How to Set Up Automated Reports in Google Analytics
Manually pulling the same Google Analytics reports week after week is a surefire way to lose your valuable time. Instead of spending your Mondays wrestling with CSVs, you can set it and forget it. This article will show you how to easily set up automated reports in Google Analytics 4 so you can get the insights you need delivered straight to you and your stakeholders, right on schedule.
Why Automate Google Analytics Reports?
Setting up automated reports is about more than just convenience, it’s about making your data work for you, not the other way around. When your reporting is on autopilot, you unlock a few key advantages.
Save Time & Mental Energy: The most obvious benefit is the time saved. Automating eliminates the repetitive, mind-numbing task of clicking through the GA interface, finding the right A/B tests to monitor, setting date ranges, and exporting data. Let the system handle the grunt work so you can focus on strategy and analysis.
Maintain Consistency: Manual reporting introduces the risk of human error. Did you remember to apply the right filter this week? Are you using the same date comparison as last month? Automation ensures that everyone receives the same report, with the same standardized metrics, every single time.
Proactively Monitor Performance: With a daily or weekly report landing in your inbox, you create a regular rhythm for checking your key performance indicators (KPIs). This consistent pulse on your website's health helps you spot trends, catch anomalies, or celebrate wins without having to proactively log in and look for them.
Keep Everyone Informed: Effortlessly keep your clients, your boss, or your team in the loop. Scheduled reports provide transparency and keep marketing performance top-of-mind for key stakeholders, building trust and aligning everyone around a common set of metrics.
The Foundation: Customizing and Saving the Reports You Need
Before you can automate a report, you first have to tell Google Analytics exactly what you want it to send. This starts with creating or customizing a report and saving it. The goal is to build a master version of your report that can be used as a template for automation.
Let's say you want to track a "Weekly Traffic Sources" report.
Step 1: Navigate to a Standard Report
The easiest place to start is with a pre-built report. In your GA4 property, go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition. This report gives you a great overview of where your website visitors are coming from.
Step 2: Customize the Report to Your Needs
A standard report is just a starting point. Now, let’s tailor it to answer a specific question. Here are a few common customizations:
Change the Date Range: In the top-right corner, click the date and select a relative range like "Last 7 days" or "Last 30 days." This step is critical for automation. Using a relative range ensures your report will always show fresh data each time it’s generated.
Add a Comparison: Click "Add comparison" at the top to compare different audience segments. For instance, you could compare "Mobile traffic" vs. "Desktop traffic."
Filter the Data: Use the filter builder just below the report title to narrow down your data. You could filter to only include traffic from a specific country or to a specific landing page.
Step 3: Save Your Customized Report
Once your report looks perfect, click the pencil icon in the top-right corner to open the customization interface. Without making more changes, just click the "Save" button and choose "Save as new report."
Give your report a descriptive name like "Weekly Channel Performance Report" or "Monthly Blog Traffic Overview." This saved report will now appear in your "Library" (in the bottom of the left-hand navigation menu of "Reports"), creating a shortcut so you never have to rebuild it from scratch.
Your Step-by-Step Guide to Automating Reports via Email in GA4
With your custom report saved, you're ready to set up the automation. Google Analytics makes this simple with a built-in email scheduling feature.
Step 1: Open Your Saved Report
Navigate to the custom report you just saved. You can find it in your Library or directly in the Reports navigation if you've added it there.
Step 2: Click the "Share report" Icon
In the top-right corner of your report, look for the share icon (a small rectangle with an arrow pointing up). Click "Share report."
Step 3: Schedule the Recurring Email
A sharing panel will appear on the right side of your screen. Instead of sharing once, you want to set up a schedule. This is where the magic happens:
Click the "Schedule email" toggle to turn it on.
A set of new scheduling options will appear. Configure them as needed:
Add recipients: Enter the email addresses of everyone who should receive this report. You can add yourself, team members, or clients.
Subject (Optional): The default Subject is fine, but you can also write your own to provide more context.
Frequency: This is the core of the automation. You can choose from 'Once,' 'Daily,' 'Weekly,' 'Monthly,' or 'Quarterly'.
End date: If your team works in quarters by fiscal year and you want the report to stop sending at that point, this will shut down the automated report schedule for you and you can then update and set up a new reporting schedule once you have the next quarter planned out.
For our "Weekly Traffic Sources" report, a good setting would be "Weekly on every Monday at 9:00 AM".
Once your settings are configured, click "Save" in the top-right corner.
That's it! Your report is now scheduled. Every Monday morning at 9:00 AM, the recipients you listed will receive an email from Google Analytics with a PDF of this report showing data from the previous seven days.
Limitations of GA4's Built-in Report Automation
While extremely useful for basic updates, the native report automation in Google Analytics has some notable limitations you should be aware of.
Reports are Static PDFs: The email attachment is a non-interactive PDF. You can't click into the data, change the date range, or drill down for more information. To explore further, you have to log back into GA, find the report, and analyze it there, which can slow down genuine insight-finding.
It’s a Single Data Source Island: Your GA report only contains GA data. It's completely disconnected from your other marketing and sales platforms. You can't see your Google Ads impressions and your Facebook Ads campaign costs alongside Shopify sales data or HubSpot lead conversions. To get a full view of your marketing funnel, you're back to downloading CSVs and stitching them together by hand.
What You See Is What You Get: The formatting is limited. You can’t add your own branding, change the visual style much, or add annotations and context directly in the report. For client-facing reports, this may not feel polished enough.
You Can't 'Explore' with It (At least Not an Automated Way): While not strictly a limitation for "automation," only standard reports or saved versions of them can be scheduled. Unfortunately, you can’t get the reports from the "Explore" ("Explorations" report builder, formerly known as "Analysis Hub") tab delivered through email automation for more complex and granular-segmented reporting needs. Explorations, where tools for deeper, granular-segmented data live - tools that we as marketers, agency staff, and analysts want regular reports on the most to know when to shift tactics and strategies.
Final Thoughts
Setting up automated reports in Google Analytics is a powerful first step toward reclaiming your time and building a more data-informed workflow. By saving custom reports and scheduling them via email, you ensure everyone stays updated on key metrics with consistent, reliable data snapshots, freeing you up to focus on the strategic work that actually drives growth.
Ultimately, native Google Analytics reports are only one piece of the puzzle. When you need to see your website traffic alongside ad spend from Facebook Ads, conversion data from Shopify, and lead statuses from Salesforce, you can't rely on scheduled PDF exports. We built Graphed to break down those data silos. Instead of building static, one-off reports, we let you connect all your data sources in one place and build live, interactive dashboards using simple language. This lets your entire team get real-time answers to cross-platform questions, making your data analysis fast, insightful, and comprehensive.