How to Add New User to Google Analytics

Google Analytics allows you to assign specific permissions to users who are using your Google Analytics account. This lets the account owner keep a tight grip on how people can access your website's data and what they can do with it, whether it's adding events or dashboards to assist with analytics analysis. This leads to the question: how do you add a user to your Google Analytics account and who should you be providing access to? Luckily this post will walk through how to add a user to your Google Analytics account and what the different permissions allow users to do with their Google Analytics access.

How To Add Account To Google Analytics

Quick Navigation

1 How To Add Account To Google Analytics
- 1.1 Sharing Google Analytics Access
- 1.2 Giving Someone Access To Google Analytics
2 Do Users Need A Gmail Account To Access Google Analytics?
3 Google Analytics User Types and Permissions
- 3.1 Edit Permissions In Google Analytics
- 3.2 Admin Access In Google Analytics
- 3.3 Collaborate Permissions In Google Analytics
- 3.4 Read & Analyze Permissions in Google Analytics
4 Google Analytics Access Levels
- 4.1 View Level Access
- 4.2 Property Level Access
- 4.3 Account Level Access
5 Google Analytics Course and Certification
6 Frequently Asked Questions
- 6.1 How Do I Add Someone To My Google Analytics Account?
- 6.2 How do I share Google Analytics Access with others?
- 6.3 How does Google Analytics define a user?
- 6.4 OTHER RELEVANT POSTS ON GOOGLE TOOLS:

The first step in the process is to sign into your Google Analytics account and choose the site that you want to grant access. Then you'll click the Google Analytics Admin option in the bottom left-hand corner of the GA dashboard.

You'll notice that there are user management tabs under each column, which grants three different levels of access: Account, Property and View.

Sharing Google Analytics Access

1. Account access grants users the ability to add other users, websites as well as link AdWords and AdSense data. Someone with this level of access can see all the websites within your account and has the potential to either add or delete websites within your account level. This level of access is most commonly needed for consultants or agencies that are implementing broad changes in your account.

2. Property access lets users access your GA tracking code, the retargeting code and specific settings on that specific website. You can set up integrations and tracking for different sites, link GA to your Google Adwords account, or a variety of other things.

3. View access grants users the ability to view reports, add content groupings and goals. This is the most narrow level of access, mainly used for internal use. Most people with this level of access can only see the data that's available in these views. They can't set up integrations, or change much within your account.

How To Add User To Google Analytics Account

When I request access to Google Analytics accounts from my clients, I ask for Google Analytics user permissions on the account level. This allows me to have the most leeway on the account to set up new goals, dashboards, filters and other settings to deep-dive for new areas of opportunity regarding customer behavior. Being granted access on the Account level also grants Property and View-level access.

After clicking on the Google Analytics User Management under the account column, you'll be taken to a new window showing the users that currently have account permissions. Click the blue + icon in the top right corner and select Add New Users under the dropdown menu.

Giving Someone Access To Google Analytics

Here is where you'll add the user's email address. Notice there are four different permission levels:

Edit Permissions allows a user to create and edit accounts, properties, views, filters and goals. Note that they cannot delete or add new users to the account.

Collaborate Permissions lets a user create and edit shared assets such as dashboards or adding annotations.

Read & Analyze Permissions are the lowest level, only granting users the ability to view reports and Google Analytics configuration data.

Manage Permissions allows a user to add and delete users alongside changing their user permissions.

I always ask to be granted Edit, Collaborate and Read & Analyze Permissions for a client's Google Analytics account. This allows me to have as much flexibility as possible when fleshing out Google Analytics dashboards, filters and goals for their account.

After granting Google Analytics Account Access to specific permissions, click the Add Button in the top right-hand corner. Leave the Notify New Users By Email box checked; this will notify a new user when they've been granted GA access as an email sent to their inbox.

Do Users Need A Gmail Account To Access Google Analytics?

It's a common misconception that you need to have a gmail account to be granted access to Google Analytics. This isn't the case, although you need to have a Google Account. Here's how you can register your current email address with a new Google Account:

Go to Google Accounts
On the signup form, where the field is for Choose Your Username, click the link below the field that states: I prefer to use my current email address
The field will then change to allow you to enter an email address of your choosing.
After going through this signup process, any future emails that are submitted via Google Analytics, Search Console or another tool will be directed to the inbox of the email address you used to sign up for your Google Account.

