How to Integrate Google Analytics with Google Ad Manager?

Both Google Ad Manager and Google Analytics hold different kinds of data sets. While GAM looks at the monetization side of your site, Google Analytics helps you with your content and user behavior. Both the services are good at what they do. But you have to check them separately, and you’ll see only one perspective of your business at a given time.

Merging both the services presents an opportunity. You can have a deeper understanding of how your content is performing in monetary terms. You can assign dollar values to every page and category on your site. Later, you can find ways to increase that value.

Table of Contents

• Benefits of Linking GA and GAM
• Prerequisites for Linking GA with GAM
• Steps to Link Google Analytics with Google Ad Manager
• Example Reports
• What’s Next

Benefits of Merging Google Analytics Data with GAM

There are many benefits of using Analytics and GAM data together, including:

Additional Metrics: Integrating Google Ad Manager to Analytics brings 10 additional metrics to the table — Impressions, coverage, monetized page views, impressions per session, percentage of viewable impressions, clicks, CTR, revenue, Revenue per 1000 Sessions, and GAM eCPM. 

You can use them independently or in combination with one another. It’ll give you a new perspective for reporting. 

Holistic Approach: You get a view of the intersection between user flow and ad serving. You’ll understand how user behavior impacts revenue and how ads impact user behavior. It’ll help you in improving both the aspects of your site together.

Remarketing: Publishers can share remarketing lists made in Google Analytics with Ad Manager networks to target specific segments. It’ll save your time from sharing the lists manually.

Pricing Decisions: Publishers can get demographic data for the site’s ad units. It helps in understanding the right value of individual ad units. So, the sales team can sell the inventory for what it’s worth.

Many publishers understand the importance of seeing the GAM and Analytics data through the same lens. To do so, they merge the reports manually from both services. But this process can be error-prone and time-consuming. It’s better to automate the process to avoid risk and save time. But before starting the integration, you have to meet the preconditions mentioned in the next section.

Sidenote: Reporting is supported only for desktop and mobile web inventories.

Prerequisites for Integrating Google Analytics with Google Ad Manager

The integration feature is not available in the free versions of Analytics and GAM. It means you’ll need Google Analytics 360 and Google Ad Manager 360. The user needs to have Admin access for both the services. The last requirement is that you should be serving most of your ads using Google Publishing Tags.

While integrating Google Analytics with Google Ad Manager, you’ll need the following information:

• The email address of the admin of both the platforms.
• The name of your Analytics 360 Account Manager or Reseller Manager.
• Your Analytics Property ID (UA-XXXX-Y). Go to “Admin” and click on “Tracking Code” in the “Property” section to find the Property ID.
• The IDs of the Analytics Views where you want to see Google Ad Manager reports. Go to “Admin” and click on “View Settings” in the “View” section to find this ID.
• Your Ad Manager Network ID. You’ll find it in Admin > Global Settings > Network Settings.

How to Integrate Google Analytics with Google Ad Manager?

Once you have gathered all the information, you can begin the integration process. First, you have to request Google for the integration from Analytics 360. The approval can take anywhere between 24 to 48 hours. 

Google Analytics and GAM collect data separately from a page. The data collected by GAM is not compatible with GA. Shared IDs help in making the data fit for GA. It joins the data to form the collective reports for the user.

Here’s how the integration process flows:

• Go to Google Analytics 360
• Go to the “Help Section” (? sign at the top right corner)
• Go to “Need More Help”
• Select “Other Issues” and select “Email Support”
• Go to “Issue Type” and select “Google Ads Manager Linking”
• Answer the questions
• Once your request is accepted, go to Google Ad Manager
• Select “Admin” from the left panel and enable “Analytics Data Sharing” 

Once done, your Google Ad Manager 360 data should start appearing in Google Analytics 360. You’ll find it in Behavior > Publisher. Please note that the merged data will be available only from the date of integration. Also, the reports will be approximate. The main purpose of this integration is to identify trends. So, you shouldn’t use these reports for accounting work or financial reconciliation.

Pro-Tip

You can hide potentially sensitive revenue data while working with people like consultants, contractors and employees, etc. Go to Analytics 360 > Admin > Property column > Google Ad Manager > Google Ad Manager linking > Hide GAM Revenue.

Example Reports

We’ve listed a few example reports that can help you kickstart the process. 

Example 1: You can get revenue data for every page on your site. It’ll help you understand the type of pages you need to have on your site to drive more revenue. You can think in terms of content, topics, page format, ad format, or any other element that can impact the revenue.

Example 2: You can check the viewability on a page-by-page basis. This metric can help you think in terms of viewability. You can find out the pages with low viewability and take measures to improve them. It’ll ultimately increase your credibility among the bidders and the revenue.

Example 3: Just like pages, you can compare your traffic sources in terms of revenue, clicks, eCPM, viewability, etc. It’ll help you find the most valuable sources and double down on the best ones. 

Example 4: Knowing the revenue per 1000 sessions helps you understand the earnings per 1000 sessions on a particular page. 

Imagine you have two different pages that get you the same overall revenue per month. But both the pages tend to have a different number of page views and sessions and revenue per 1000 sessions helps you identify the pages that are worth more for advertisers. 

Example 5: You can check how each ad unit is performing on a page and vice versa. For instance, you can find what kind of pages perform the best with a specific ad unit. Later, you can implement that ad unit on all similar pages.

Example 6: You can use custom reports to compare the performance of categories, sections, authors, etc., to find out what works on your site. For example, once you identify the section that yields high revenue, you can cover more articles around the topic and plan your distribution accordingly.

What’s Next?

Once you have linked Google Analytics with Google Ad Manager, start using the new metrics to improve your earnings and user experience. Find out patterns like the kind of content that generates high revenue, most profitable traffic sources, the impact of ad load on user engagement, etc. Leverage the findings for rapid business growth. You can hire expert professionals or companies that specialize in web data analysis to ensure maximum utilization of the data at your disposal.