Use BigQuery to quickly query all of your Analytics data.
This article is about using BigQuery Export in Universal Analytics. For information about using BigQuery Export in Google Analytics 4, go to [GA4] Set up BigQuery Export.
BigQuery is a cloud data warehouse that lets you run super-fast queries of large datasets.
You can export session and hit data from a Google Analytics 360 account to BigQuery, and then use a SQL-like syntax to query all of your Analytics data.
When you export data to BigQuery, you own that data, and you can use BigQuery ACLs to manage permissions on projects and datasets.
Compare BigQuery Export in Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics
| Google Analytics 4 |
Universal Analytics |
|
Available to Standard (free) and 360 (paid)
Standard limit: 1M events per day
360 limit: Billions of events per day
|
Available to 360 (paid) |
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Cost
Free export to BigQuery Sandbox within Sandbox limits
Exported data that exceeds Sandbox limits incurs charges per contract terms
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Cost
Free export to BigQuery Sandbox within Sandbox limits
Exported data that exceeds Sandbox limits incurs charges per contract terms
|
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Setup
Can include specific data streams and exclude specific events for each property
(lets you control export volume and cost)
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Setup
Can link 1 view per property
(exports all data in that view)
|
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Streaming export
$0.05 per GB (learn more about BigQuery pricing)
Table created:
events_intraday_YYYYMMDD
Table is deleted each day:
- if you also use the daily-export option in addition to streaming
- when the daily table is complete
Does not include User campaign, User source, or User medium data for new users
|
Streaming export
$0.05 per GB (learn more about BigQuery pricing)
Table created:
ga_realtime_sessions_YYYYMMDD
BigQuery view created:
ga_realtime_sessions_view_YYYYMMDD
|
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Daily export
Table created:
events_YYYYMMDD
|
Daily export
Tables created
ga_sessions_intraday_YYYYMMDD
- Updated at least 3 times per day
- Each updated overwrites previous data
- Deleted when full import from next day is complete
ga_sessions_YYYYMMDD
|
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Fresh Daily export
Available on “Normal” and “Large” 360 properties
Learn more about processing differences between daily export and fresh daily.
|
Not applicable |
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Export, general
Backfill: no backfill
Dataset: for each linked property, 1 dataset named analytics_<property id>
If you've implemented consent mode, export includes:
- cookieless pings
- customer-provided data (user_id, custom dimensions)
|
Export, general
Backfill: upon linking, backfill of 13 months of data or 10B hits, whichever is smaller
(Backfill to BigQuery Sandbox can fail)
Dataset: for each linked view, 1 dataset named the same as the view
|
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Export schema
GA4 only exports the traffic source that first acquired the user
Does not support UA data exported to BigQuery
Each row in a BigQuery table represents an event
Event data that is unique to Google Analytics 4
While there are some Google Analytics 4 fields that are essentially the same as Universal Analytics fields (e.g., device.category and device.deviceCategory), there are more differences than similarities between GA4 event data and UA hit data
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Export schema
Session-level attribution across multiple touch points
Each row in a BigQuery table represents a session
Hit data that is unique to Universal Analytics
While there are some Universal Analytics fields that are essentially the same as Google Analytics 4 fields (e.g., device.deviceCategory and device.category), there are more differences than similarities between UA hit data and GA4 event data.
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Next step
Set up BigQuery Export.
Related resources
Visit the following guides to learn more about:
If you already have BigQuery set up, you can get acquainted with it by using our sample dataset.
