Google signals are session data from sites and apps that Google associates with users who have signed in to their Google accounts, and who have turned on Ads Personalization. This association of data with these signed-in users is used to enable cross-device reporting, cross-device remarketing, and cross-device conversion export to Ads.
When you activate Google signals, these other Google Analytics features are also implemented:
Cross Platform reporting
Connect data about devices and activities from different sessions using your User-ID or Google-signals data so you can get an understanding of user behavior at each step of the conversion process, from initial contact to conversion and beyond.
For your reports to include Google-signals data you need a monthly average of 500 users per day per property.
With the addition of Google-signals data, Google Analytics improves the accuracy of user counts in reporting, and uses cross-platform audience criteria to evaluate users who do not have a user ID.
Remarketing with Google Analytics
Create remarketing audiences from your Google Analytics data, and share those audiences with your linked advertising accounts.
When you activate Google signals, audiences that you create in Google Analytics and publish to Google Ads and other Google Marketing Platform advertising products can serve ads in Cross Device-eligible remarketing campaigns to Google users who have turned on Ads Personalization.
Advertising Reporting Features
Google Analytics collects information per your tracking-code configuration, as well as Google-signals data and Google advertising cookies that are present.
Demographics and Interests
Google Analytics collects additional information about demographics and interests from Device AdvertisingIDs and from users who are signed in to their Google accounts and who have turned on Ads Personalization.
Data from users who have turned on Ads Personalization
When users turn on Ads Personalization, Google is able to develop a holistic view of how those users interact with an online property from multiple browsers and multiple devices. For example, you can see how users browse products on your site from a phone, and later return to complete purchases from a tablet or laptop.
By default, Google signed-in data expires after 26 months. However, if the Analytics Data Retention setting is set to anything shorter than 26 months, the Google signed-in data will respect this shorter time frame.
Data sharing with other Google products
Data collected under Google signals is not used or shared for any purpose other than to provide the Google Analytics service unless you enable Data Sharing settings or opt to link with Google products.
Use cases
As a... | I would like to... | So I can... |
---|---|---|
Publisher | Report on cross-device user counts (including 1-Day, 7-Day, 30-Day actives) | Accurately report on the number of users instead of devices |
Publisher | Report and understand different groups of users based on the different device combinations they use | Help focus my resources and efforts on the most valuable / promising set of users |
Publisher | Understand the customer journey across devices by analyzing user-based reports (active users, funnels, pathing) | Optimize user experience for the full customer journey across devices |
Marketer | Report on and understand my cross-device marketing performance (e.g., channels, campaigns, etc.) | Optimize ad spend based on cross-device usage |
Marketer | Remarket to users across devices | Offer highly relevant ads based on cross-device usage |
Unsupported features
The following functionality is not supported for the properties for which Google signals is activated:
Google Analytics feature | Unsupported functionality |
---|---|
BigQuery Export | Additional data collected by Google signals is not exported to BigQuery. |
Roll-Up Reporting | Currently, you cannot use Roll-Up Reporting with Google Analytics 4 properties. |
Activate Google signals
To activate Google signals for your Google Analytics 4 property, you need the Editor role for the property.
- Sign in to Google Analytics..
- Click Admin, and navigate to the property in which you want to activate Google signals.
- In the PROPERTY column, click Data Settings > Data Collection, then turn on the switch for Enable Google signals data collection.
When you activate Google signals, your are subject to the policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features.
Your property-level ads-personalization settings
You may choose to allow for or disable ads personalization uses of analytics data collected from users based on their country and/or region on a going-forward basis. This setting applies regardless of whether Google signals is enabled; changing the ads personalization setting does not affect the collection of data for Google signals. When ads personalization is disabled for a country and/or region, Google-signals data from users in those locations is collected for measurement purposes only and won't be used for ads personalization. Learn more