Do Users Need A Gmail Account To Access Google Analytics?

Google Analytics User Types and Permissions

You may be asking yourself, in what situations should be granting the right level of GA access? It largely depends on who is requesting access, but below are a few situations that will help define what permission levels you should be granting a user.

Edit Permissions In Google Analytics

Assign/Give Permissions
Add, edit, or delete accounts, properties, and views
Provide Google Analytics permissions to add filters
Create or edit goals
Setup ecommerce
Create calculated metrics
Link your account to Google AdWords
Link to Google AdSense
Import data
Adjust property settings (session settings, user ID, referral exclusions, etc.)

Inside of the Google Analytics, a best practice is to apply filters that assist in cleaning up your data, filtering out unwanted traffic and separating your data into different views. While applying filters only requires view-level access, you need to have account-level edit access to create new filters on GA.

On another note, linking any kinds of accounts to Google Analytics requires access at the property level; examples include Google AdWords and Search Console.

Only a few people need edit access, notably advanced individuals on your team who use Google Analytics daily or an agency that you're using for digital marketing and social media campaigns.

Admin Access In Google Analytics

Within Google Analytics, there are two different types of admin access. Users can either access all data from an account, property, and view level; or they have the ability to add or delete users within these different levels.

In order to add or delete users, one must either have created the GA account, or granted permissions to other users to add or delete accounts.

Collaborate Permissions In Google Analytics

Create and share custom segments or annotations
Edit a shared segment or dashboard
Everything you can do at the Read and Analyze permission level

The people who would require this level of permissions are those who don't work as extensively with Google Analytics compared to those who need Edit Permissions but would benefit from sharing certain data with other departments.

Collaborate Permissions allow users to create custom segments or dashboards that they can share with those departments without accidentally corrupting Google Analytics data. These assets can also be edited as they're shared, so if a dashboard's data doesn't look right you can go into that dashboard and make corrections to get it functioning as intended. If you're looking for a way to spice up your reports, Google Data Studio might be worth checking out.

Read & Analyze Permissions in Google Analytics

View reports
Use table filters
Add secondary dimensions
Create custom segments
Build custom reports
Create and share dashboards
View shared reports

This permission only allows users to read data in Google Analytics, such as higher-ups who want to keep tabs on how a campaign is performing or how much traffic their website is getting. Granting this level of permissions also allows someone to create secondary dimensions or custom segments if they want to dive a little deeper into their analytics.

Google Analytics Access Levels

Like I mentioned earlier you might be wondering about the different access levels for Google Analytics permissions, ranging from Account, Property and View. Below is a breakdown of these different levels of access:

View Level Access

This is the most basic level, allowing users to access Google Analytics reports without being able to change anything within the account.

Property Level Access

This is the next step up from the View Level. You may have multiple domains or websites nested within GA that you don't want to grant a user access to; the Property Level lets users only track a single domain or website that's associated with the property.

Account Level Access

Account Level Access grants the most information for Google Analytics, allowing a user to view multiple domains or websites associated with that GA account. My recommendation would be to never provide someone account level access with a Manage Users Permission, which is the equivalent to giving someone full clemency to your GA account.

Google Analytics Course and Certification

I hope that you found this guide to be helpful in distinguishing the different types of Google Analytics user access and in what situations to give permission, access to view dashboards adding multiple Google Analytics users. If you're looking to get more knowledge on how to explore Google Analytics, I would highly recommend earning a Google Analytics certification or taking online courses to become more familiar with the functionality of GA. Be sure to check out my roadmap on successfully earning your Google Analytics certification and passing the Google Analytics Individual Qualification Exam!

Frequently Asked Questions

How Do I Add Someone To My Google Analytics Account?

First, sign into your Google Analytics.
Next, click admin and navigate to your desired property or view.
View column at the account level, and click user management.
Click + in the account users list, and add your new user.
Enter their email address, and click "submit."

First, log into your GA account. Navigate to a report that you'd like to share. Export the report (click on the button in the top right corner). Select the file type you'd like to export, and then share it with your desired contacts.

How does Google Analytics define a user?

Users are the number of new and returning people that visit your site within a given period of time. GA sets a cookie as a unique identifier to help distinguish a person as a "new user."