Connecting a Google Analytics property

Google Analytics is a Google tool that measures website traffic: how many people visited the site, where they came from and what they looked at. Once you connect it to gas, you have these numbers next to your social network and advertising data and you can put them into reports. In gas you will find them in the left-hand menu under Websites.

You always connect one specific Google Analytics property, not a whole account. The difference between the two is explained in the section below, because that is exactly where this procedure usually goes wrong.

Before you start

A linked Google account. Connecting a property builds on a Google account that is already linked in gas. The procedure has its own article, "Linking a Google account". When linking, you tick in gas which Google services you use on that account (Google Ads, Google Analytics, YouTube), and you then confirm the same selection on the Google sign-in screen. This selection is called the consent scope: it is the list of permissions you confirm to Google, in other words exactly what gas is allowed to look at. If Analytics was not ticked for the account, the Google Analytics tab will not be offered for it in gas at all.

Access to Google Analytics. You have to be able to open Google Analytics with the same Google account outside gas too. The lowest role that can read data is called Viewer and it is perfectly enough for gas; higher roles (Analyst, Editor, Administrator) work as well. The role can be granted either on the whole account, in which case it applies to all properties kept under it, or on a single property, in which case it applies only to that one. It can be granted by a user with the Administrator role at that level; it cannot be set up in gas. gas loads the data using your access, so it sees exactly what you see.

Your role in gas. A property can be connected to a customer account by the Administrator or User role. The Viewer role is only for reading data, so such a customer account is offered as unavailable in the form.

Free capacity in your plan. The customer account plan determines how many profiles a customer account can have connected in one network. Once that number is used up, the customer account cannot be selected in the form.

An account and a property are not the same thing

Google Analytics has two levels and mixing them up is the most common reason a connection fails:

• Account is the higher-level container, typically for a whole company, agency or destination. On its own it holds no traffic figures, it only groups the properties beneath it.
• Property is the specific website or app whose traffic is being measured. One account can contain several of them, for example the main website and a campaign website.

What you connect to gas is a property, not an account. That is why the form works in two steps: first you pick the account, and only then are the properties belonging to it loaded.

The list offers Google Analytics 4 properties, which is the current generation of Google Analytics. The older generation, Universal Analytics, stopped processing data for ordinary properties on 1 July 2023, and in July 2024 Google shut down access to it, including the interface that applications use to pull data, and deleted the collected data. So if you measure your website only in the old generation, you will find nothing to select in the Property field and you first need to create a Google Analytics 4 property in Google Analytics. It starts measuring from the moment it is created, it does not take over the history from the older generation.

Step by step

What happens next

How you know the connection worked. The dialog closes, the property is added to the table on the Google Analytics tab and gas sends you a New property added notification saying the property was successfully linked. You will also find it under the bell in the top bar.

The offer to add it to reports. If you have recurring reports that do not include the new profile yet, the Add profile to report? dialog opens right after linking, listing those reports. Select the ones the profile should be added to and confirm with the Add to selected button. You can decline the offer with the Not now button; the profile can be added to a report later in its settings.

The table of connected properties. The Name column shows the name of the property in gas. The Customers column (it holds the customer accounts the property is available to) only appears if you have access to more than one customer account. The Actions column holds the icons for editing individual rows.

When the data arrives. Statistics from Google Analytics are downloaded roughly once every few days, not several times a day as with social networks. On top of that, Google calculates its own figures with its own delay: some data is available continuously during the day (roughly within 2 to 6 hours), a closed day is usually finished in about 18 hours, and Google itself allows for processing to take 24 to 48 hours, with the numbers still changing during that time. For key events, that is actions marked as a goal (a purchase, a submitted form), credit attribution may keep being adjusted for another 12 days. That is why the first figures in the Websites section appear with a delay. The refresh button in the page header will not speed this up, it only reloads the data that is already in gas.

