Google Signals in Analytics – Tracking users across devices without login
Table of Contents
Introduction to Google Signals
Google Signals is an upgraded version of Google Advertising reporting features through which Google Analytics can collect cross-device data from those website users who have signed in to one of their Google accounts (Gmail, Google+, YouTube, etc) and who have turned on ads personalization:
The cross-device data collected via Google Signals can be used to achieve the following objectives:
- To understand the cross-device behaviour of your website users who have signed in to one of their Google accounts and who have turned on Ads Personalization.
- Remarket to more website users across devices.
- Optimize users’ experience across devices
- Optimize ad spend and deliver ads based on cross-device usage.
Limitations of the data collected by Google Signals
At present any additional data (i.e. the data other than the one which is already collected by Google Advertising Reporting features) collected by Google Signals can not be:
- Exported to BigQuery.
- Used in GA dashboards.
- Used in custom reports
- Used in custom tables.
- Accessed in user id views.
- Segmented via the GA ‘segments’ feature.
- Accessed in mobile app properties.
- Accessed via GA reporting API
- Used in Google Data Studio reports
- Used to generate a smart list.
How to Activate Google Signals for a Google Analytics Property
Follow the steps below:
Step-1: Navigate to the Google Analytics property for which you want to activate Google Signals. Make sure you have got ‘edit’ permission for the property.
Step-2: Navigate to the ‘Admin’ section by clicking on the ‘Admin’ link:
Step-3: Click on the ‘Tracking Info‘ drop-down menu under the ‘Property‘ column:
Step-4: Click on the ‘Data Collection’ link:
Step-5: Click on the ‘Get Started’ button:
Step-6: Read the benefits of activating Google Signals and then click on the continue button:
Step-7: Select the properties for which you want to activate Google Signals. You can activate Google signals for all properties (within your GA account), current property, or specific properties:
Step-8: Once you have selected the properties for which you want to activate Google Signals then click on the ‘Activate’ button.
Step-9: Click on the ‘Done’ button as shown below:
You should now see a screen like the one below:
At this point, if you want to disable Google Signals just switch the toggle button to ‘OFF’.
Step-10: Click on the ‘Save’ button.
Get the E-book (52 Pages)
Get the E-Book (50 Pages)
Once the Google Signals is activated for your GA property, you should now be able to access the cross-device reports under the ‘Audience’ menu:
Google Analytics starts collecting cross-device data from the day, you first activated Google Signals for your property. GA cross-device data does not work retroactively.
Google Analytics applies a fixed system-defined (and unknown) threshold to cross-device data to prevent you from viewing the cross-device activities of an individual user. So unless your reporting view has collected enough cross-device data to overcome this threshold, you may not see any data in your cross-device reports.
Instead, you may see the following notification bar:
Depending upon the volume of traffic your website gets, it may take days or even weeks before you can see data being populated in your ‘cross-device reports’.
Note: If your website gets a very low volume of traffic, say 3k-4k visits a month, you may not be able to see any data for your cross-device reports regardless of how long you wait.
Activating Google Signals for Roll-Up Properties
A roll-up property is a special type of GA property whose hit data comes from other GA properties (also known as source properties). In other words, a roll-up property is made up of two or more source properties.
A roll-up property is used to implement roll-up reporting in Google Analytics.
Google recommends that you should activate Google Signals for your roll-up property and all source properties.
When you use the roll-up reporting with Google signals activated, users are deduplicated across devices and across the domains of your source properties.
Cross-Device Tracking, Users’ Privacy, and GDPR
Google Analytics display only aggregated and anonymized data from your website users who have signed in to one of their Google accounts (Gmail, Google+, YouTube, etc) and who have turned on Ads Personalization.
Google Analytics applies a fixed system-defined (and unknown) threshold to cross-device data to prevent you from viewing the cross-device activities of an individual user.
If you are collecting cross-device data via user ID then you need to make sure that it does not include any personally identifiable information (like user name, email address, etc).
Collecting PII (personally identifiable information) data in GA is against the Google Analytics Terms of Service and could result in account suspension.
If you are using user ID to personally identify a person away from Google Analytics (like in a CRM) then you would first need, prior affirmative consent of your website visitors.
In fact, if you are using the user ID feature of GA then at the time of sign up, you should get prior affirmative consent from your website users that you are going to track their activities across different devices and browsers. This is required in order to comply with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
By default, Google’s signed-in data expires after 26 months. If you do not want Google Analytics to retain user-specific data (i.e. data that is associated with cookies, user identifiers, or advertising identifiers) for this long then you should change your data retention setting associated with your GA property.
