Connect Google AdWords to Analytics – PROPERLY

Posted on August 14, 2010 by Jexley

I’ve gotten so much traffic from that last blog post, where I rant and offer up little of value, that I thought I’d actually document the proper way of Connecting your Google AdWords account to your Google Analytics account.

And the various and inevitable pitfalls along the way.

Firstest and Easiest

If they’re on the same Google Account then:

1. Log in to Google AdWords
2. Click on the Reporting tab > Google Analytics
3. At this point Googs will ask if you want a new account or to connect to an existing account.
4. If you want to keep the data separate (and I don’t know why you would) you can set up a new account.  Otherwise, you can choose to connect to the existing account that (if you’re lucky) you’ve already set up.

Secondest and a bit Harder

You’ve got a My Client Centre account or are setting up a Google AdWords account separate from the original Google Analytics account, then you’ll follow the above until Step 4, in which you’ll find that you either don’t see the Analytics account profile in the dropdown or this message:

Although this AdWords account is linked to an Analytics account, your AdWords login email address is not listed as a user on that Analytics account. Please contact the administrator of the Analytics account and request that they add you as a user to this Analytics account.

Which is the one I freaking HATE, and prompted my last blog rant.

Your options now consist of:

Simply logging into the existing Google Analytics account, as an admin, and giving at least "View" access to the email address showing for the AdWords account…

OR trying to ferret out the account that actually DOES own the connection between this AdWords account and an existing Analytics account and then going back to the previous step.

Which is where I’m at.  And is frustrating.  And makes me want to kick things.  A lot.

Thirdest and probably not even really that difficult but really shouldn’t have to be this way goddamit Google

1. Back away slowly.
2. Take the AdWords account and data dump it. A backup method if you will.  Save it down for later uploading.
3. Find a different email address that you haven’t really used before.
4. Sign up to Google.
5. Set up AdWords.
6. Set up Analytics through AdWords.
7. Install a whole other set of tracking code on your website.
8. Import your old AdWords account data.
9. Curse an organisation composed almost entirely of Engineers.

Boogers

So there you go.  No real satisfactory solutions if you’re confronted with certain things, and I patently refuse to accept forum posts and blog entries that suggest that I "ask Google for help" because if I ever get an actual human at Google returning my emails and directly answering the questions I’ve asked, then I’ll eat this laptop.

Cheers, and Have a Good Website.

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