Contemplating the Difference Between Google Analytics Accounts and Properties

When using Google Analytics, I sometimes pause at the difference between "Accounts" and "Properties." They both seem similar, but how should they be used differently?

So, I decided to investigate the fundamental differences between these two and why Google Analytics has this hierarchical structure.

The relationship between them is quite simple.

• Account: The business or organization itself. It's best to think of it as the largest box.
• Property: The website or app you want to analyze. It's an individual box inside the larger "Account" box.

For example, it's easy to understand if you imagine a company (Account) that operates three sites (Properties): a "corporate site," a "product introduction site," and a "recruitment blog."

This hierarchical structure has two clear advantages.

1. Ease of Management When a single organization has multiple services, being able to manage them all under one account is a big plus. Without this system, settings would have to be managed separately for each site and app, which would be incredibly cumbersome.

The larger framework of an account allows for the efficient management of an entire organization's digital assets.

2. Flexible Permission Management Thanks to this hierarchy, you can finely control who sees what data.

• Account-level permissions: Given to people who need a complete overview, like the head of marketing for the organization.
• Property-level permissions: It's possible to operate in a way that the person in charge of the recruitment blog is only given access to the recruitment blog's data, and not other data.

This is how you can create an environment where stakeholders can safely access only the data they need.

The hierarchy of accounts and properties in Google Analytics. At first glance, it seems complex, but in reality, it is a very rational structure designed for efficient and secure data management.

• Account: The vessel for the organization
• Property: The service to be analyzed

As long as you grasp this basic concept, you won't get lost during the initial setup of Google Analytics, and the path to data utilization will open up smoothly.