The ‘Data Retention’ is one of the settings you see in the section named ‘Tracking Info’ under the ‘Property’ column in your GA admin:
Through the ‘user and event data retention’ feature, you can set the amount of time for which Google Analytics retains user-specific data for an inactive website user, before automatically deleting it.
You can set the amount of time setting to 14 months, 26 months, 38 months, 50 months, or ‘do not automatically expire’:
The period of time, for which Google Analytics retains user-specific data for inactive website users is called the ‘retention period’.
The user-specific data is automatically deleted on a monthly basis i.e. (once a month) unless your retention period is set to ‘do not automatically expire’.
For example, if you set the ‘User and event data retention’ to ‘50 months’ then any user-specific data older than 50 months will be automatically deleted, during the next monthly deletion process.
Note: It is important to remember that not all GA data older than 50 months will be deleted. Only user-specific data (i.e. data that is associated with cookies, user identifiers, or advertising identifiers) older than 50 months will be automatically deleted. In other words, you won’t see empty GA reports for data older than 50 months.
Get the E-book (52 Pages)
If you want the retention period of your website users’ data to be renewed (i.e extended) with each new event from that user then turn the ‘Reset on new activity’ to on:
For example, if you set the ‘user and event data retention’ to ‘14 months’ and turn the ‘reset on new activity’ to ‘ON’ then every time a user’s visit your website, the data retention period associated with the user, will be extended for another 14 months and thus never reaches the 14 months expiration date.
Turn the ‘reset on new activity’ to ‘OFF’ if you do not want the retention period of your users’ data to be renewed (i.e extended) with each new event from that user.
Frequently asked questions about Google Signals
What is Google Signals?
Google Signals is an upgraded version of Google Advertising reporting features through which Google Analytics can collect cross-device data from those website users who have signed in to one of their Google accounts (Gmail, Google+, YouTube, etc) and who have turned on ads personalization.
How do I activate Google Signals?
Follow the steps below to activate Google Signals:
#1 Navigate to the Google Analytics property for which you want to activate Google Signals.
#2 Navigate to the ‘Admin’ section by clicking on the ‘Admin’ link.
#3 Click on the ‘Tracking Info‘ drop-down menu under the ‘Property‘ column.
#4 Click on the ‘Data Collection’ link.
#5 Click on the ‘Get Started’ button.
#6 Read the benefits of activating Google Signals and then click on the continue button.
#7 Select the properties for which you want to activate Google Signals.
#8 Once you have selected the properties for which you want to activate Google Signals then click on the ‘Activate’ button.
#9 Click on the ‘Done’ button.
#10 Click on the ‘Save’ button.
What is the advantage of using Google Signals?
The advantage is that you can understand the cross-device behaviour of your website users who have signed in to one of their Google accounts and who have turned on Ads Personalization. You can re-market to more website users across devices.
Where I can see data from Google Signals?
You can see the data from Google Signals via the cross-device reports found under the ‘Audience’ menu.
Related Article: GDPR for Google Analytics. Find out how to prepare via Checklist
Do you know the difference between Digital Analytics and Google Analytics?
99.99% of course creators themselves don’t know the difference between Digital analytics, Google Analytics (GA) and Google Tag Manager (GTM).
So they are teaching GA and GTM in the name of teaching Digital analytics. They just copy each other. Monkey see monkey do.
But Digital analytics is not about GA, GTM. It is about analyzing and interpreting data, setting up goals, strategies, and KPIs.
It’s about creating a strategic roadmap for your business.
Digital Analytics is the core skill. Google Analytics is just a tool used to implement ‘Digital Analytics’.
You can also implement ‘Digital analytics’ via other tools like ‘adobe analytics’, ‘kissmetrics’ etc.
Using Google Analytics without a good understanding of ‘Digital analytics’ is like driving around in a car, in a big city without understanding the traffic rules and road signs.
You are either likely to end up somewhere other than your destination or get involved in an accident.
You learn data analysis and interpretation from Digital analytics and not from Google Analytics.
The direction in which your analysis will move will determine the direction in which your marketing campaigns and eventually your company will move to get the highest possible return on investment.
You get that direction from ‘Digital analytics’ and not from ‘Google Analytics’.
You learn to set up KPIs, strategies and measurement framework for your business from ‘Digital analytics’ and not from ‘Google Analytics’.
So if you are taking a course only on 'Google Analytics’, you are learning to use one of the tools of ‘Digital analytics’. You are not learning the ‘Digital analytics’ itself.
