The launch of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) has brought with it a long learning curve and perpetual training. With regular changes and updates, it can feel like swimming against the current to keep up! This article is just one of Dagmar Marketing’s growing library of GA4 help docs. Today’s topic: Data thresholding.
Data Thresholding Overview
Before diving into the benefits and drawbacks, let’s define what data thresholding is. Data thresholding is intended to protect user privacy. If the user or event count is below a certain number, Google will withhold that data. Google states in this help doc:
Data thresholds are applied to prevent anyone viewing a report or exploration from inferring the identity or sensitive information of individual users based on demographics, interests, or other signals present in the data.
Here is an example of what you’ll see in GA4 if your data has been thresholded:
Data Thresholding Benefits
Over the past several years, the digital world has received growing pressure to maintain and protect user privacy on the web. With influences from GDPR and CCPA, amongst others, Google has been striving towards a privacy-first approach.
Google has already installed several privacy protection measures, including:
- Phasing out third-party cookies
- Limiting visibility in their search terms report
- Continued updates to the Privacy Sandbox
- And more
Now, by utilizing data thresholding, Google can protect the identity and privacy of users in a given dataset.
Data Thresholding Drawbacks
Unfortunately, data thresholds cannot be adjusted because they are defined by the system. However, you can make the following changes in analytics that decrease the likelihood of running into a data threshold:
- Adjust the date range: If there is a small number of users or events in a specific date range, data may be withheld. The broader the date range is, the more likely it is that you will be able to see data that was previously thresholded. This is because the larger date range shows a greater number of events and triggers, making it more difficult to pin down the specific details of a particular user.
- Export to BigQuery: Analytics does not directly export from Google signals to BigQuery. Session and event data may vary between BigQuery and Analytics because Google signals automatically remove duplicate user counts from individual users.
- Turn off Google signals in reporting: You can do this by going to the Admin section, then selecting “Data collection and modification” > “Data collection page”.
Now that we know what data thresholding is, what exactly causes it? The answer — Google Signals. While disabled by default, Google Signals are intended to enhance your remarketing and reporting efforts.
What are Google Signals?
In this Google Help Doc about Google Signals, there is a chart that explains the difference between the existing analytics settings vs analytics with Google Signals enabled. Here is our simplified version:
| Current Analytics Feature | Analytics with Google Signals Enabled |
|---|---|
| Remarketing: Data is used to create remarketing audiences that can be shared with linked ad accounts. | When these Google Analytics audiences are linked to Google Ads (or other Google Marketing Platform tools) you can display ads in cross-device remarketing campaigns to users who consent to personalized ads. |
| Ad Reporting: Google Analytics collects info according to cookies and your measurement settings. | Google Analytics collects extra data on users who have agreed to Ads Personalization. |
| Demographics and Interests Reports: Extra information from DoubleClick cookie web activity and Device Advertising IDs is collected. | Google Analytics collects extra data on users who have agreed to Ads Personalization. |
| Cross Device Reports (beta): Info about user behavior during the conversion process can be gathered by linking device and action data from different sessions. | User behavior models are created using aggregated data from users who have agreed to personalized ads. This data is user-based instead of session-based and doesn’t require User-ID views. |
Long story short, enabling Google Signals will allow demographic data to be pulled into GA4 and will let you use Analytics Audiences and retargeting audiences in Ads.
What does data thresholding mean for marketers?
Google’s data thresholding is another way that we see an effort towards a more private web landscape. While data thresholding may result in a headache for analysts and marketers in the short term, it is indicative that Google is making strides to keep up with other, more privacy-centric competitors like Bing and DuckDuckGo. More and more updates like this will likely be coming from Google over the next few years to keep up with the ever-evolving privacy policies. Stay tuned!
Madison Stevens
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