How to Link Google Analytics 4 with Google Ads

Connecting Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads is one of the most powerful steps you can take to understand your marketing performance. This integration transforms your reporting from two separate, siloed views into one unified picture of the entire customer journey. This guide will walk you through exactly why you should link them, how to do it step-by-step, and what to do next to unlock new insights.

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Why Link Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads?

Before jumping into the "how," it's worth understanding the "why." Linking these two platforms isn't just a technical task, it's a strategic move that unlocks deeper data, smarter optimization, and a clearer view of your marketing ROI. The benefits are immediate and substantial.

See Google Ads Data Directly in GA4

Once linked, key Google Ads metrics like clicks, cost, cost per click (CPC), and impressions are pulled directly into your GA4 reports. Instead of flipping between two tabs to compare ad spend with website behavior, you can see it all in one place. You can analyze how much you spent on a campaign and then immediately see how many engaged sessions or conversions that spend generated.

• What it solves: The constant back-and-forth between platforms to manually stitch together performance reports.
• Key insight gained: A clear, direct line between advertising costs and on-site user behavior.

Import GA4 Conversions into Google Ads

This is arguably the most critical benefit. Google Ads knows when someone clicks an ad, but GA4 knows what they do after they click. By importing your nuanced GA4 conversions - like "submitted a high-value lead form," "watched a key demo video," or "completed a multi-step checkout" - into Google Ads, you can optimize your campaigns based on what actually drives business value, not just front-end clicks or basic form fills.

• What it solves: Optimizing campaigns with incomplete data and relying solely on the Google Ads tag, which misses the full picture of user engagement.
• Key insight gained: Which keywords, ad groups, and campaigns are most effective at driving the specific outcomes that matter to your business.

Build Sophisticated Remarketing Audiences

Linking the platforms allows you to use GA4's powerful audience-building capabilities for your Google Ads campaigns. You can create highly specific remarketing lists based on user behavior that the Google Ads tag alone couldn't capture.

Some examples of audiences you can build in GA4 and use in Google Ads include:

• Users who viewed a specific product category but did not add anything to their cart.
• Visitors who have read three or more blog posts in the past 30 days.
• Customers who have made a purchase but haven't returned in over 60 days.
• Users who started the checkout process but abandoned it.

These audiences are pushed to Google Ads, enabling hyper-targeted and more effective remarketing campaigns.

• What it solves: Generic, one-size-fits-all remarketing that doesn't account for specific user intent and behavior.
• Key insight gained: The ability to segment and target past site visitors with messaging that aligns with their specific journey on your site.

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Understand the Full Customer Journey

By bringing channel cost data from Google Ads into the robust attribution and journey reporting of GA4, you get a much clearer picture of your marketing funnel. You can see how paid search interacts with other channels like organic search, social media, and email. GA4's data-driven attribution models will give credit to all touchpoints, providing you with a more accurate calculation of your true return on ad spend (ROAS).

• What it solves: Relying on last-click attribution, which oversimplifies the user journey and often misattributes credit to the final touchpoint before a conversion.
• Key insight gained: A holistic view of how different marketing channels work together to drive conversions, allowing for smarter budget allocation across your entire marketing mix.

Prerequisites: What You Need to Link the Accounts

To ensure a smooth linking process, you need to have the right permissions in both accounts. Taking a moment to confirm these will save you a headache later.

1. The Right Google Account

While not strictly necessary, it's easiest if you use the same Google account (email address) to access both your Google Analytics property and your Google Ads account. If they are under different emails, you'll need admin access given to a single email to perform the link.

2. Permissions in Google Analytics 4

In Google Analytics, you need to have the Administrator role for the GA4 property that you want to link. Having an Editor, Marketer, or Viewer role is not sufficient. You can check your permissions by going to Admin > Property Access Management.

3. Permissions in Google Ads

In Google Ads, you must have Administrative access. Standard or Read-only access won't cut it. You can check your access level by logging into Google Ads and navigating to Tools and settings > Setup > Account access.

If you meet these requirements, you're ready to proceed. If not, you'll need to contact whoever manages access in your organization to get your permission levels updated.

How to Link Google Analytics 4 to Google Ads: A Step-by-Step Guide

Linking the accounts only takes a few minutes. Follow these simple steps within your Google Analytics 4 interface.

