Practical notes on Google Analytics 4, BigQuery, Search Console and ad reporting — what we learned building Glancely, with the numbers.
For marketers, business owners and agencies who use Google's tools every day: why two reports disagree, what a setting quietly changes, and how to read the figures without a data team.
Google Ads
Divide all of your revenue by your ad spend and the ads take credit for every organic, direct and email sale. Here is how to work out the return on the channels you actually pay for, and why it can be five times lower.
9 October 2026 · 5 min read
Google Ads
Put Google Ads spend beside GA4 revenue by campaign and half the rows often come back empty, because the join is on a name and the names don't agree. Here is where GA4's campaign name comes from, and how to match them without hiding your best campaign.
6 October 2026 · 5 min read
Google Ads
GA4 files Performance Max visits under a channel called Cross-network, not Paid Search or Paid Shopping. Put its spend anywhere else and every channel's return is wrong; here is where it belongs and how to read it.
6 October 2026 · 5 min read
Reporting
Average a week of daily click-through rates and you get a number for the week that is almost always wrong. Rates can't be averaged; they have to be worked out again from the totals. Here is why, and how.
5 October 2026 · 3 min read
Reporting
Compare the last 30 days with the 30 before and a business that has not changed can show a 5% drop, then a 5% rise two days later. The calendar moved, not the business. Here is why, and which windows compare fairly.
5 October 2026 · 4 min read
BigQuery
Linking GA4 to BigQuery gives you every event, one row each. For most small and medium sites it costs very little, often nothing, if you know the two things you pay for and avoid one habit.
4 October 2026 · 4 min read
Google Analytics 4
Check yesterday in GA4 in the morning and again in the afternoon, and the figures have moved. GA4 is still counting. Here is how long that takes, the false decline it causes, and how to compare fairly.
4 October 2026 · 4 min read
Google Ads
Google Ads says your campaigns brought 40 conversions; GA4 says 31. Usually neither is broken: they count on different days and credit by different rules. Here is why they differ, and which number to use for what.
4 October 2026 · 4 min read
Google Analytics 4
Add up a month of daily users and you get more people than GA4 shows for the month. Users are counted once per period, so they cannot be summed. Here is why, and how to get the right number.
4 October 2026 · 4 min read
Google Analytics 4
Every new GA4 property keeps user and event data for two months. The setting is not backdated, so each day you leave it is history you will not get back. Here is what it affects and how to change it.
4 October 2026 · 3 min read
Want your own GA4 read like this? See the Google Analytics dashboard that says what changed and why.
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