Integrating ActiveDEMAND with Google Services

Google Services Integration

For those packages (Call Tracking, Small Business Marketer, Corporate Marketer, Agency Marketer) that support website integration, connecting ActiveDEMAND to Google Services will unlock several dashboard widgets.

Google Analytics Universal & GA4 Integration

ActiveDEMAND integrates easily and seamlessly with Google Analytics to deliver rich insight into online campaigns and conversions.

Google Analytics is a service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about a website's traffic and traffic sources and measures conversions and sales.

We currently recommend that customers deploy to both Google Analytics Universal (the old version) and Google Analytics 4 (the newest version). The old version is getting sunset in summer 2023 but GA4 doesn't do everything that GA Universal does yet.

Step 1a: Connect your Google Analytics Universal account with ActiveDEMAND:

1. Log into your Google Analytics account here: http://www.google.ca/analytics/. If you do not have a Google Analytics account you can create one.
2. Once logged in, click Admin at the top of any Analytics page.
3. Use the menu at the top of the columns to select the account you want.
4. You should see 3 columns of attributes: Account, Property, View
5. Under Property, click on Tracking Info-Tracking Code
6. Copy the Tracking ID (UA-XXXXXX...)
7. In ActiveDEMAND, select your account settings (
8. Scroll down to Account Setup
9. Click on integrations
10. In the Edit Box, GA Account ID, paste your Google Analytics Tracking ID
11. Save Account

Step 1b: Connect your Google Analytics 4 (GA4) account with ActiveDEMAND:

1. Log into your Google Analytics account here: http://www.google.ca/analytics/. If you do not have a Google Analytics account you can create one.
2. Once logged in, click Admin at the bottom right.
3. Go to Data Streams, click the one for your website
4. Copy the Measurement ID (G-XXXXXX...) to a notepad or word doc temporarily
5. At the same time on the same page, click on "Measurement Protocol API Secrets" near the bottom under "additional settings". Create a secret API, copy that too.
6. In ActiveDEMAND, select your account settings, Integrations tab.
7. Scroll down to Google Integration
8. Paste your Measurement ID into the "Google Analytics Account ID for version 4"
9. Paste your "Measurement API Secret for Google Analytics version 4"
10. Save Account

Step 2: Authorize Google Analytics:

1. In your ActiveDEMAND Account Settings, scroll to Third Party Applications
2. Click the Add Application Button
3. Select "Google" from the drop down list
4. Enter your Google email address in the email address field. The email address must have full access to the Google Analytics account you are trying to authenticate.
5. Click the icon under the "Authenticated" heading 

   

6. Select the google account that corresponds to the Google Email address you typed in step 4 

Note: The user email you authenticate with Google should have full administration permissions in your Google analytics account.

Step 3: Remove ActiveDEMAND Query Parameters from Google Analytics:

ActiveDEMAND uses a variety of tracking parameters. You will want Google Analytics to ignore these so that your views are nice and clean.

In Google Analytics Universal:

Go to 'View Settings', then to 'Exclude URL Query Parameters' and add:

ad_sid, ad_chid, ad_rid, ad_email, ad_wid, ad_caid, ad_cid, ad_fname, ad_lname, ad_company (this is a complete list, you may not see some of these)

In GA4:

Google Tag Manager has some options to remove query parameters, but they are not nearly as straightforward. Here is an article on How To Exclude URL Query Parameters in Google Analytics that will help.

Google Ads (AdWords) Integration

Google Ads reporting is a service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about your ongoing Google paid advertising.

1. Authenticate your Google account as per the previous section of this article
2. Log into you your Google Ads account
3. Your Customer ID will be at the top corner of any Ads page, near your email address. Do not use your MCC ID, this must be the Customer Ads Account ID.

ValueTrack Parameters

As Google has now restricted what data is given publicly on ad clicks, you will need to use ValueTrack parameters to communicate your ad data to ActiveDEMAND.

Here is an article on setting up value track parameters in google Ads

How Do I use ValueTrack Parameters in ActiveDEMAND?

As there is no restriction on the labels used when setting up the parameters, you need to tell ActiveDEMAND which labels you are using for your parameters in Ads. In your account settings (Administration-Account Settings) you can specify the ValueTrack parameter labels you have used in your Ads Account.

Note: We recommend setting up Google Analytics Goals and linking them to Google Adwords. Learn More