How to Share Google Analytics Access

Sharing access to your Google Analytics account is a necessary step for collaborating with your team, an agency, or a freelance marketer. This guide will walk you through exactly how to grant permissions securely, explain the different access levels available, and provide step-by-step instructions for both Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics (UA).

First, Why Share Google Analytics Access?

You can't do everything yourself, and your website data is often the key to making smarter business decisions. When you bring on team members or partners to help with marketing, SEO, or web development, they need access to this data to measure their impact and identify opportunities.

Here are a few common scenarios where you’ll need to grant access:

• Marketing Agencies & Freelancers: SEO specialists, PPC managers, and content marketers need to see traffic data, conversion events, and user behavior to do their jobs effectively.
• Internal Team Members: Your in-house marketing manager needs to build reports, your content writers need to see which blog posts perform best, and your sales team might want to see lead-generating pages.
• Web Developers: Developers often need access to set up event tracking, debug conversion issues, or troubleshoot technical problems on the site.
• Stakeholders & Executives: Company leadership might want read-only access to high-level dashboards and reports to monitor business performance without needing the ability to change anything.

The most important reason to use Google's built-in user management system is security. Never, ever share your personal Google account password with anyone. Granting direct, permission-based access is the correct and secure way to collaborate. It gives you full control over who can see and do what, and you can revoke access at any time.

Understanding Google Analytics User Roles & Permissions

Before you start adding users, it's important to understand the different levels of permissions you can assign. This ensures you’re following the principle of "least privilege" — giving people just enough access to do their jobs, and nothing more. This minimizes the risk of accidental changes or data misconfigurations.

Permissions in Google Analytics are managed at three levels:

1. Account: This is the highest level. A user with access at the Account level will inherit permissions for all Properties and Views (for UA) or Data Streams (for GA4) within that account.
2. Property: This is the most common level for granting access. It gives a user permissions for a specific website or app property.
3. View (Universal Analytics Only): This is the most granular level in UA. You can grant access to a specific View within a Property, which is useful if you have filtered views (e.g., one that excludes internal traffic).

GA4 User Roles

Google Analytics 4 simplified the roles into five main tiers. Here's what each one means:

• Administrator: Has full control over the GA4 property. They can manage users (add/delete), edit permissions, and make any and all changes to settings, including linking other Google products (like Google Ads) and deleting properties. Use this permission level very sparingly.
• Editor: Can do almost everything an Administrator can do with the data and settings, but they cannot manage users. They can configure events, create custom dimensions, and edit property settings. This is a common role for trusted team members or senior marketers who manage the setup.
• Marketer: Can create, edit, or delete audiences, conversions, and attribution models. This role is designed for advertisers and marketers who run campaigns and need to manage the configuration of key marketing touchpoints.
• Analyst: Can create, edit, and share custom reports and explorations. They can see all data and settings, but they cannot make changes to the configuration of events, audiences, or the property itself. This is the perfect "read-only with benefits" role for anyone who needs to dig into the data.
• Viewer: Has the most limited access. They can see reports and data but cannot make any changes or create their own reports and explorations. This is ideal for executives or stakeholders who just need to view performance dashboards.
• No access: The user has no access to data at the specified level.

Additionally, you can apply two specific data restrictions to any role: “No cost metrics” and “No revenue metrics”. This is useful if you want an analyst or marketer to see traffic and user behavior without revealing sensitive financial information.

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Share Access in Google Analytics 4

Ready to add a user? The process is straightforward and only takes a minute. Here’s exactly what to do.

1. Go to the Admin Section

Log in to your Google Analytics account. In the bottom-left corner of the screen, click on the gear icon labeled Admin.

2. Select the Account or Property

In the Admin panel, you will see columns for "Account" and "Property." You need to decide where to grant access.

• To grant access to everything in the account, click on Account Access Management under the "Account" column.
• To grant access only to a specific website, click on Property Access Management under the "Property" column. (This is the most common and recommended choice).

3. Add a New User

On the access management screen, you'll see a list of current users. In the top-right corner, click the blue + button and then select Add users from the dropdown menu.

4. Enter Email Address(es)

A panel will slide out from the right. In the "Email addresses" field, type the full Google email address of the person you want to add. You can add multiple emails at once if you're granting them the same permission level.

5. Assign a Role

Under "Predefined roles," select the permission level you want to assign (Administrator, Editor, Analyst, etc.). Reference the descriptions from the section above to choose the appropriate role. You can also assign data restrictions for cost and revenue data below the roles list if needed.

6. Confirm and Add

Review your settings one last time. When you are ready, click the blue Add button in the top-right corner.

That's it! The user will receive an email notification that they have been granted access to your Google Analytics property.

Quick Instructions for Universal Analytics (UA)

While Google Analytics 4 is now the standard, many people still have historical UA properties they might need to share. The process is very similar, but the user roles have different names.

UA User Roles:

• Manage Users: Can add/delete users and change permissions. Cannot edit other settings.
• Edit: Can perform administrative and report-related functions (like creating goals or filters) but cannot manage users.
• Collaborate: Can create and share personal assets like dashboards and annotations. Can see all data.
• Read & Analyze: Can view reports, manipulate data within reports (e.g., add a secondary dimension), and create and share dashboards. Cannot make any changes.

To add a user in UA, navigate to Admin > Account/Property/View > User Management, click the + icon, select Add new users, and follow the same steps to enter their email and select their role. Remember, with UA you also have the option to grant access at the more granular "View" level.

Best Practices for Managing Your Users

Once you start adding users, it's wise to maintain good account hygiene. Here are a few tips to keep your Google Analytics account secure and organized:

1. Always use the "Principle of Least Privilege." Do not give everyone Administrator access just in case. Assign the lowest possible role that allows them to get their work done. Make most users an Analyst or Viewer.
2. Use Google Groups for team management. If you're managing access for a team of five marketers, instead of adding them individually, you can create a Google Group (e.g., marketing@yourcompany.com). Grant access to the group, and you can then manage access by adding or removing people from the group itself. This saves a lot of time.
3. Perform regular audits. Once every quarter, go into your user management settings and review who has access. Have any employees left the company? Has a contract with a freelancer ended? Make sure you remove anyone who no longer needs access to your data. This is a critical security step.

Final Thoughts

Understanding and managing user access in Google Analytics doesn't have to be complicated. By choosing the right permission level — Account, Property, or View — and assigning the correct role, you can collaborate securely with team members and partners, empowering them with the data they need to help grow your business.

Once your team has the data, the next challenge is turning it into meaningful insights, especially when you need to connect your Google Analytics traffic to your ad spend from Facebook, sales data from Shopify, or CRM activity in HubSpot. Rather than struggling with manual reporting and endless spreadsheets, we built Graphed to simplify this process. We connect all your data sources and allow you to ask questions in plain English to build real-time dashboards and reports instantly, making it much easier to share insights and make data-driven decisions.