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Discrepancy in Total Users: Differences between GA4 UI and BigQuery Export
Does anyone know why I’m receiving about 10-15% LESS total users when trying to recreate Google Analytics 4 data in BigQuery than I see in the GA4 interface? I used a count query for the total users, but the numbers just don’t match up. I’m stumped and internet searches have not been helpful. Has anyone else dealt with this?
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2 Replies
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This discrepancy might be because Google Analytics 4 and BigQuery handle calculations differently. GA4 might deduplicate users based on user_id and device_id while BigQuery’s raw data won’t do that automatically. There could also be some processed metrics in GA4 that BigQuery doesn’t have. Some sessions might not have made it due to data latency in exporting to BigQuery or other technical issues as well.
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There could be a few reasons for this discrepancy. Firstly, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) deduplicates users across devices and platforms by default using Google signals, while BigQuery simply processes raw data and does not automatically deduplicate. Secondly, GA4 applies certain thresholds to its data to prevent the identification of individual users, which may result in some user data being excluded. Essential for compliance with privacy laws, this data might be present in BigQuery. Another potential reason for the mismatch could be the processing latency. GA4 data is available in real-time, but it might take up to 24 hours for this data to be sent to BigQuery. If you’re trying to match data for the current day, the BigQuery data may be incomplete.
Consider working with your raw data in BigQuery to account for any deduplication or privacy thresholds to get a more accurate match with GA4’s interface.
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