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Google Analytics 4 (GA4) Hierarchy

Tomas Katysovas
Analytics

This article explains the hierarchy and structure of Google Analytics 4 (GA4), including organizations, accounts, properties, and data streams. It also covers how these elements relate to Firebase projects.

Summary

There are three main levels of organization in Google Analytics:

  • Organization (optional)

  • Analytics account

  • Analytics property

Users can be assigned at the organization, account, and property levels, and permissions can be configured at each level. You can manage users at both the organization level and the account/property level.

Organization Layout

An organization is a collection of products and users. It represents a corporation and provides access to its products (including Analytics, Tag Manager, and Optimize).

An organization allows you to:

  • Access associated products such as Analytics, Tag Manager, and Optimize

  • Manage user-level permissions for each product

  • Configure cross-product integrations

An example organization setup might look like:

  • Organization

    • Analytics account

      • Analytics properties

    • Google Tag Manager account

    • Google Optimize account

Although organizations are not mandatory, they are recommended because of these advantages. Discover more about organizations in the Google Analytics documentation.

Analytics Account

The Analytics account is the entry point to Analytics and is the container for Analytics properties.

You can have up to 100 Analytics accounts. Each account can contain up to 2,000 properties.

If you have account-level permissions, you can view every property in that Analytics account. If your permissions are limited to specific properties, you will see only those properties and their associated data streams.

You control how properties are organized within accounts. You can:

  • Use a one-to-one relationship: one account with one property

  • Use a one-to-many relationship: one account with many properties

You can also choose to add a newly created account to an existing organization. Learn more about account organization in the Google Analytics help resources.

Analytics users are identified by their Google email addresses. These can be:

  • Personal Google accounts (e.g., Gmail)

  • Google Workspace accounts associated with a company

Using your Google email address and password, you can sign in to Analytics at google.com/analytics and access every account and property associated with that email address.

Analytics Properties

Analytics properties are containers (or “reservoirs”) for all the data collected from your websites and apps.

You can create up to 2,000 properties in a single Analytics account. Properties can be any combination of Universal Analytics properties and Google Analytics 4 properties.

Google Analytics 4 Properties

A Google Analytics 4 property represents a website, an app, or both.

For example, someone selling a game app on the Apple App Store or Google Play may also have a marketing website for the game. In this scenario, they can:

  • Create a property that represents the app only

  • Create a property that represents both the app and the marketing website

A property representing an app should correspond to a single logical application (for example, a single game). That same logical application can exist across different platforms, such as Android and iOS.

Google Analytics 4 properties use data streams to represent client touchpoints (such as websites and apps) that send data to the property.

360 Properties

Analytics 360 users can create two additional types of properties:

Subproperties

A subproperty derives its data from another property. Usually, but not always, the data in a subproperty is a subset of the data in its source property.

Find out more about subproperties in the Analytics 360 documentation.

Roll-Up Properties

A roll-up property aggregates data from multiple source properties. By combining data from several properties into a single roll-up property, you can gain a comprehensive view of your business across:

  • Multiple products

  • Multiple brands

  • Multiple regions

Discover more about roll-up properties and enhancing your Analytics account with properties in the Analytics 360 resources.

Data Streams (Google Analytics 4 Properties)

A data stream is the flow of data from a client touchpoint (such as a website or app) to Analytics.

Each Google Analytics 4 property can have up to 50 data streams. These can be any combination of web and app data streams. There can be a maximum of 30 app data streams per property.

If you collect data for a single logical application across multiple platforms (for example, iOS and Android), you create a separate data stream for each platform. For instance:

  • One data stream for your game app on Google Play

  • Another data stream for your game app on the Apple App Store

When you create a data stream, Analytics provides a code snippet that you add to your website or app to start collecting data. Your reports are based on the data collected after the code is added.

Analytics retains historical data even after a data stream is deleted. However, that data can no longer be further processed or used for report filters.

Find out more about adding data streams to your properties in Analytics in the GA4 help documentation.

Switching Between Accounts and Properties

You can quickly switch between Analytics accounts and properties using the account/property selection menu in the Analytics user interface.

Refer to the Google Analytics help center to learn more about switching between accounts and properties.

Analytics vs. Firebase Hierarchies

The hierarchy in Analytics and Firebase is structured differently. The following comparison shows the relationship between levels in each system:

  • Analytics

    • Account (no comparable level in Firebase)

    • Property

    • Data stream

  • Firebase

    • Project

    • App