"Consider a portfolio brand where marketing campaigns drive traffic to both Brand A and Brand B. A customer might arrive on Brand A from a paid ad, then move to Brand B - or even switch to a regional domain like example.co.uk to see pricing in their local currency - before completing the purchase. Without cross-domain tracking, GA4 treats these as separate sessions, misattributing the conversion."
"In GA4, cross-domain tracking is handled by linking Measurement IDs and setting rules for which domains share the same client ID. This prevents new sessions being created when a user moves between domains. In practice, this involves: Client ID forwarding: GA4 appends identifiers to links between domains. Auto-link domains: GA4 recognizes related domains and continues the session. Referral exclusions: Ensures traffic between your own sites is not classified as referral traffic."
Cross-domain tracking in GA4 unifies user behavior across multiple domains, devices, and platforms so marketers can view complete customer journeys. Without cross-domain tracking, GA4 splits users and sessions when visitors move between related domains, causing misattributed conversions and fragmented funnels. GA4 preserves sessions by linking Measurement IDs and applying rules to share client IDs across domains. Practical mechanisms include client ID forwarding, automatic link recognition for related domains, and referral exclusions to prevent internal traffic from being counted as referrals. Proper cross-domain configuration is essential for multi-brand portfolios, international sites, and shared checkout domains to ensure accurate attribution and actionable analytics.
Read at MarTech
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