Since any person can learn to use Google Analytics in a couple of weeks, you do no get any competitive advantage in the marketplace just by knowing GA.
You need to know a lot more than GA in order to work in the digital analytics and marketing field.
So what I have done, if you are interested, is I have put together a completely free training that will teach you exactly how I have been able to leverage digital analytics to generate floods of news sales and customers and how you can literally copy what I have done to get similar results.
EXCLUSIVE FREE TRAINING...
"How to use Digital Analytics to generate floods of new Sales and Customers without spending years figuring everything out on your own."
Here’s what we’re going to cover in this training…
#1 Why digital analytics is the key to online business success.
#2 The number 1 reason why most marketers are not able to scale their advertising and maximize sales.
#3 Why Google and Facebook ads don’t work for most businesses & how to make them work.
#4 Why you won’t get any competitive advantage in the marketplace just by knowing Google Analytics.
#5 The number 1 reason why conversion optimization is not working for your business.
#6 How to advertise on any marketing platform for FREE with an unlimited budget.
#7 How to learn and master digital analytics and conversion optimization in record time.
My best selling books on Digital Analytics and Conversion Optimization
Maths and Stats for Web Analytics and Conversion Optimization
This expert guide will teach you how to leverage the knowledge of maths and statistics in order to accurately interpret data and take actions, which can quickly improve the bottom-line of your online business.
Master the Essentials of Email Marketing Analytics
This book focuses solely on the ‘analytics’ that power your email marketing optimization program and will help you dramatically reduce your cost per acquisition and increase marketing ROI by tracking the performance of the various KPIs and metrics used for email marketing.
Attribution Modelling in Google Analytics and Beyond
Attribution modelling is the process of determining the most effective marketing channels for investment. This book has been written to help you implement attribution modelling. It will teach you how to leverage the knowledge of attribution modelling in order to allocate marketing budget and understand buying behaviour.
Attribution Modelling in Google Ads and Facebook
This book has been written to help you implement attribution modelling in Google Ads (Google AdWords) and Facebook. It will teach you, how to leverage the knowledge of attribution modelling in order to understand the customer purchasing journey and determine the most effective marketing channels for investment.
Himanshu Sharma
Digital Marketing Consultant and Founder of Optimizesmart.com
Table of Contents
Introduction to Google Signals
Google Signals is an upgraded version of Google Advertising reporting features through which Google Analytics can collect cross-device data from those website users who have signed in to one of their Google accounts (Gmail, Google+, YouTube, etc) and who have turned on ads personalization:
The cross-device data collected via Google Signals can be used to achieve the following objectives:
- To understand the cross-device behaviour of your website users who have signed in to one of their Google accounts and who have turned on Ads Personalization.
- Remarket to more website users across devices.
- Optimize users’ experience across devices
- Optimize ad spend and deliver ads based on cross-device usage.
Limitations of the data collected by Google Signals
At present any additional data (i.e. the data other than the one which is already collected by Google Advertising Reporting features) collected by Google Signals can not be:
- Exported to BigQuery.
- Used in GA dashboards.
- Used in custom reports
- Used in custom tables.
- Accessed in user id views.
- Segmented via the GA ‘segments’ feature.
- Accessed in mobile app properties.
- Accessed via GA reporting API
- Used in Google Data Studio reports
- Used to generate a smart list.
How to Activate Google Signals for a Google Analytics Property
Follow the steps below:
Step-1: Navigate to the Google Analytics property for which you want to activate Google Signals. Make sure you have got ‘edit’ permission for the property.
Step-2: Navigate to the ‘Admin’ section by clicking on the ‘Admin’ link:
Step-3: Click on the ‘Tracking Info‘ drop-down menu under the ‘Property‘ column:
Step-4: Click on the ‘Data Collection’ link:
Step-5: Click on the ‘Get Started’ button:
Step-6: Read the benefits of activating Google Signals and then click on the continue button:
Step-7: Select the properties for which you want to activate Google Signals. You can activate Google signals for all properties (within your GA account), current property, or specific properties:
Step-8: Once you have selected the properties for which you want to activate Google Signals then click on the ‘Activate’ button.
Step-9: Click on the ‘Done’ button as shown below:
You should now see a screen like the one below:
At this point, if you want to disable Google Signals just switch the toggle button to ‘OFF’.
Step-10: Click on the ‘Save’ button.
