# Google Analytics
Source: https://docs.luriart.com/connect/google-analytics
Plain text: https://docs.luriart.com/connect/google-analytics.txt

Why Luria and GA4 report different numbers, and how to see Luria's variant inside your GA reports.

Luria does not replace Google Analytics and does not try to. GA4 is your record of everything that happens on your site. Luria is the tool that changes your pages and measures whether those changes converted better. You keep both. This page explains why their numbers won't match and how to see Luria's work inside GA if you want to.

## Nothing to connect
Luria reads its own events from its own snippet (or the Shopify app). It does not read your GA data, does not write to your GA property, and does not need a connection. There is no Connect > Google Analytics button because there is nothing to connect.

## Why the numbers differ
You will open both dashboards side by side at some point and see two different session counts and two different conversion counts. Here is why, in plain terms.

**Sessions are defined differently.** GA4 starts a new session after 30 minutes of inactivity and on midnight in your reporting time zone. Luria defines a session as a continuous visit by one visitor and uses its own inactivity cutoff.  Same visitor, same day, different session tally.

**Luria only counts from its first page view.** GA has been on your site for years and records every page. Luria counts from the moment its snippet first loads on a visitor's page. A visitor who arrives on a page where the snippet isn't installed, then clicks to a page where it is, shows up in GA earlier than in Luria.

**Consent and privacy choices apply differently.** Luria honors Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track by collecting nothing, and on Shopify it follows your Customer Privacy settings. GA4 follows your consent banner's rules, which may allow analytics cookies in cases where Luria stays silent, or the reverse. Two tools, two consent behaviors, two totals.

**Ad blockers.** Some blockers stop GA and let Luria through; some do the opposite. Neither tool sees 100% of visitors.

**Conversions are attributed differently.** GA4 credits conversions to channels using its attribution model and lookback windows. Luria credits a conversion to a variant when the visitor who converted was shown that variant. Different questions, different answers. The same logic applies to your Shopify order count; see [Numbers don't match Shopify](/troubleshooting/numbers-dont-match-shopify).

**Note:**
  Both, for their own job. Use GA for "how much traffic did I get and where from." Use Luria for "did the page I'm serving convert better than my original, on the same traffic, over the same period." The second question is a comparison, so it stays valid even if Luria sees fewer total sessions than GA.

## Optional: see Luria's variant in GA4
If you'd like to slice your GA reports by which Luria variant a visitor saw, Luria can push an event into the `dataLayer` each time it serves a variant. Then you register it in GA4 as a custom dimension.

### Step 1: Turn on the dataLayer event
In the Luria dashboard, open Settings > Integrations and switch on **Push variant to dataLayer**.  Luria will then fire:

```js
window.dataLayer.push({
  event: "luria_variant",
  luria_page: "product-page",
  luria_variant: "v3"
});
```

### Step 2: Capture it in Google Tag Manager
In GTM, create two **Data Layer Variables** for `luria_page` and `luria_variant`, then a **Custom Event** trigger on `luria_variant`. Add a GA4 Event tag that fires on that trigger and sends the two variables as event parameters.

If you run GA4 without GTM, call `gtag("event", "luria_variant", { luria_page, luria_variant })` from a small script listening for the dataLayer push instead.

### Step 3: Register the custom dimensions in GA4
In GA4, go to **Admin > Custom definitions > Create custom dimension**. Create one for `luria_variant` (event scope) and one for `luria_page`. Data appears in Explorations after about 24 hours.

[Screenshot: GA4 Exploration table broken down by the luria_variant custom dimension, showing sessions and conversions per variant]

Keep in mind that GA's per-variant conversion rates will not match the lift Luria reports, for all the reasons above. Treat the GA view as a second angle, not a scoreboard.

## What Luria does not touch
* Your GA4 tag, GTM container, and Google Signals settings: untouched.
* Your GA4 conversions and audiences: unchanged. Luria doesn't send events to GA unless you switch on the dataLayer option above, and even then it sends only its variant info.
* Google Ads auto-tagging and the GA to Ads link: unchanged.

## Next steps
  - [Numbers don't match Shopify](/troubleshooting/numbers-dont-match-shopify)
  - [Lift and confidence, in plain English](/dashboard/lift-and-significance)
  - [Install via Google Tag Manager](/install/google-tag-manager)