Google Analytics

This integration works in both directions, on one connection:

• Changes made in Google Analytics land on your timeline. Somebody marks a key event, switches off scroll tracking, or changes the attribution model, and it is logged with who did it and what the old value was.
• Your notes are written into Google Analytics as annotations. Every deploy, campaign, and config change shows up on the chart where the number moved.

Both run within five minutes, and either one can be switched off.

Why the first half matters

If your events go to Google Analytics without Tag Manager, GA itself is where the tracking gets changed. Those changes are invisible in every report: the number moves, nothing explains it, and two weeks later nobody remembers touching anything. This puts them on the timeline next to your deploys and campaigns.

Why the second half matters

Google Analytics 4 brought back annotations: the little notes you pin to a date on a report so future-you remembers what happened. They are useful, but only if someone remembers to add them, and in a real team nobody goes back into GA after every deploy or campaign to type one in. CoNote fills them for you.

How this is different from the browser extension

Both put your notes next to your Google Analytics data, but they are not the same thing:

• The browser extension overlays your notes in your own browser. It is instant, needs no setup, and only you see it.
• This integration writes real annotations into the Google Analytics account. Everyone with access to the property sees them, right inside GA, with no extension installed.

Use the extension for yourself, and this integration when you want the whole team to see the context in GA.

What you need

• A Google account with the Analyst role (or higher) on the property. That is the access level Google requires to add annotations. Only team owners and admins can set it up.
• Like every integration, it uses one seat once it starts working.

Setting it up

1. Connect Google Analytics

   In Integrations, choose Google Analytics and click Connect Google Analytics. You go straight to Google to sign in.

2. Pick a property

   Back in CoNote, choose the GA4 property from the dropdown. (A property is the Google Analytics data set for one website or app.)

3. Choose what to sync

   Both directions are on to start with. Switch off either one if you only want the other, and deselect any note categories you do not want written to the chart. Then save.

What gets logged from Google Analytics

CoNote checks your property every few minutes and logs the changes that can move your numbers:

• Measurement: key events, enhanced measurement (scroll, outbound clicks, site search), data streams, event creation rules, data redaction.
• Reporting: attribution model and lookback windows, reporting identity, channel groups, Google Signals, data retention. These can change what your past data looks like, which is the hardest kind of change to explain after the fact.
• Structure: custom dimensions and metrics, calculated metrics, audiences.
• Links: Google Ads, BigQuery, Firebase, AdSense, Search Ads 360, Display & Video 360.
• Property basics: time zone and currency, because both shift how days and revenue are counted.

Each entry names what changed, from which value to which, and who changed it. Renames and other cosmetic edits are skipped, and so are the annotations CoNote writes itself.

How the annotations work

CoNote checks for new notes every few minutes and writes anything new into your property. A few things worth knowing:

• It starts from when you connect. Notes logged before that stay in CoNote and are not back-written into Google Analytics.
• Edits and deletes follow. If you change a note in CoNote, its annotation is updated in Google Analytics within a few minutes. If you delete a note, its annotation is removed.
• You choose the scope. Keep all categories selected to send everything, or narrow it to a few.
• Long notes are shortened. Google Analytics limits an annotation to 60 characters for the title and 150 for the description, so CoNote trims longer notes to fit, cutting on a word.
• Each annotation is signed. CoNote adds a short "Created by CoNote" line to the description, so it is clear where the annotation came from.
• No duplicates. Each note is written once. If the sync retries, it never adds the same note twice. Annotations CoNote writes are never logged back as changes.

The annotation limit

Google Analytics allows up to 1000 annotations per property. As you approach that limit, CoNote stops writing new ones and shows the reason in the integration's settings rather than failing quietly. Remove some annotations in Google Analytics to make room, and the sync resumes on its own.

When something goes wrong

If Google access is revoked, or the property is at its annotation limit, CoNote records the reason in the integration's settings and on its card under Connected. Fix the cause (reconnect Google, or free up annotations) and the next sync picks up where it left off. Nothing is lost.

Compare with the browser extension