In the first part of the article on Google Signals, we described in detail which services within Google Analytics this feature enables. To recap – it allows owners of websites and apps to monitor user activity across different devices. The service connects information about user activities and makes it possible to track demographic characteristics, interests and other data for better targeting of remarketing campaigns. The article also includes instructions for activating Google Signals, advice and warnings on what to watch out for. If, however, you want to learn more about when not to switch the service on, about the threshold, Reporting Identity and more, you will find the whole article here.
What More Is There to Say About Google Signals? Let's Go to Part Two!
If you have Reporting Identity set to Device-based – that is, by the IDs of individual devices – everything is based on cookies stored in the browser. If they expire and the user visits the site again, they will appear in the reports as a new user.
In addition, cookie-based tracking is now a thing of the past, so the effectiveness of device IDs will continue to decline.
The reason to keep Google Signals switched on is that if the user is signed in to a Google account in their browser, they will see your ads on all their devices. As a result, users are more likely to click on them and buy your products.
24 hours after Google Signals is activated, the demographic overview and detail reports in GA4 fill in details about website and app visitors in dimensions such as country, age, gender, interests and language.
This information from Google can include the user's location, search history, YouTube history and data from websites that are Google's partners. It is used to provide aggregated and anonymised statistics about user behaviour across devices.
The Google Analytics 4 system does not export Google Signals data to BigQuery. As a result you may see different event counts per event between Analytics and BigQuery. Because Google Signals deduplicates event counts from individual users, you may also see different user counts between Analytics and BigQuery.
Google Signals in essence also work as a backup for User-ID. When users refuse consent, it lets you track them across multiple devices using anonymised data. The caveat, of course, is that not all users are signed in to their Google account on every device or browser. And not everyone has ad personalisation enabled.
A Bonus on Google Signals at the End
Did you know that it is possible to find out whether your user has visited one of your physical branches? The store visits overview will help you analyse how visits to your website affect visits to your physical shop. The overview is available only for users who have switched on Location History.