Google Signals enables the cross-device remarketing campaigns through Google Ads and other Google Marketing Platforms based on collected data on Google users with Ads Personalization enabled.
The collected data will be anonymous but include the device and demographics of the users who have visited your website. So you might be asking, Utku, how can it be anonymous if there are few users visiting the website?
In websites where Google Signals have been enabled and have low traffic, the data won’t appear in the reports for thresholding; meaning it will have a much higher chance due to data such as gender, location, device category, etc.
For these privacy reasons, it will block you from seeing some values in your reports.
There is no option to inactivate Google Signals, but you can disable it by changing Reporting Identity to Device-Based. You can change the Reporting Identity whenever you want because it’s retroactive.
You should note that these aggregated data are not session-based but user-based, even though you don’t need a User-ID setup to use it.
To enable Google Signals, you can easily follow the Admin > Data Settings > Data Collection page and click “Get Started”.
How to Link Google Ads and Google Analytics 4 Accounts, Why Google Signal Matters?
You can link the GA4 property with Google Ads to:
- Track acquisition reports through Analytics.
- Create audiences based on the collected data for remarketing.
- Monitor campaign performances through user activities – attribution reports under Advertising.
You can link your Google Ads with the following steps:
Admin > Google Ads Link > Link > Choose Google Ads Accounts > Configure Settings > Review and Submit
You should remember that Google Signals must be activated if you want to use Google Ads data in Advertising.
When a link has been removed, the data from the Google Analytics 4 property to Google Ads also stop streaming from the moment of removal.
Google Analytics 4 remarketing audiences data won’t be forwarded to unlinked Google Ads accounts either. However, Google Ads data such as Campaign Name, and Ad Group ID that has been gathered before will still appear in the reports.
If you have any questions about linking Google Ads and Google Analytics 4 or Google Signals, please feel free to contact me to solve them together!