How to Activate GA4's 'Non-Google Cost' Report

Author

Himanshu Sharma
November 20, 2024

Google has made improvements to GA4 cost data import which allows you to activate the new ‘Non-Google Cost’ report👇

"We've made it easier to understand your imported ads cost data in Google Analytics. You can now get insights into your imported cost data even if there was no matching record for the required dimensions. In an effort to reduce friction and increase the usefulness of your imported cost data, we have changed how Google Analytics handles unmatched imported cost data. Google Analytics will now report your cost, impressions and/or clicks on any combination of the imported required dimensions. " - Google.

Once you have successfully imported the non-Google cost data to your GA4 property (via the ‘Data Import’ > ‘Cost Data’ feature), a new report called 'Non-Google Cost' becomes available under Acquisition.

This report shows the imported cost for non-Google ad campaigns.

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Note: When preparing cost data for import, make sure to format dates in Excel according to the ISO 8601 standard. Otherwise, your import will fail.

The correct format for the date field when importing cost data into GA4 is YYYY-MM-DD.

YYYY: Four-digit year

MM: Two-digit month (01-12)

DD: Two-digit day (01-31)

For example, October 28, 2024, would be formatted as 2024-10-28.

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You can use the following excel formula: =TEXT(A1,"yyyy-mm-dd")