Cortex Framework: integration with Google Analytics 4

This page describes the required configurations to bring data from Google Analytics 4 (GA4) as a data source of the marketing workload of Cortex Framework Data Foundation.

GA4 is the latest version of Google Analytics. It provides a holistic view of user behavior, focusing on event-based tracking and machine learning to offer deeper insights. Cortex Framework lets you extract data from GA4 and integrate it into BigQuery for further analysis and reporting. You can gain valuable insights and drive better business outcomes.

The following diagram describes how GA4 data is available through the marketing workload of Cortex Framework Data Foundation:

GA4 data source

Figure 1. GA4 data source.

Configuration file

The config.json file configures the settings required to connect to data sources for transferring data from various workloads. This file contains the following parameters for GA4:

   "marketing": {
        "deployGA4": true,
        "GA4": {
            "datasets": {
                "cdc": [
                    {"property_id": 0, "name": ""}
                ],
                "reporting": "REPORTING_GA4"
            }
        }
    }

The following table describes the value for each marketing parameter:

Parameter Meaning Default Value Description
marketing.deployGA4 Deploy GA4 true Execute the deployment for GA4 data source.
marketing.GA4.datasets.cdc BigQuery Export datasets for GA4 [{"property_id": 0, "name": ""}] Array of Google Analytics 4 BigQuery Export datasets. Each element specifies Property ID as INT, as well as its corresponding BigQuery Export dataset name.
marketing.GA4.datasets.reporting Reporting dataset for GA4 REPORTING_GA4 Reporting dataset for GA4.

Data Model

This section describes the GA4 Data Model using the Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD).

Entity Relationship Diagram for GA4

Figure 2. GA4: Entity Relationship Diagram.

Base views

These are the blue objects in the ERD and are views on CDC tables with minimal transformations to unpack complex data structures. See scripts in src/marketing/src/GA4/src/reporting/ddls.

Reporting views

These are the green objects in the ERD and are reporting views that contain aggregate metrics. See scripts in src/marketing/src/GA4/src/reporting/ddls.

Configure integration for GA4

Cortex Framework Data Foundation integrates with GA4 by creating a Reporting layer on top of GA4's BigQuery Export datasets (treated as CDC datasets in Cortex Framework architecture). This is accomplished by creating runtime views on top of CDC tables or running Cloud Composer DAGs for materialized data in BigQuery tables, depending on the reporting settings configuration.

Set up GA4 BigQuery Export

Cortex Framework uses GA4's BigQuery Export feature to load data from the source system into BigQuery. Follow the instructions for setting up BigQuery Export or each GA4 property in this GA4 Help article: GA4 - Set up BigQuery Export.

Known issues, limitations, and other considerations

Consider the following when setting up GA4 BigQuery Export:

  • Backfilling: GA4 BigQuery Export starts from the day it is set up and there is no backfilling.
  • Difference between GA4 UI and Cortex Framework reported numbers: Multiple factors, including but not limited to sampling, data collection delay, and high-cardinality reports, may cause minor discrepancy between Google Analytics UI and Cortex Framework. This is a known and innate limitation of Google Analytics. For more information, see Bridge the gap between the Google Analytics UI and BigQuery export .
  • Event export volume restrictions: Depending on your Google Analytics edition, you may face varying degree of BigQuery export volume restriction per day. For more information, see GA4 - Set up BigQuery Export.
  • Time zone: In BigQuery Export, event_date is set in the property's reporting time zone while event_timestamp is the UTC timestamp in microseconds. As a result, if event_timestamp is used, make sure to adjust for the correct reporting time zone when comparing with UI numbers.
  • Daily versus Streaming (real-time) Event exports: For Event exports, Cortex Framework only supports the events_YYYYMMDD tables created by full daily export. For more information, see GA4 - BigQuery Export.
  • GA4 360 Service Level Agreement (SLA) for BigQuery Export: While Cortex Framework doesn't support the events_fresh_ tables created by Fresh Daily exports as separate source tables, you can follow the ##CORTEX-CUSTOMER customization comments in the Events Reporting view to replace the source tables with these, to take advantage of the SLA provided by this feature. All Reporting views will continue to work after this substitution.

Configurations

This section describes the configurations for the data process.

Cloud Composer connections

Create the following connections in Cloud Composer. See more details in the Manage Airflow connections documentation.

Connection Name Purpose
dv360_cdc_bq For Raw dataset > CDC dataset transfer.
dv360_reporting_bq For CDC dataset > Reporting dataset transfer.

Reporting settings

You can configure and control how Cortex Framework generates data for the GA4 final reporting layer using the reporting settings file src/GA4/config/reporting_settings.yaml. This file controls how reporting layer BigQuery objects (tables, views,functions or stored procedures) are generated.

For more information, see Customizing reporting settings file.

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