Website analytics

This page is for the marketer. With website analytics on, your AI client can read two things about your own website through your Google connection:

• Google Analytics 4: what visitors did on the site, and what the clicks of each campaign did after they landed;
• Search Console: how the site did in Google Search.

It only reads. Nothing on the website, in Google Analytics or in Search Console is changed, and the server keeps none of the figures. It works for a user without write access and on a read-only server.

Before you start

Website analytics is off by default. Two things have to happen once.

1. An administrator switches it on: the Website analytics switch on the Google Ads API page. Switching it on makes the Google sign-in also ask for Google Analytics and Search Console, read only. See Website analytics.
2. You reconnect Google, to grant those two permissions. Everyone who connected before the switch was turned on has to do this:
   1. Open Google connection.
   2. Press Reconnect Google.
   3. When Google asks, leave the Google Analytics and Search Console boxes ticked.

After that the page shows Website analytics as Connected. Press Test website connection to see the Google Analytics properties and Search Console sites your login can read.

You may grant only one of the two permissions. Then that half works, and the other tells you how to grant it.

Until both steps are done, a request is refused with the reason and the address of the page where it is put right. A request from the AI client cannot grant a permission.

What to ask

Which properties and sites can you read for our website?

How many sessions did the site get last month, by channel?

What did the clicks from our October campaign do on the site?

Which search queries brought the most clicks in September?

The AI client first lists what your login can read, then asks for a report of one property or one site. If you have several, say which you mean.

Traffic

From Google Analytics 4, for a period:

• sessions;
• users and new users;
• engaged sessions and the engagement rate;
• key events, which is what Google Analytics now calls conversions, and the key-event rate for each session.

You can have it split one way at a time:

Split by	You get a row for each
Date	day
Source and medium	source and medium, such as google / cpc
Channel	Google's channel group, such as Organic Search
Campaign	campaign name
Landing page	page a session started on
Country	country
Device	desktop, mobile or tablet

You can also ask for one source alone, such as only the sessions that came from facebook.

A period may be up to 400 days. Days are in the property's own time zone.

What a campaign's clicks did

A second report gives the same figures by campaign, source and medium together. Those are the three values that a tagged link carries, so this is how to see what a post's or an ad's clicks did after they landed. You can ask for one campaign alone, by its exact name.

• A link tagged today shows from tomorrow.
• A campaign shown as "(not set)", or a source shown as "(direct)", is traffic that carried no tag.

When you ask the AI client for a post or an ad with a link to your site, it is told to tag the link first, so that this report can tell the visits apart.

Search

From Search Console, for a period:

• clicks;
• impressions;
• CTR, the share of impressions that were clicked;
• the average position in the results.

You can have it by search query, page, country, device or date. You can narrow it to one page, or to the pages whose address contains some text such as /pricing, and to the queries that contain some text.

What to know:

• It covers web search results only.
• Search Console counts its days in Pacific time.
• Countries come as three-letter codes, such as sau, egy and kwt.
• Search Console keeps 16 months of figures.

How to read the figures

The answer says what is incomplete. The AI client is told to pass that on.

• The newest days are not final. Google Analytics is still counting its newest day, and sometimes the one before. Search Console's newest two or three days are preliminary. A period that ends there will read low.
• Rows may add up to less than the total. Google Analytics holds back rows with too few users, to protect their privacy, and may fold the smallest rows into a row named "(other)". Search Console leaves out rare queries for the same reason.
• A list may be cut. A report returns 100 rows unless more are asked for, up to 1,000, with the most sessions or the most clicks first. The answer says when there are more.
• Rates are fractions of 1. An engagement rate of 0.62 is 62%.
• A platform's clicks and the site's sessions never match exactly. An ad platform counts clicks; Google Analytics counts sessions. They count different things. Expect the AI client to report both as given, not to reconcile them.

Only fixed reports

The reports are the ones on this page. There is no free-form Google Analytics query, so the AI client cannot give you a figure or a split that is not listed here.

The reason is the quota. Each Google Analytics report uses up some of a daily allowance that belongs to the property and is shared with every other tool that reads it. The answer says how much is left. When it runs low, the answer says to wait. When it is used up, the request is refused with when it refills, and asking again only uses more.

What is refused, and why

What the refusal says	What to do
Website analytics is switched off on this installation	An administrator switches it on. The refusal gives the page's address.
Your Google connection was not granted the permission	Open Google connection, press Reconnect Google, and accept it when Google asks.
The property or site is not among the ones this installation allows	An administrator has limited which may be read. Ask them.
The connected Google account cannot read that property or has no such site	Connect the Google account that has access, or ask for access in Google Analytics or Search Console.
The connected Google account has not verified the site	Verify the site in Search Console. Google gives no figures for an unverified site.
An API is not enabled on the Google Cloud project	An administrator enables it in Google Cloud. See Website analytics.
Out of quota	Wait until it refills. Do not ask again before then.

The administrator can limit the installation to certain properties and sites. With no such limit, you can read every property and site your own Google login can read, and no others.

See Troubleshooting for more.