Attribution, Acquisition and channel groupings in GA4

As with our other articles looking at the difference between Universal Analytics and GA4, there are similarities but there are differences. And it’s not always what you think when you first learn about what’s new.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

Thankfully one of the key pillars of Google Analytics for almost two decades is going nowhere. The campaign tagging / utm tagging approach – which stands for Urchin Tracking Module don’t you know? – still lives on and is the way Google determines where a user has come from. That is, utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign are still the parameters that you need to populate for all non-auto-tagged campaign activity. There’s a bunch more parameters you can choose to utilise if you wish but 99% of the time you’ll find yourself using those. 



What’s also not changed is how this reported in the GA4 interface, primarily through the dimension Channels, and using the default channel grouping. These are a set of default buckets with associated rules which define where a campaign or source/medium should sit. For example, all PPC activity goes into Paid Search, unless it’s Paid Video or Paid Shopping which are separate channel groupings. Likewise Organic Search, Organic Social and so on – there are 18.

Attribution is still available

Another thing that hasn’t changed in GA4 is the availability of attribution reports. Except confusingly they are now located in a separate navigation item, also confusingly called “Advertising”. Here’s where you get a snapshot of return on ad spend (where relevant) and are able to dig deeper into different attribution models and conversion paths.



Data-driven attribution model for all

One of the big shifts in GA4 is the availability of the data-driven attribution (DDA) model in all accounts. Previously this algorithmic option was only available to paid for, or GA360, accounts. Now, there’s a lot of conversation in the industry about the validity of Google and other cookie-based attribution models. What is certain is that yes, it’s true they don’t capture everything but yes, it’s also true that anything remotely data-driven is better than last-click, or last non-direct click, which was what GA has used for all of time.

This is where it gets interesting. GA4 has been much heralded because it proclaims that the DDA model is the default reporting model.

Which it is.

Just not where you expect it.

This default attribution model only applies in the Advertising section.

The attribution model using the whole of the Reporting section, including the Acquisition reports, uses last non-direct click.

Yes, I’ll continue using this format and say it again. The data-driven attribution model is not used anywhere except the Advertising section of GA4.



Same same, but different

All told, the Acquisition reports in GA4 are not tremendously different to what’s available in GA4. You track channels and campaigns in the same way; you’ll have the ability to define channels in the same way and you’ll be able to look at attribution in the same way too.



But crucially, there are differences in the initial headlines around where DDA model is used and it’s important to know – so you know the right places to look when fishing for insights!