What Is Cross-Network in Google Analytics 4?

Cross-network in Google Analytics 4 refers to the ability to track and analyse user interactions across multiple platforms and networks, such as websites, mobile apps and other digital touchpoints. The feature consolidates data from various sources into one property, allowing you to gain a unified view of your customer journey.

With Cross-network in GA4, you can track user behaviour across different devices and platforms, providing a more comprehensive grasp of how your audience interacts with your business across networks. This helps to optimise your marketing strategy and improve customer engagement.

At Prosperity Media, our SEO team can help you understand your analytics and provide you with data-driven recommendations to improve your SEO. 

What’s Included in Cross-Network?

Tthe Google Display Network (GDN) refers to a network of websites, apps, and videos where businesses can place ads, including banner ads, text ads, and rich media ads. 

The GDN allows businesses to reach potential customers across a vast network of platforms beyond Google search, such as YouTube, Gmail, and thousands of partner websites.

When it comes to cross-network tracking, the GDN plays a significant role by serving ads that users interact with before completing a conversion, often on other networks or devices. 

Cross-network channels refer to the various marketing platforms and touchpoints where users interact with your business before completing a conversion, spanning multiple networks. 

This can include Google’s platforms (such as Google Search, YouTube, and Google Display Network) and other external networks, such as social media platforms, third-party websites, and email marketing.

For example, a user might first see your product through a YouTube video ad (one network), later interact with a Google Display ad on a third-party site (another network), and finally search for your brand directly on Google Search (yet another network), leading to a conversion. 

Cross-network tracking in Google Analytics 4 enables you to track the entire customer journey across these different channels, helping you understand how each network contributes to the final conversion.

This provides a more complete and accurate picture of the user experience, enabling businesses to optimise their marketing strategies and better attribute conversions to the appropriate networks.

Default channel groups are predefined categories that group traffic sources into specific channels based on how users interact with your business. 

These groups help you understand which channels are driving traffic and conversions, making it easier to analyse the effectiveness of your marketing efforts across different networks.

The default channel groups in GA4 typically include:

1. Organic Search: Traffic from unpaid search engine results (e.g., Google Search).
2. Paid Search: Traffic from paid search ads, such as Google Ads traffic.
3. Direct: Traffic from users who directly enter your website URL or have it bookmarked.
4. Referral: Traffic from other websites linking to your site.
5. Social: Traffic from social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Twitter).
6. Email: Traffic from email campaigns or newsletters.
7. Display: Traffic from banner ads or display ads on Google’s Display Network or third-party sites.
8. Affiliate: Traffic from affiliate marketing links.
9. Other: Custom channels or traffic from non-standard sources.

Default channel grouping helps you categorise and analyse the impact of different networks on your traffic and conversions. 

For example, when using cross-network tracking, GA4 can attribute user interactions across various advertising platforms, such as a user seeing a display ad, clicking on a paid search ad, and then completing a conversion on your website. 

Demand Gen

Demand Generation in Cross-Network focuses on tracking and optimising campaigns aimed at creating awareness and driving interest in your products or services. It lets you measure how effectively your marketing efforts are reaching and engaging potential customers across various digital platforms.

Performance Max

Performance Max campaigns use automation and also machine learning to optimise the full inventory of Google ad placements. 

With Cross-Network, you can track the campaigns’ performance across channels, such as Search, Display and YouTube, to get a more holistic view of their impact on your business.

Smart Shopping

Smart Shopping campaigns use AI to automatically show users the most relevant products across Google’s platforms. 

In Cross-Network, this allows you to monitor and measure the success of your product ads across both search and display networks to ensure maximum product visibility.

Can I Track Cross-Network Conversions?

Yes, Google Analytics (GA4) enables cross-network conversion tracking so you can track and measure conversions occurring from interactions across multiple networks as part of your larger digital marketing strategies. 

This gives you a better view of the customer journey even when users engage with your brand on different platforms before completing a conversion.

Setting Up Conversion Goals in GA4

To track cross-network conversions in GA4, you need to set up conversion goals. These are specific actions you want to track, like form submissions, purchases, or newsletter signups. 

Once set, GA4 captures conversions regardless of the network where the interaction took place, whether it’s from a YouTube video ad, a Google Display ad or social media. This lets you see how different networks contribute to the final conversion and optimise your campaigns accordingly.

Example of Cross-Network Conversion

Imagine a user’s journey from first exposure to conversion.

• They watch a video ad for your product on YouTube.
• Later, they come across a Google Display ad while browsing another website and click on it.
• Finally, they perform a Google Search for your brand and complete a purchase on your website.

In this case, cross-network conversion tracking attributes the final conversion, the purchase, to the combination of YouTube, Display and Search interactions. 

This ensures a clear view of the entire customer journey and allows you to optimise your marketing efforts across all touchpoints.

What Are the Limitations of Cross-Network Tracking?

While cross-network tracking in Google Analytics 4 offers valuable insights, there are limitations to be aware of.

Data Sampling

In large datasets, Google Analytics 4 may apply data sampling to speed up processing. 

This means reported data may not always be fully accurate since it’s based on a subset of data instead of the complete data set, potentially affecting the precision of your analysis.

Privacy Regulations Affect Tracking

Privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA can impact how data tracking is collected and used. These laws limit the ability to track users without their consent, which may reduce the accuracy of cross-network tracking in regions where regulations are enforced.

The Tracking Journey Breaks

While Google Signals improves cross-device tracking, it’s not flawless. If a user isn’t logged into Google on all devices or uses different accounts across devices, Google Analytics may fail to link all interactions, affecting the accuracy of multi-device tracking and the overall customer journey.

What Are Some Possible Solutions?

Several solutions can improve accuracy and help you collect more reliable data to address the limitations of cross-network tracking in Google Analytics 4.

Export Data to Google BigQuery

By exporting your data to Google BigQuery, you can bypass data sampling limitations and access raw, unsampled data. This gives you a more precise understanding of user behaviour across networks and devices, especially in high-traffic scenarios.

IP Anonymization

Enable IP anonymisation in Google Analytics to comply with privacy regulations, particularly in regions with strict data protection laws. Anonymising IP addresses minimises privacy concerns while still allowing you to collect valuable analytics data without compromising user privacy.

Set Up User-ID Tracking

If you operate a login-based platform, like an e-commerce site, set up user-ID tracking. This lets you assign a unique ID to each logged-in user, enabling Google Analytics to track their actions across devices for a more accurate representation of the journey.

Example: For an e-commerce site, when a user logs in on multiple devices, Google Analytics can link those actions to a single user ID for a clearer, unified view of their interactions.

Integrate Analytics with Your CRM

Integrating Google Analytics with your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can provide additional insights, especially when data from Google Ads or YouTube ads isn’t incomplete. By linking conversion data from your CRM, you can better track the full customer journey, even across disconnected touchpoints.

Example: If YouTube ad data is partial, use CRM insights to track conversions from YouTube viewers and gain a fuller picture of how they engage with your brand after seeing the ad.

Use Audience Overlap Reports

Audience Overlap Reports in Google Analytics let you analyse the interaction between different audiences across networks to help identify which segments of your audience are interacting with your brand across platforms, improving targeting and reporting accuracy.

Use More UTM Parameters

Using UTM parameters, you can manually track traffic and conversions across various networks. Adding these parameters to your links, especially on non-Google platforms like social media or third-party ads, helps you track how each network contributes to conversions and provides more granular insights into your marketing efforts.

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