How to Link Google Ads and Google Analytics

Unlinked, Google Ads tells you what a click cost and Analytics tells you what visitors did, with no reliable way to connect the two. Linking the accounts sends cost and click data into GA4 and lets Google Ads use GA4's conversions and audiences. It's a five-minute job in Admin, but the permissions catch people out more often than the steps do.

1. Check your access first. You need Administrator on the GA4 property and Admin on the Google Ads account. If an agency runs your ads, you'll need them to either grant access or accept the link from their side.
2. In GA4, open Admin, then Product links, then Google Ads links, then Link.
3. Choose your Google Ads account. If you manage several under one manager account, link the individual accounts rather than the manager account so the reporting stays readable.
4. Leave Enable personalized advertising on if you want to build remarketing audiences in GA4 and use them in Ads. Turn it off if you only want the reporting.
5. Leave Enable auto-tagging on. This is the setting that actually makes the link work — it appends a click identifier to your ad URLs so GA4 can match a session to the click that produced it. Without it, paid visits show up as organic or direct and your ad reporting is fiction.
6. Review and submit, then check your Google Ads account under Tools, Linked accounts to confirm the link is active.
7. Wait around 24 hours, then look in GA4 under Advertising, or add the Google Ads dimensions to a report. You'll see campaign, ad group and cost data alongside sessions and conversions.
8. If you want Ads to bid on a GA4 conversion, import it separately in Google Ads under Goals, Conversions, Import. The account link makes that possible but doesn't do it for you.
9. Watch for double counting. If the same purchase is tracked once by a Google Ads conversion tag and again by an imported GA4 conversion, your reported conversions inflate and smart bidding optimizes toward the wrong number. Pick one source per action.

Are my ad clicks showing up correctly in Analytics?

Ask datanephew — it reads your ads data and your analytics together, so it can tell you whether paid sessions are being attributed to campaigns or falling into direct traffic.

Am I counting the same conversion twice?

Ask datanephew to compare what your ads account reports against what Analytics reports for the same period. A consistent gap in one direction usually means one action is being counted by two tags.