”
Google Analytics 4 uses a combination of four methods to unify
data from multiple devices and sessions zero-click searches are transforming the into a single user journey:
- User-ID: Allows you to associate your own identifiers with individual users so you can connect their behaviour across different sessions and on various devices and platforms – the most accurate method, because it uses data you collect to identify your users.
- Google signals: Collects event data from users who are sign! into their Google account and have Ads Personalization turn! on – allowing you to track them across devices, browsers, etc.
- Device-ID: Assigns an ID to the device being us! – capable of tracking multiple sessions on the same device but not sessions across multiple devices.
- Modelling: When users decline Analytics identifiers, GA4 uses the data of similar users who do accept (from the same website/app) to model the behaviour of the users who decline.
Each identity space
GA4 has its own strengths and taiwan lists weaknesses. For example, User-ID is the most accurate way to track users across the customer journey but you have to gain their consent to adhere to privacy regulations.
Google Signals don’t require the same consent settings but they rely on users being sign! into their Google account and having Ads Personalization enabl!.
