GA4's connection with BigQuery provides a very powerful tool for markters and product owners to learn about their users/customers. In this post, I will show you how to use GA4 with BigQuery.
The first step in this process is to connect GA4 with BigQuery
How to Connect GA4 with BigQuery and Transfer GA4 Data to BigQuery
Here are the step-by-step instructions for connecting GA4 with BigQuery. This will ensure that your GA4 data starts to flow to BigQuery.
- Login to your GA4 property
- Go to the Admin panel
- Go to the "BigQuery Links" section and click on it
- Click on "Link" to link to the BigQuery Project. If you are not familiar with BigQuery projects then check out, How To Get Started With BigQuery
- Pick the BigQuery Project that you want to send the data to.
- Next, pick the tables that you want to export. See the image below
- You can select daily events export to see all the events data (the data will be available the following day), and streaming, this allows you to get real-time event data but also requires you to have a paid subscription for Google Cloud (though you might not be charged if your usage is low) and then finally you can also pick User Data. (see the details of the schema at GA4 BigQuery Schema Demystified)
- Click, next, review and you are done.
Why connect GA4 to BigQuery?
Having GA4 data to BigQuery provides you will event and user-level granular data that will allow you to conduct deeper analysis plus a powerful data set to use for marketing, campaign, and product improvements. I have highlighted various reasons in the next section.
How to use GA4 with BigQuery
Here are some key ways to use GA4 with BigQuery.
- Deeper analysis of the data collected by GA4
- Integration of other data sources with GA4 data and again use for deeper analysis
- Overcome thresholding and sampling limits placed by GA4
- Build remarketing lists of users for personalized marketing
- Build robust real-time reports as GA4 lacks in that.
Check out this eBook as well, 13 Reasons Why You Must Integrate GA4 with BigQuery
What is the difference between GA4 and BigQuery?
GA4 is a data collection and reporting solution that provides you with an in-depth view of your site/app and marketing performance. The data in GA4 is aggregate and you can't see the data for each individual user. BigQuery on the other hand is a datawarehousing solution that allows you to store and query granular data. By sending GA4 data to bigQuery, you can get an in-depth view of each individual user and their activity. In addition, you can also bring in other data sources for a 360 view of your customers.
How much does BigQuery GA4 cost?
All customers get 10 GB storage and up to 1 TB of queries free per month. After you have used your free quota, you will be charged $0.020 per GB of active storage and $5 per terabyte (TB) of data processed. Most of the small to medium businesses will be able to use BigQuery for free as they will be within free quota limits. There are other ways to reduce the data usage, reach out to use for details.