Ingest Google Analytics into Data Cloud

This solution helps you:

• Connect your Google Analytics data to BigQuery.
• Link your Sales Cloud or Service Cloud data to Google Analytics.
• Set up the Google Cloud Storage connector in Data Cloud.
• Import your Google Analytics data into Data Cloud.
• Schedule recurring queries to add Google Analytics data to Data Cloud regularly.

Products or Features

To complete this use case, review the features used, permissions required, and associated skills.

• Salesforce Data Cloud
• Sales Cloud or Service Cloud
• Google Analytics 360 version or Google Analytics 4
• Google BigQuery
• Google Cloud Storage
• CRM Analytics

Permissions

• Data Cloud Architect
• Google Analytics Administrator
• Google Analytics Editor
• Google BigQuery admin

Configuration Considerations

Consider the following information when you ingest Google Analytics data into Data Cloud.

Google Analytics

If you currently use the Salesforce Web and Mobile SDK or Marketing Cloud Personalization to enrich Data Cloud profiles with behavioral data, confirm which attributes are prioritized. Prevent data duplication using Google Analytics.

BigQuery Projects

• BigQuery Export is available only in Google Analytics 360.
• Data in Google Analytics BigQuery resides in the United States, by default. Therefore, Google Analytics BigQuery Export is incompatible with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) policies that prohibit the creation of datasets in the United States. To align with these policies, localize your dataset to the European Union.
• Don’t link more than 300 Google Analytics reporting views to a single BigQuery Project because doing so degrades the export of intradata trading.
• You can link only one Google Analytics reporting view to each property.
• After connecting your Google Analytics data to your BigQuery project, Analytics data appears within 24 hours. Each day, the previous day’s data is exported as a single file, and the current day’s data is exported as three.
• You can link only one Google Analytics reporting view to each property.
• The service account must have EDIT access to your BigQuery project to turn on data exporting.

Measurement Protocol Google Analytics

• Salesforce data integrated using the measurement protocol is stored in Google Analytics as custom dimensions.
• Google Analytics generates client IDs.
• Google Analytics only tracks events associated with a user ID.
• Google Analytics tracks only events associated with a user ID. Unassociated events are discarded from the user ID profile.
• If a visitor signs in or registers during a session, events before the authentication are associated with the user ID.
• When using the measurement protocol with your own visitor identifier (UID), your Google Analytics view is split: one profile shows all your website traffic without insights on cross-device activity, and the other shows only user ID traffic with cross-device insight.
• If you can’t assign an ID to a user, don’t send the uid parameter. All users without the necessary data still count against your data limits and can cause reporting discrepancies.
• For Marketing Cloud Engagement customers, you can use the Subscriber ID (sfmc_id) as the uid for tracking. To pass the sfmc_id query parameter to the uid field in the Google Analytics tag, set up a Custom Dimension in Google Analytics and modify the Google Analytics tag to include a ‘URL’ variable.

Customer 360 Data Model Schema

• If you want to bring custom attributes into Data Cloud from Google Analytics 4 or 360, you must first create custom data model objects from existing data model objects.
• You can use only mapped fields and objects with relationships for segmentation and activation.

Related Content

• Trailhead: Salesforce CRM
• Trailhead: Understand Your Web Users with Google Analytics
• Trailhead: Google Analytics 360 Integration for Marketing Cloud Engagement