My Step-By-Step Blueprint For Learning and Mastering Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

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Last Updated: March 16, 2023

Unassigned traffic in GA4 (Google Analytics 4) refers to the website traffic that is not attributed to any specific channel group (like organic search, paid search, referral, direct etc.).

Google uses certain rules (called ‘channel rules‘) to group similar website traffic sources (usually that all belong to the same traffic medium).

For example, consider the following traffic sources:

1. google (as in google / organic)
2. yahoo (as in yahoo / organic)
3. bing (as in bing / organic)
4. aol (as in aol / organic), etc.

Since they all have the same traffic medium, ‘organic’, they will be grouped together under the channel group ‘organic search’.

Consider the following traffic sources:

1. google / cpc
2. bing / cpc

Since they all have the same traffic medium, ‘cpc’, they will be grouped together under the channel group ‘paid search’.

Likewise, Google follows several other channel rules to group similar website traffic sources.

Consider the following traffic sources:

1. (not set)
2. ebook / pdf
3. ebooks / pdf-ebook
4. pocket_saves / (not set)
5. pocket_mylist / (not set)
6. pocket_reader / (not set)
7. rss / RSS
8. GrowthHackers.com / Community
9. Miroslav-Varga-recommendation-of-blogs-to-follow / linkclick-on-anchor-texst
10. The-Digital-Marketing-Hub / website

All these traffic sources have either user-defined sources and mediums, or they are (not set).

Google does not have any pre-defined channel rules to group such types of traffic sources. So what it will do is group these traffic sources under the ‘unassigned’ channel group:

Unassigned is the channel group that Google uses when there are no other channel rules that match the event data.

Technically speaking, ‘Unassigned’ is a default channel group dimension in GA4 which can have event scope, user scope or session scope.

How to see the unassigned traffic in GA4?

Follow the steps below:

Step-1: Navigate to the Acquisition Overview report in your GA4 property:

Step-2: Scroll down the report until you see the data cards related to user acquisition and session acquisition. There you could see the unassigned channel group:

Step-2: Navigate to the User Acquisition report and then scroll-down until you see the data table. There you could see the unassigned channel group:

Step-3: Navigate to the Traffic Acquisition report and then scroll-down until you see the data table. There you could see the unassigned channel group:

How to find the cause of unassigned traffic in GA4?

Follow the steps below:

Step-1: Navigate to the Traffic Acquisition report and then scroll-down until you see the data table.

Step-2: Type ‘unassigned’ in the search box and then press the enter key to filter out unassigned traffic:

Step-3: Click on the + button to apply secondary dimension to the report:

You should now see a screen like the one below:

Step-4: Type ‘Session Source‘ in the search box and then click on ‘session source / medium‘ from the drop-down list:

You should now see a data table like the one below:

You can now see the traffic sources which are causing the unassigned website traffic to appear in your GA4 reports.

How to fix the unassigned traffic in GA4?

#1 Use UTM parameters to tag URLs

When you use UTM parameters to tag URLs (known as manual tagging), you help GA4 to accurately identify the source, medium, and campaign information for each user.

Through manual tagging, you decrease the chances of losing source, medium and/or campaign information which leads to a lot less unassigned traffic being reported in GA4.

#2 Use auto-tagging to tag URLs

If you are linking your GA4 property to various ad platforms (like Google Ads, Display & Video 360 etc.), then Google recommends that you use auto-tagging instead of manual tagging.

This is because auto-tagging provides you with more dimensions than manual tagging.

Also, if you use manual tagging and auto-tagging together, then the source, medium, and other traffic-classification dimensions use the auto-tagged values.

Through auto-tagging, you decrease the chances of losing source, medium and/or campaign information which leads to a lot less unassigned traffic being reported in GA4.

#3 Always supply source, medium and campaign information when tagging URLs with UTM parameters.

For example:

https://www.abc.com/book-maths-and-stats/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid-fb-ad&utm_campaign=pdf-book-campaign&utm_content=ad1

When you don’t supply source, medium and/or campaign information via UTM parameters, it results in the traffic source or traffic medium being reported as (not set), which can lead to traffic being reported as unassigned in GA4 reports.

#4 Create UTM parameters that follow GA4 default channel rules wherever possible.

For example, consider the following URL of a Facebook ad:

https://www.abc.com/book-maths-and-stats/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid-fb-ad&utm_campaign=pdf-book-campaign&utm_content=ad1

Here, paid-fb-ad is not a system-defined traffic medium.

So Google will label all the website traffic from this URL under the ‘unassigned’ channel group.

But this is not what you want. You want this traffic to be grouped under the ‘paidsocial‘ channel.

To do that, rewrite the UTM parameters like the one below:

https://www.abc.com/book-maths-and-stats/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=pdf-book-campaign&utm_content=ad1

Here, paid is a system-defined traffic medium:

Source: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9756891?hl=en

So Google will label all the website traffic from this URL under the ‘Paid Social‘ channel group:

Use system defined traffic sources and system defined traffic mediums wherever possible when tagging your URLs with UTM parameters. Otherwise, you will see lot of unassigned website traffic.

The more user-defined traffic sources and/or medium you will use, the higher will be the unassigned website traffic in GA4.

What is a system-defined traffic source?

A system-defined source is the one that is already defined/recognized by GA4 as traffic source.

Following are the examples of system-defined traffic sources in GA4:

• google
• bing
• facebook
• duckduckgo
• yahoo etc.

What is a system-defined traffic medium?

A system-defined medium is the one that is already defined/recognized by GA4 as traffic medium.

Following are the examples of system-defined traffic mediums in GA4:

• organic
• cpc
• referral
• (none)
• email
• affiliate etc.

#5 Memorize channel rules and definitions for accurate tagging.

It is very important to know how Google groups similar traffic sources and how it defines a particular marketing channel.

This knowledge will help you tremendously in tagging URLs that follow GA4 default channel rules.

Bookmark this URL for easy reference: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9756891?hl=en

#6 Make sure that the source and medium information is not dropped because of technical issues.

The source, medium, and campaign information can be dropped because of the following technical issues (but not limited to):

• Some redirects can strip UTM parameters, causing GA4 to lose the source, medium, and campaign information. Ensure that the UTM parameters are preserved during the redirect process.
• Ad blockers and other privacy settings can cause GA4 to lose the source, medium, and campaign information.
• Make sure the GA4 tag is firing correctly on all pages of your website. Missing or incorrect GA4 implementation can lead to unassigned traffic.

#7 Missing or unrecorded “session_start” event could cause unassigned traffic.

In GA4, when a new session starts, the ‘session_start‘ event is triggered.

This event captures various parameters, including source, medium, and campaign associated with the user’s visit to your website.

If the “session_start” event is not sent or recorded, GA4 may not be able to associate the UTM parameters with the visit, which can lead to unassigned traffic.

#8 In GA4, if you send data through the Measurement Protocol without the ga_session_id parameter, all such traffic would be labelled as unassigned website traffic.

The ga_session_id parameter is used to uniquely identify a user session.

If this parameter is missing, GA4 won’t be able to associate the events with any specific session.

Consequently, these events will be labelled as unassigned.

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