Get the E-book (52 Pages)
Get the E-Book (50 Pages)
Once the Google Signals is activated for your GA property, you should now be able to access the cross-device reports under the ‘Audience’ menu:
Google Analytics starts collecting cross-device data from the day, you first activated Google Signals for your property. GA cross-device data does not work retroactively.
Google Analytics applies a fixed system-defined (and unknown) threshold to cross-device data to prevent you from viewing the cross-device activities of an individual user. So unless your reporting view has collected enough cross-device data to overcome this threshold, you may not see any data in your cross-device reports.
Instead, you may see the following notification bar:
Depending upon the volume of traffic your website gets, it may take days or even weeks before you can see data being populated in your ‘cross-device reports’.
Note: If your website gets a very low volume of traffic, say 3k-4k visits a month, you may not be able to see any data for your cross-device reports regardless of how long you wait.
Activating Google Signals for Roll-Up Properties
A roll-up property is a special type of GA property whose hit data comes from other GA properties (also known as source properties). In other words, a roll-up property is made up of two or more source properties.
A roll-up property is used to implement roll-up reporting in Google Analytics.
Google recommends that you should activate Google Signals for your roll-up property and all source properties.
When you use the roll-up reporting with Google signals activated, users are deduplicated across devices and across the domains of your source properties.
Cross-Device Tracking, Users’ Privacy, and GDPR
Google Analytics display only aggregated and anonymized data from your website users who have signed in to one of their Google accounts (Gmail, Google+, YouTube, etc) and who have turned on Ads Personalization.
Google Analytics applies a fixed system-defined (and unknown) threshold to cross-device data to prevent you from viewing the cross-device activities of an individual user.
If you are collecting cross-device data via user ID then you need to make sure that it does not include any personally identifiable information (like user name, email address, etc).
Collecting PII (personally identifiable information) data in GA is against the Google Analytics Terms of Service and could result in account suspension.
If you are using user ID to personally identify a person away from Google Analytics (like in a CRM) then you would first need, prior affirmative consent of your website visitors.
In fact, if you are using the user ID feature of GA then at the time of sign up, you should get prior affirmative consent from your website users that you are going to track their activities across different devices and browsers. This is required in order to comply with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
By default, Google’s signed-in data expires after 26 months. If you do not want Google Analytics to retain user-specific data (i.e. data that is associated with cookies, user identifiers, or advertising identifiers) for this long then you should change your data retention setting associated with your GA property.
The ‘Data Retention’ is one of the settings you see in the section named ‘Tracking Info’ under the ‘Property’ column in your GA admin:
Through the ‘user and event data retention’ feature, you can set the amount of time for which Google Analytics retains user-specific data for an inactive website user, before automatically deleting it.
You can set the amount of time setting to 14 months, 26 months, 38 months, 50 months, or ‘do not automatically expire’:
The period of time, for which Google Analytics retains user-specific data for inactive website users is called the ‘retention period’.
The user-specific data is automatically deleted on a monthly basis i.e. (once a month) unless your retention period is set to ‘do not automatically expire’.
For example, if you set the ‘User and event data retention’ to ‘50 months’ then any user-specific data older than 50 months will be automatically deleted, during the next monthly deletion process.
Note: It is important to remember that not all GA data older than 50 months will be deleted. Only user-specific data (i.e. data that is associated with cookies, user identifiers, or advertising identifiers) older than 50 months will be automatically deleted. In other words, you won’t see empty GA reports for data older than 50 months.
Get the E-book (52 Pages)
If you want the retention period of your website users’ data to be renewed (i.e extended) with each new event from that user then turn the ‘Reset on new activity’ to on:
For example, if you set the ‘user and event data retention’ to ‘14 months’ and turn the ‘reset on new activity’ to ‘ON’ then every time a user’s visit your website, the data retention period associated with the user, will be extended for another 14 months and thus never reaches the 14 months expiration date.
Turn the ‘reset on new activity’ to ‘OFF’ if you do not want the retention period of your users’ data to be renewed (i.e extended) with each new event from that user.
Frequently asked questions about Google Signals
What is Google Signals?
Google Signals is an upgraded version of Google Advertising reporting features through which Google Analytics can collect cross-device data from those website users who have signed in to one of their Google accounts (Gmail, Google+, YouTube, etc) and who have turned on ads personalization.
How do I activate Google Signals?
Follow the steps below to activate Google Signals:
#1 Navigate to the Google Analytics property for which you want to activate Google Signals.
#2 Navigate to the ‘Admin’ section by clicking on the ‘Admin’ link.
#3 Click on the ‘Tracking Info‘ drop-down menu under the ‘Property‘ column.
