If you want to know how to give someone else access to Google Analytics, this tutorial will tell you everything you need to know—and how to implement it step by step, and with screenshots.
Access Levels and User Roles in Google Analytics
You can grant other people two levels of access to Google Analytics. The first is access to the GA account, which gives them access to all of the GA properties in it. The second is access to a specific GA property, in which case they will only see data for that property.
In addition, you can choose between four roles when granting others access to a GA account or property: Administrator, Editor, Analyst, and Viewer. Administrators can manage users, Editors can manage settings, Analysts can manage assets, and Viewers can see settings and data (but cannot change them).
So, before you give others access to Google Analytics, you should ask yourself these two questions:
- Does that person need access on a GA account or GA property level?
- Regardless, does that person need an Administrator, Editor, Analyst, or Viewer role?
As a rule of thumb, always grant the lowest level of access and the lowest role required, and then expand the permissions if the person needs to be able to do more in Google Analytics.
Don’t grant Administrator or Editor roles to others unless (a) they know what they’re doing and (b) they actually need them.
How to Grant Access to Google Analytics
Step 1: Fire up your favorite web browser, open a new tab, and go to analytics.google.com.
Step 2: Sign in to the Google account with an Administrator role for the account or property that you want to grant access to.
Step 3: Go to the property in question and click on the gear icon in the lower-left corner of the screen.
Step 4: To grant access to the GA account, click on “Account Access Management.” To grant access to the GA property, click on “Property Access Management.”
Step 5: Click on the blue “+” icon in the upper-right corner of the screen, then select “Add users.”
Step 6: Type in the person’s Google email address and select their role. (To access and use Google Analytics, they need to have a Google account.)
Step 7: Click on the blue “Add” button in the upper-right corner of the screen.
You’re all set!
The person you just invited will receive an invitation via email. Instruct them to watch for an email from Google and click on the confirmation link.
Who Can You Give Access to Google Analytics?
You can grant anyone access to your Google Analytics account or property, as long as they have a Google account associated with the email address that you’re sending the invitation to.
If you try to send an invitation to an email address that isn’t associated with a Google account, Google Analytics will show an error that says, “This email address doesn’t match a Google Account.”
Here’s what that error looks like:
If you see this error, ask this person to give you the email address of their Google account. (And if they don’t happen to have one, ask them to create one by visiting accounts.google.com/signup.)
In such a case, they can create a Google account with an existing email address (say, person@company.com), or with a Gmail (person@gmail.com) email address.
