Google BigQuery is a cloud data warehouse that allows you to run high volume data in just a few seconds.

BigQuery provides the opportunity to conduct an in-depth analysis of business performance and user interactions. Now, with Google Analytics 4 (GA4) properties, you can get a more detailed analysis using an event-driven data model designed to allow more flexibility while collecting data from apps and web properties.

Why use BigQuery for your Google Analytics 4 property?

Connecting BigQuery with Google Analytics 4 is completely free of charge. Yes, you heard it right, there are no charges on exporting data from a Google Analytics  4 property to BigQuery. You can also export to a free instance of BigQuery called BigQuery Sandbox.

Now, you can really take this opportunity to the next level and go beyond the reporting interface of GA4, with unlimited advanced analytics options.

Here are a few of the advantages below:

• No sampling.
• Export all of your custom event parameters and dimensions.
• Connect Google Analytics 4 data with third-party API’s.
• Push data from BigQuery to a wide range of visualization tools like Google Data Studio, Tableau, Power BI and Qlik.
• Data correction options.
• Custom channel grouping.

Now let’s dive into this step-by-step guide to connecting your Google Analytics 4 property to BigQuery.

Connecting Google Analytics 4 with BigQuery

Note: You need edit level access to a Google Analytics 4 property to carry out the entire set up.

Step 1: Log in to your Google Analytics 4 property and click on ‘Admin’ under the left-hand side reporting menu.

Step 2: You will enter the Admin console, now click on ‘BigQuery Linking’ under ‘Product Linking’.

Step 3: An overlay will appear like below. Click on ‘Link’ button.

Step 4: Another overlay will appear like below. Click on ‘Choose a BigQuery project’.

Step 5: A new overlay will appear, as below, with a list of the Google BigQuery projects you have access to. Click on the project for which you want to export the data.

Note: If you don’t see any projects listed here, you need to create a project in Google Cloud. You can get more information by clicking on ‘Learn More’.

Step 6: Now you need to select the ‘Data Location’. Data location is the cloud region where your data is stored. You can click on the drop-down and select any one from the available list. In our case, I am selecting ‘United States (us)’.

Step 7: Now click on ‘Next’.

Step 8: You will be prompted to select the ‘Data Streams’. By default, all of the data streams are selected. You have the option to select the specific data stream for which you will be exporting the data. Just click on ‘Edit’.

Step 9: Select the data streams and click on ‘Confirm’.

Step 10: Click on the checkbox if you have a mobile app and want to export mobile advertiser identifiers.

Step 11: The next step will be selecting the frequency of the data export. If you have cloud billing enabled, I recommend selecting both as you will get data available in BigQuery as soon as it is processed by Google Analytics 4 along with daily processed tables. In our case, we will select ‘Daily’.

Step 12: Click on ‘Next’.

Step 13: Now a review screen will be generated with the options you have selected earlier. Click on ‘Previous’ if you want to change any configuration, if everything is perfect then you can click on ‘Submit’.

Step 14: Upon successful linking, you will get the below notification.

You can find your BigQuery project linked to your Google Analytics 4 account by clicking on ‘BigQuery Linking’ under ‘Product Linking’ in the admin section.

Congratulations!! You have successfully connected your Google Analytics 4 account with Google BigQuery.

Now wait for 24 hrs (It generally takes 24 hrs to send data to BigQuery) and log in to your BigQuery console, click on three horizontal lines and then click on ‘BigQuery’.

You can see the events data populating like below.

And that’s it, we are done!

Conclusion

You can use a Google Analytics 4 property and BigQuery to evaluate the limitless possibility of new insights and define your own advance analytics capabilities.

Furthermore, you can also connect BigQuery with third-party tools using native connectors to integrate more data.

BigQuery also supports most of the visualization tools and you can make use of them to build dashboards and insights to enhance your business growth.

Related Articles on GA4 (Google Analytics 4):

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2. How to upgrade to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) 
3. How to set up cross-domain tracking in GA4 (Google Analytics 4)
4. How to setup enhanced measurement tracking in GA4 (Google Analytics 4)
5. How to set up event tracking in GA4 (Google Analytics 4)
6. How to set up conversion tracking in GA4 (Google Analytics 4)
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