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Why does my GA4 data look different on Similarweb?

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There are several possible reasons why your GA4 data may appear differently in Similarweb compared to how it appears on your GA4 dashboard.  

  1. Multiple domains are included in your GA4 analytics.
    •  Your GA4 property includes multiple hostnames. Similarweb filters by the domain name, and we do not aggregate data from multiple domains into one. To read more about this, check out Google Support’s article on cross-domain measurement.
  2. Google Analytics gave Similarweb partial data. 
    • Similarweb aims to release new daily data within 72 hours of any given day (you can read more about this here). Sometimes, GA4 publishes partial datasets within that 72 hour window, resulting in partial data sets shown in both Similarweb and GA4. However, Google Analytics will retroactively update the data on the GA4 dashboard to reflect the full dataset, leading to the discrepancy
  3. There was a mistake made when connecting GA to Similarweb. 
    • It’s possible that the wrong account/property was mistakenly added, or that the account/property on your GA dashboard is different than the one connected. To verify if your GA4 has been properly connected to Similarweb, please follow the below instructions
  4. Google Analytics presented different data in their API vs their UI
    • Sometimes, Google aggregates data from different data sets differently. For example, different queries of the same data made through the GA UI and the GA API can be aggregated differently, leading to small differences in the data. Similarweb gets GA data through the Google Analytics API, which can sometimes have a slight difference from the UI. You can read more about this in Google’s Help Center article on Data differences.

 

GA4 verification for Similarweb

  1. Navigate to the GA4 homepage
  2. Select the GA4 property you connected to the platform 
  3. Click “Reports”
  4. Navigate to Life Cycle > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition and click “Add filter”
  5. In the “Build filter” box, ensure that all parameters are correct. There are 4 dimensions that you will need to review. 
    1. Dimension: Device Category 
      • Match Type: Exactly Matches 
      • Value: selected device

          Note: Similarweb’s mobile data includes tablets. If you want to view mobile data on GA4 the same as it’s shown in Similarweb, be sure to select both mobile and tablet

    2. Dimension: Country 
      • Match Type: exactly matches
      • Value:  select country
    3. Dimension: Stream name
      • Match Type: Exactly matches 
      • Value: Select stream

          Note: This should be the stream that was selected when connecting GA4 to the platform

    4. Dimension: Hostname
      • Match type: Matches partial regex
      • Value:  ^(\S+\.)*yourdomain\.com(\/|)$ (to compare data including subdomains) OR ^(www\.)*yourdomain\.com(\/|)$ (to compare data without subdomains) 
    5. Data will appear at the top left of the results table
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