Google Analytics 4

The Google Analytics 4 live data source reads one GA4 property through the Google Analytics Data API. Each query is one report request, and Lightdash shows the results as they come back from Google. It’s a level 3 integration: its API runs reports from a fixed menu of dimensions and metrics.

Before you start

Live data sources enabled for your organization. See Live data sources.
Admin role in the Lightdash project.
A Google account that can read the property, with at least the Viewer role in Google Analytics.

Connect Google Analytics 4

On the nav bar, click Browse → Semantic Layer.
In the sidebar, select Live data sources, then click Add.
Select Google Analytics 4.
Enter a Name, such as Google Analytics.
Click Continue to Google.
Sign in with your Google account and allow read-only access to Google Analytics.
Back in Lightdash, pick the property the source reads.

Lightdash reads the property’s key events and custom metrics, and adds a Report table to Explore. Queries run with the Google account that signed in. To change it, choose Sign in again from the source’s menu.

Dimensions

Dimension	Notes
Date, Date week, Date month, Date year	In the property’s time zone
Year and month	`YYYYMM`, such as `202610`
Country, City	From the user’s IP address; rare cities can be grouped into `(other)`
Device category, Platform	`desktop`, `mobile`, `tablet`; web, Android or iOS
Session source, Session medium, Session campaign, Session default channel group	Where the session came from
First user source	Where the user first came from
Landing page, Page path	Page path is event-scoped
Event name	Such as `page_view`, `purchase` or a custom event
New or returning	`new` for a first visit, `returning` otherwise
Item name	Item-scoped; only works with item metrics

Metrics

Metric	Notes
Active users, Total users, New users	Daily values don’t add up to a weekly total
Sessions, Engaged sessions, Engagement rate, Average session duration (s)
Views, Event count, Key events	Your key events are also added as separate metrics
Total revenue, Ecommerce purchases
Item revenue, Items purchased, Items viewed	Item metrics

Custom metrics defined in the property are added too. Click Refresh fields after you add a key event or custom metric in Google Analytics. See Dimensions and metrics.

Combination rules

Google Analytics only answers some combinations of dimensions and metrics:

A query can use at most 9 dimensions and 10 metrics.
Item name only works with item metrics: Item revenue, Items purchased and Items viewed.
Date month and Year and month read the same Google Analytics dimension, so a query can only use one of them.
Page path is event-scoped. Splitting sessions or users by page counts a session once for each page it visited.

Lightdash checks these rules before calling Google and tells you which dimension or metric to remove.

Supported features

Feature	Available
Table calculations	No
Custom metrics and custom dimensions	No
Period-over-period comparisons	No
OR filters and nested filter groups	Yes
Filters on metrics	Yes
Pivots and date zoom	No

Limits

Limit	Value
Default date range	Last 28 days, when the query has no filter on Date
Most rows per query	24,999
Timeout	30 seconds
Queries at once	5 per source
Calls per minute	60 per source
Calls per hour	1,000 per source

Google Analytics also applies its own quotas per property.

Example questions

“Which channels brought the most sessions in the last 28 days?”
“Weekly active users by device category since the start of the quarter.”
“Top landing pages by engaged sessions last month.”

​Before you start

​Connect Google Analytics 4

​Dimensions

​Metrics

​Combination rules

​Supported features

​Limits

​Example questions