#4 Click on the ‘Data Collection’ link.
#5 Click on the ‘Get Started’ button.
#6 Read the benefits of activating Google Signals and then click on the continue button.
#7 Select the properties for which you want to activate Google Signals.
#8 Once you have selected the properties for which you want to activate Google Signals then click on the ‘Activate’ button.
#9 Click on the ‘Done’ button.
#10 Click on the ‘Save’ button.
What is the advantage of using Google Signals?
The advantage is that you can understand the cross-device behaviour of your website users who have signed in to one of their Google accounts and who have turned on Ads Personalization. You can re-market to more website users across devices.
Where I can see data from Google Signals?
You can see the data from Google Signals via the cross-device reports found under the ‘Audience’ menu.
Related Article: GDPR for Google Analytics. Find out how to prepare via Checklist
Do you know the difference between Digital Analytics and Google Analytics?
99.99% of course creators themselves don’t know the difference between Digital analytics, Google Analytics (GA) and Google Tag Manager (GTM).
So they are teaching GA and GTM in the name of teaching Digital analytics. They just copy each other. Monkey see monkey do.
But Digital analytics is not about GA, GTM. It is about analyzing and interpreting data, setting up goals, strategies, and KPIs.
It’s about creating a strategic roadmap for your business.
Digital Analytics is the core skill. Google Analytics is just a tool used to implement ‘Digital Analytics’.
You can also implement ‘Digital analytics’ via other tools like ‘adobe analytics’, ‘kissmetrics’ etc.
Using Google Analytics without a good understanding of ‘Digital analytics’ is like driving around in a car, in a big city without understanding the traffic rules and road signs.
You are either likely to end up somewhere other than your destination or get involved in an accident.
You learn data analysis and interpretation from Digital analytics and not from Google Analytics.
The direction in which your analysis will move will determine the direction in which your marketing campaigns and eventually your company will move to get the highest possible return on investment.
You get that direction from ‘Digital analytics’ and not from ‘Google Analytics’.
You learn to set up KPIs, strategies and measurement framework for your business from ‘Digital analytics’ and not from ‘Google Analytics’.
So if you are taking a course only on 'Google Analytics’, you are learning to use one of the tools of ‘Digital analytics’. You are not learning the ‘Digital analytics’ itself.
Since any person can learn to use Google Analytics in a couple of weeks, you do no get any competitive advantage in the marketplace just by knowing GA.
You need to know a lot more than GA in order to work in the digital analytics and marketing field.
So what I have done, if you are interested, is I have put together a completely free training that will teach you exactly how I have been able to leverage digital analytics to generate floods of news sales and customers and how you can literally copy what I have done to get similar results.
EXCLUSIVE FREE TRAINING...
"How to use Digital Analytics to generate floods of new Sales and Customers without spending years figuring everything out on your own."
Here’s what we’re going to cover in this training…
#1 Why digital analytics is the key to online business success.
#2 The number 1 reason why most marketers are not able to scale their advertising and maximize sales.
#3 Why Google and Facebook ads don’t work for most businesses & how to make them work.
#4 Why you won’t get any competitive advantage in the marketplace just by knowing Google Analytics.
#5 The number 1 reason why conversion optimization is not working for your business.
#6 How to advertise on any marketing platform for FREE with an unlimited budget.
#7 How to learn and master digital analytics and conversion optimization in record time.
My best selling books on Digital Analytics and Conversion Optimization
Maths and Stats for Web Analytics and Conversion Optimization
This expert guide will teach you how to leverage the knowledge of maths and statistics in order to accurately interpret data and take actions, which can quickly improve the bottom-line of your online business.
Master the Essentials of Email Marketing Analytics
This book focuses solely on the ‘analytics’ that power your email marketing optimization program and will help you dramatically reduce your cost per acquisition and increase marketing ROI by tracking the performance of the various KPIs and metrics used for email marketing.
Attribution Modelling in Google Analytics and Beyond
Attribution modelling is the process of determining the most effective marketing channels for investment. This book has been written to help you implement attribution modelling. It will teach you how to leverage the knowledge of attribution modelling in order to allocate marketing budget and understand buying behaviour.
Attribution Modelling in Google Ads and Facebook
This book has been written to help you implement attribution modelling in Google Ads (Google AdWords) and Facebook. It will teach you, how to leverage the knowledge of attribution modelling in order to understand the customer purchasing journey and determine the most effective marketing channels for investment.
Himanshu Sharma
Digital Marketing Consultant and Founder of Optimizesmart.com