How far back the history goes. The aggregated reports gas draws on are not limited by the data retention setting, which in Google Analytics can be switched between 2 and 14 months. That setting concerns data about individual users and the explorations people build from it, not the aggregated reports. So Google provides daily site summaries for older periods as well, practically back to the date from which the property has been measuring the site.

Where to verify the connection. Settings → Customer account → Linked accounts gives you an overview of all profiles connected to the customer account across networks. Their order and the default profile are set there too.

Editing an already connected property

All edits are made in the same place: Settings → Connected services → Google, the account email in the Account column, the Google Analytics tab.

Common problems

The Google Analytics tab is missing for the Google account

Access to the Analytics service was not confirmed when the account was linked. Link the Google account again in Settings → Connected services → Google and in the Google account connection dialog also tick Google Analytics (the Select all button ticks all three services). Confirm the same consent on the Google screen as well.

There is nothing to select in the Account field

The Google account you signed in with has no access in Google Analytics. Ask the Google Analytics administrator to grant you access to the account, or link a different Google account in gas that does have access.

The message "All properties are already linked. Select another account."

The selected account has no free property left, they are all already connected in gas. Select another account, or find the connected property in the table on the Google Analytics tab.

We measure the website in an older generation of Google Analytics and there is nothing to select

Only a Google Analytics 4 property can be connected. Google stopped the older Universal Analytics in 2023 and in 2024 shut it down together with its data, so nothing can be read from it, not even through the interface for applications. The solution is to create a Google Analytics 4 property in Google Analytics, let it collect data and only then connect it. The history from the old generation can no longer be transferred into it.

A specific property cannot be selected

An unavailable item in the list means the property is already connected. The message Property is already linked, if it appears, says the same thing.

The customer account cannot be selected

An unavailable customer account comes with the reason:

• Limit reached: the customer account has the maximum number of profiles connected in this network that its plan allows. It helps to remove a profile that is no longer used, or to ask for a higher plan. The subscription status is in Settings → Customer account → Subscription.
• No permission: you have the Viewer role in that customer account. Ask the customer account administrator to change your role.
• Invalid licence: the customer account subscription is not in order, which is again for its administrator to sort out.

If all of your customer accounts are unavailable, gas shows the warning This action cannot currently be performed for any of your customer accounts. instead of the selection, with the recommendation to change the role, upgrade the plan or renew the licence. The reason is stated separately for each account.

The data stopped arriving after a colleague left the company

This is the most common cause of numbers suddenly going missing. The property was connected at some point by someone who no longer works at the company, and as soon as their permissions are removed on the platform side, the link stops working even though you can still see the profile in the application. Do not fix this by deleting the profile. The property should be connected again by an active colleague who has access to it in Google Analytics: in the dialog, gas tells them that the property was linked by another user (or by the same user under a different account) and offers the Take ownership button. That transfers the property under their link, the history and settings are kept and data starts arriving again.

You linked the property yourself in the past, but under a different Google account of yours

Instead of taking ownership of it, the dialog offers the Relink button. Confirming it moves the property under the account you are currently working with.

Access to the Google account stopped working

When gas loses access (a password change, permissions removed, a deleted account), the data stops being downloaded. Link the Google account again. The Google Analytics properties that were connected under it reconnect by themselves and gas sends an Automatic Google account relink notification about it. You do not have to select them again.

The Who links the account column shows Nobody

The row is also highlighted as an error. The property has no live link, so no data is being downloaded for it. Connect it again following the procedure above, ideally with a Google account that has permanent access to it.

Another team member wants to connect the same property

There is no need for a second link to the same property and gas will not even offer it, the property is unavailable in the list. Talk to the customer account administrator: in Settings → Customer account → Linked accounts they can see who linked the property and will tell you whether anything needs to change.

There are no numbers in the Websites section

If only a few hours have passed since connecting, wait, the first data download comes with a delay. If the numbers are still missing after several days, check in Settings → Customer account → Linked accounts that the property is connected to the customer account you are currently looking at, and that the top bar has the right customer account switched on. Also check the selected period in the page header.