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Step 1: Navigate to the Admin Section

Log in to your Google Analytics 4 account. In the bottom-left corner of the screen, click on the gear icon labeled Admin. This will take you to the settings backend for your account and properties.

Step 2: Find Google Ads Linking Under "Product Links"

In the Admin panel, you will see two columns: 'Account' and 'Property'. Look at the 'Property' column. Scroll down until you see the "Product Links" section. Here you will find a list of Google products you can connect to GA4. Click on Google Ads Links.

Step 3: Begin the Linking Process

You'll now see a table listing any existing Google Ads links. If this is your first time, it will be empty. Click the blue Link button in the upper-right corner.

Step 4: Choose Your Google Ads Accounts

On the next screen, GA4 will display a list of Google Ads accounts associated with your Google user login and for which you have administrative access. Click on Choose Google Ads accounts.

Check the box next to the account (or accounts) that you want to link to this GA4 property. Once you have made your selection, click the Confirm button in the top right.

Step 5: Configure Link Settings

After confirming your accounts, click Next. You’ll be taken to the "Configure settings" page. This is a critical step, and both default settings are important.

• Enable Personalized Advertising: Leave this toggled on. This setting is required to use your GA4 audiences for remarketing in Google Ads. If you turn this off, you won't be able to share your audiences with Google Ads, removing a major benefit of the integration.
• Enable Auto-Tagging: You'll see a setting here to "Enable auto-tagging." Auto-tagging adds the GCLID (Google Click Identifier) parameter to your URL after someone clicks on an ad. This is how Google Ads sends detailed campaign information to Analytics. The setting is actually controlled within Google Ads, but GA4 gives you a shortcut to turn it on if it isn't already. You absolutely want this enabled for correct data flow.

Step 6: Review and Submit Your Link

Click Next one last time. You'll see a final review screen summarizing the GA4 property you're connecting and the Google Ads account(s) you've selected, along with the configuration settings. If everything looks correct, click the blue Submit button.

That's it! You’ll get a "Link created" notification, and your accounts will be connected. It may take up to 48 hours for data to start populating in your reports, so be patient.

What to Do After You've Linked Your Accounts

Linking the accounts opens up new features in both platforms. Here are the first three things you should do to take advantage of the integration.

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1. Import GA4 Conversions into Google Ads

Once linked, head over to your Google Ads account to start a more powerful conversion tracking setup.

1. In Google Ads, go to Goals > Conversions > Summary.
2. Click + New conversion action.
3. Select Import.
4. Choose Google Analytics 4 properties, then select Web.
5. You'll see a list of available GA4 conversion events from your newly linked property. Select the ones you want to use for campaign optimization and click Import and continue.

Now, you can set these imported GA4 events as the primary conversion goal for your campaigns, leveraging richer behavioral data to guide Google's algorithms.

2. Check Out the New Google Ads Reports in GA4

Go back to GA4 and navigate to the Reports section (the icon on the left with the bar charts). Under the Acquisition > Acquisition overview report, you will now see a new card dedicated to your Google Ads Campaigns.

Click "View Google Ads campaigns" to dive into a detailed report where you can see Google Ads-specific dimensions (like Ad Group Name) against GA4's user & traffic metrics and conversions. This is where you connect the dots between ad spend and on-site value.

3. Start Building Remarketing Audiences

Begin creating audiences in GA4 based on website behavior. In GA4, go to Admin > Data display > Audiences.

• Click New Audience.
• Create a custom audience using templates like "Recently active users," or build from scratch using dimensions and events.

For example, you could create an audience of users who triggered the view_item event for a certain product category but didn't trigger the add_to_cart event. As long as you kept Personalized Advertising enabled during setup, these audiences will automatically be available for use within your Google Ads account.

Final Thoughts

Connecting GA4 and Google Ads is a non-negotiable step for any serious marketer. It breaks down data silos, providing you with a unified view that connects marketing spend directly with user behavior and business outcomes, enabling smarter optimization and superior audience targeting.

Linking your accounts is a powerful first step, but analyzing performance across Google Ads, Analytics, and all your other platforms can still feel disconnected. At Graphed, we help you solve that by bringing all your marketing and sales data into one place. You can connect sources like Google Ads, GA4, Shopify, and social platforms, and then get instant answers and dashboards simply by asking questions in plain English, like "Show me a chart of my Google Ads cost vs. Shopify revenue for the last month."