In Google Analytics 4 (GA4), there exists a feature that often goes unnoticed—the Reporting Identity feature. Many users tend to overlook this tool, unaware of its significance in understanding user behavior and making informed decisions. In this blog post, we will help shed light on this feature and answer why exploring it holds significant importance in analyzing your data.
So, we’re inviting you to read the blog post and gain insights that will not only boost your confidence in analyzing user behavior but also help you make data-driven decisions. By the end of this post, you'll have a newfound appreciation for this often-overlooked feature in GA4, and become fully aware of its potential to transform how you perceive and use analytics data. So, let's dive in and unlock the knowledge behind GA4's Reporting Identity feature together.
Here are some of the reasons Google needs reporting identities in GA4
Problem: Users interact with businesses across multiple devices (phone, laptop, tablet, etc.). Traditional tracking methods like cookies often struggle to connect these fragmented interactions.
Solution: Reporting identities help GA4 stitch these fragments together, creating a unified view of the user journey across devices. This provides a more complete picture of user behavior and preferences.
Problem: Cookie tracking is becoming increasingly unreliable due to privacy concerns and browser blocking. This means many user interactions go unseen in analytics.
Solution: Reporting identities offer alternative ways to identify users, even without cookies. This ensures crucial data isn't lost and allows for more accurate analysis.
Problem: Traditional analytics platforms tend to silo data by platform (website, app, etc.), making it difficult to understand how users move across them.
Solution: Reporting identities enable cross-platform analysis. You can see all user touchpoints - from website visits to app interactions - within a single platform, providing a unified view of your user base and their behavior across different channels.
Problem: Without a complete understanding of user journeys, it's challenging to personalize marketing efforts and content.
Solution: By understanding how users move across devices and platforms, reporting identities offer powerful insights into their preferences and behavior. This information can be used to personalize your marketing messages, deliver relevant content, and ultimately, create a more satisfying experience for your users.
Problem: Privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA require businesses to handle user data responsibly.
Solution: Reporting identities can help you anonymize and obfuscate user data, ensuring you're complying with these regulations while still leveraging valuable insights for analysis.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) uses four "identity spaces" to identify users across devices and platforms, providing a more holistic view of user journeys. Here's a breakdown of each:
But let’s stay in this identity space for a while. Recently the Analytics community was surprised by the announcement that Google signals will be removed from the GA4 Reporting Identity on February 12, 2024. This change will apply to all Google Analytics 4 properties and will only affect reporting features.
Users are given the option to flip the switch to turn off "Include Google Signals in Reporting Identity" in GA4 UI. This means reports won't show certain demographics and interests from people who are signed in and have given their consent. This is especially helpful for Blended or Observed identities because it reduces the chance of reaching data limits or the term use in Analytics, data thresholding. Don't worry, Google will still collect this data for audiences, conversions, and sharing with your linked Google Ads account for things like remarketing and bid tweaks.
GA4 offers three reporting identity options that determine how these identity spaces are used:
The best Reporting Identity for you depends on several factors, including:
You can easily switch between the Blended, Observed, and Device-based options at any time, without affecting your historical data.
Here's a quick breakdown of what you need to know - When to switch:
1. Go to your GA4 property in the Admin section.
2. Under "Property settings" click on "Reporting identity."
3. Choose the desired option from the dropdown menu.
The little downward arrow on each of the three options provides additional details about the identity method.
4. Click "Save."
That's it! The changes will be applied instantly and reflected in your future reports. Remember, this switch does not retroactively alter your historical data. So, if you previously used Device-based, your past reports will still reflect that identity.
One of the limitations of this feature is the likelihood of data reaching the limit and thus, won’t be able to generate the data accurately. For more information, check out this post: What is Data Thresholding in Google Analytics 4 Reports? by Ken Bandong.
If you’re using Device-based because you’re more concerned about data privacy, you might check these reasons why your decision should not come down to that. Using this option has its limitation which is inaccurately tracking user journeys across devices, and here are the reasons why.
Therefore, while Device-based Reporting Identity offers improved data privacy, it comes at the cost of potentially inaccurate and incomplete user data. Consider these limitations when deciding if it's the right choice for your needs.
Modeling in GA4 doesn't provide precise measurements of user behavior. It uses statistical techniques to estimate user interactions and characteristics based on existing data patterns.
It’s also primarily employed within the Blended Identity option to fill gaps in data for users who cannot be identified through user IDs or device IDs.
In terms of reliability of modeled data, it depends significantly on two factors:
With this, potential Issues might arise such as:
Yes, you can exclude Google Signals in GA4 UI, here are the steps:
GA4 prioritizes User ID, then Google Signals, then Device ID, then Modeling. It uses probabilistic matching to link data points together when possible.
No, you cannot manually add modeling to your GA4 Reporting Identity. Modeling is an automated feature that Google applies to Blended and Observed identities to fill in gaps when higher-priority identifiers (User-ID or Google Signals) are missing. It's not a setting you can directly control.
In conclusion, we hope that our exploration of Google Analytics 4 has brought to light the often underestimated Reporting Identity feature. Despite its subtle presence, this tool plays a crucial role in understanding user behavior and helps you make informed decision-making. Throughout this blog post, our goal has been to emphasize the importance of learning this feature for effective data analysis.
As you contemplate the insights shared, and now we suppose you’re already armed with a deeper understanding, we encourage you to leverage this knowledge into your analytical pursuits. The Reporting Identity feature, often missed, emerges as a powerful tool in analytics. Thank you for joining us on this exploration, and we trust that your future engagements with GA4 will be enhanced by a newfound awareness of its Reporting Identity feature.
Thank you for reading and Happy analyzing!
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