If you are a general marketer and not a digital specialist, you may not have come across Google Signals before. The first you hear about it may well be this banner popping up in your Google Analytics account:
What is Google Signals?
First announced in July 2018, Google Signals is the name given to the Google product that enables cross-device reporting and remarketing. Enabling Google Signals allows you to take advantage of new and improved advertising and reporting features across different devices.
When you activate Google Signals, existing Google Analytics features are upgraded to include more information from Google users, but only for those who have turned on Ads Personalization.
- Remarketing – this extends any eligible remarketing activities to work cross-device
- Ads reporting – you’ll get more information about users
- Demographics and interest reports – more information will be collected
- Cross-device reports (in beta) – you will start to see cross-device information in your account
Does Google Signals and Ads Personalization affect GDPR?
No data for individual users is ever exposed, it only reports in aggregate, so there are no GDPR issues. The retention of data is limited to 26 months, unless you have set your data retention setting to less, in which case that is respected.
What happens when you click “Get started”?
You will see the “Activate Google Signals” screen – read more
