MNTN’s direct integration with Google Analytics allows you to view your MNTN campaign performance alongside your other marketing channels. The guide below outlines the optimal setup to ensure your MNTN data is properly reflected within Google Analytics.
In this article, we will cover:
GA4 Integration Best Practices
✅ Map your Google Analytics Measurement ID to MNTN
Our Google Analytics integration is powered by the Google Analytics Measurement Protocol API. To pass your campaign data to GA, you will need to provide your account’s Measurement ID to the MNTN team.
Our Pixel automatically maps your Measurement ID based on what is on your site. Still, it's always important to confirm that data is going to the correct location if you have multiple data streams within your GA4 account or need to define a specific stream to send data to.
Instructions for locating your Measurement ID can be found here: https://intercom.help/mntn/en/articles/6633933-where-can-i-find-my-ga4-measurement-id
✅ Set Channels that can receive attribution credit in Google Analytics
Google Analytics 4 has a setting that allows only Google paid channels to receive session and conversion credit in attribution. This setting will not allow channels like MNTN to get credit within the platform. Ensure Channels that can receive credit are set to Paid and organic channels.
Instructions for selecting your attribution settings can be found here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10597962
✅ Set Conversion Windows in Google Analytics
Conversion windows determine how far back in time a touchpoint is eligible for attribution credit. We recommend setting the Acquisition key events to 30 days and All other key events to 90 days. The Engaged-view key events setting does not impact MNTN data.
Instructions for setting your conversion can be found here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10597962
✅ Set your Reporting Identity in Google Analytics
If you are leveraging a 3rd Party implementation for funneling data into Google Analytics from your website (such as Segment, Elevar, or Shopify), we recommend updating your Reporting Identity to Device-based. This will ensure consistent identity resolution between your MNTN-driven events and Google Analytics events to get the most accurate representation of MNTN performance.
Instructions for setting your reporting identity can be found in this Google Analytics Support Article.
💡Note: Google Signals and Modeling data can create hashed identifiers that do not match the GA Client IDs passed from our integration, and therefore the Integration will not work as expected.
If you are experiencing low engagement metrics associated with MNTN and have activated Google Signals or Google Modeled Data methods, we recommend working directly with the Platform Experience team.
✅ Set your Visit Tracking tags in MNTN
By default, MNTN will auto-populate UTM tracking tags on your creatives in the campaign setup process. We recommend reviewing your UTMs each time you upload new creative to ensure they follow your preferred setup. This will make it easy for you to filter for your MNTN campaign performance within Google Analytics when viewing the Traffic Acquisition report.
Instructions for customizing your Visit Tracking Tags can be found here: https://intercom.help/mntn/en/articles/6633832-implementing-site-served-visit-tracking-tags
✅ Align your Conversion Events in Google Analytics and MNTN
To ensure you are able to compare MNTN performance with your Google Analytics performance appropriately, we recommend tracking the same conversion events both in Google Analytics and in the MNTN account.
GA4 Integration Troubleshooting
⏸️ GA4 Server-Side Tagging
The MNTN x GA4 Integration does not currently support server-side GA4 placements. Server-side placements leverage a hashed identifier called an "FPID Cookie," which is passed to GA4 in lieu of the "GA Client ID."
This creates a mismatch between the GA Client ID present in the Session Start event passed by MNTN and the engagement and behavior data being collected by the server-side tag placement. Without alignment of the 2 identifiers being collected, GA4 will treat these client IDs as separate users, creating an identity reconciliation issue. Since the identifiers are unable to be reconciled between the 2 systems, attribution can never be given to the session start event that MNTN is passing.
Steps to Identify
Go to your website and open up the “inspect” window. From here, you will go into the “Application” subheader at the top, and find the “Cookies” drop-down on the left-hand sidebar. Click on the line item that shows your website domain. From there, use the search bar to type in “FPID”
If you see FPID populate, you are leveraging a server-side GTM placement
Disclaimer: If there is an FPID on site, but the Domain is listed as “mountain,” this does NOT indicate a server-side placement. The domain must match your site or your GTM container name.
Data Impact
If you are leveraging a server-side placement, you may see sessions in GA4, but the engaged session count will be extremely low. This will also impact all conversion and revenue attribution, leading to low or no MNTN attributed data.
Options for Resolution
If you are leveraging a server-side implementation, we recommend flagging this directly with the Platform Experience team so they can add your account to our FPID testing sequence.
MNTN only supports Client-Side placements, so you'll need to set up an additional client-side placement or revert your set-up to client-side.
⏸️ Enhanced Conversions
The integration is not currently supported when Google Ads's "Enhanced Conversions" feature is in use. This is because Google leverages an "Enhanced User ID" as the main identifier populated in their data collection. Because MNTN passes data directly to GA4 leveraging the User ID type of "GA Client ID, this feature will create an identify reconciliation problem. This feature effectively updates the User ID type across all data collection on the Google side, but MNTN cannot access this ID since it's assigned by Google post-collection.
Steps to Identify
You can check if you are using Enhanced Conversions by following these steps:
In Google Ads, Go to Goals, then Conversions, then Settings, and expand the Enhanced Conversions for the web panel.
If enhanced conversions are turned on, you'll see a "Turn on enhanced conversions for web" checkbox.
Data Impact
Sessions and Engaged sessions may populate as expected, but you will see low or no MNTN-attributed conversions and revenue in GA4.
Options for Resolution
The solution is to turn off Enhanced Conversions in Google Ads, which will revert the User Identify to the GA Client ID.
You can turn off enhanced conversions by following the instructions at the bottom of this Google Support article.
We do not have a path forward for testing solutions with Enhanced Conversions enabled since we do not have visibility into Google Ads to reconcile this, but you can reach out to the Customer Experience team to flag that you are using this feature for potential testing in the future.