[UA] Link/unlink Google Ads and Analytics [Legacy]

Linking your Google Ads account to your Analytics property lets you see the full customer cycle, from how users interact with your marketing (e.g., seeing ad impressions, clicking ads) to how they finally complete the goals you’ve set for them on your site (e.g., making purchases, consuming content).

Why link Google Ads and Analytics?

When you link Google Ads and Analytics, you can:

• See ad and site performance data in the Google Ads reports in Analytics.
• Import Analytics goals and Ecommerce transactions into your Google Ads account.
• Import cross-device conversions into your Google Ads account when you activate Google signals.
• Import Analytics metrics like Bounce Rate, Avg. Session Duration, and Pages/Session into your Google Ads account.
• Enhance your Google Ads remarketing with Analytics Remarketing and Dynamic Remarketing.
• Get richer data in the Analytics Multi-Channel Funnels reports.

Limits

• Each Analytics property can have a maximum of 400 link groups.
• Each link group can have a maximum of 1,000 Google Ads accounts.
• You cannot link Analytics and Google Ads when Google Ads (MCC or individual account) is disabled/cancelled.

If your current Google Ads setup exceeds the above limits, consider creating a Google Ads manager account and linking that to your Analytics property.

Link Google Ads and Analytics

The linking wizard makes it easy to link your Google Ads account(s) to multiple views of your Analytics property. If you have multiple Analytics properties that want to link to your Google Ads account(s), complete the linking process for each property.

1. Sign in to Google Analytics.
2. Click Admin and navigate to the property you want to link.
3. In the Property column, click Google Ads Linking.
4. Click + New link group.
5. Select the Google Ads accounts you want to link, then click Continue.
   
   If you have an Google Ads manager account, select that account to link it (and all of its child accounts).
   
   If you want to link only some managed accounts, expand the manager account, then select each of the managed Google Ads accounts that you want to link. Or, click All Linkable to select all of managed Google Ads accounts, and then deselect individual accounts.
6. Enter a link group title.
7. Turn linking ON for each view in the property in which you want Google Ads data.
8. Optionally, select Enable Google Display Network Impression Reporting to also include that data in each view.
9. If you've already enabled auto-tagging in your Google Ads accounts, or if you want to let the linking process automatically enable auto-tagging in your Google Ads accounts, skip to the next step.
   
   However, if you want to manually tag your Google Ads links, click Advanced settings > Leave my auto-tagging settings as they are.
10. Click Link accounts.

Congratulations! Your accounts are now linked. If you opted to use auto-tagging (recommended), Analytics will start automatically associating your Google Ads data with customer clicks.

Edit a link group

Once you've created a link group, you can add or remove Google Ads accounts and Analytics views from that link group. You can also rename the link group.

If you want to remove all of your Google Ads accounts from your link group, follow the instructions for unlinking (in the next section).

To edit a link group:

1. Sign in to Google Analytics.
2. Click Admin and navigate to the property whose Google Ads linking you want to edit.
3. In the Property column, click Google Ads Linking.
4. In the table, click the link group that you want to edit.
5. To add or remove Google Ads accounts from your link group, click Edit in the Select linked Google Ads accounts section, and check or uncheck the boxes next to those accounts.
6. To add or remove Analytics views, click Edit in the Link configuration section. Turn linking on or off as necessary.
7. Click Save.

Unlink Google Ads and Analytics

If you want to unlink all of the Google Ads accounts in a link group from your Analytics property, you need to delete the entire link group.

If you have multiple Google Ads accounts in a link group and want to unlink only some of your accounts from your Analytics property, follow the Edit a link group instructions in the previous section.

To delete an entire link group:

1. Sign in to Google Analytics..
2. Click Admin and navigate to the property you want to unlink.
3. In the Property column, click Google Ads Linking.
4. In the table, click the link group that you want to delete.
5. Click Delete link group.
6. In the confirmation pop-up, click Delete.

Keep in mind, if you delete a link group, all data will stop flowing between your Google Ads and Analytics accounts:

• Google Ads data (such as clicks, impressions, CPC, etc.) starting from the time you unlink will not be visible in Analytics reports. Session data up until the time you unlink the account (historical data) will still be available. Any new sessions that result from clicks in these linked Google Ads accounts after you have unlinked will appear in Analytics reports as (not set).
• Your Analytics Remarketing Lists will stop accumulating new users.
• Google Ads will stop importing all Analytics Goals, Ecommerce transactions, and metrics you configured.

Ads-personalization controls

In addition to setting up a link with individual Ads Accounts, you may also allow for or disable ads personalization for any users from specified countries and/or regions via the advanced ads personalization setting which can be found within Property settings.

Related resources

• Download the playbook for digital media managers
• About the Google Ads reports
• Troubleshoot Google Ads clicks vs. Analytics sessions
• Tag your Google Ads final URLs
• Import Analytics Goals and Transactions into Google Ads Conversion Tracking
• Add Analytics data to Google Ads reports
• How to grant or remove access to your Google Ads account
• Google Ads manager accounts (MCCs)
• User permissions
• About views
• About properties
• About Remarketing Audiences in Analytics
• About Multi-Channel Funnels
• Create a Google Account