A read-only Google Analytics 4 connection is all linear TV attribution needs. No pixel, no tag, no code on your site.
Most media directors already hold the two data sets needed to measure linear TV: a Google Analytics 4 property that records every visit to the brand’s site, and airing logs that record every spot. Linear TV attribution joins the two. This guide explains how that works from a read-only GA4 connection, what comes out of it, and why it can be running the same day you share access.
What a read-only GA4 connection is
You add Quality Analytics to your GA4 property with the Viewer role, the same read-only access you would give an analyst or agency partner. Viewer access lets us read reports. It cannot change settings, edit events, or touch your website, and you can remove it at any time from the property’s access management screen in GA4.
Because GA4 is already collecting sessions and conversions on your site, there is nothing new to install. That is why no pixel is needed: TV measurement does not depend on tracking an individual viewer from screen to site. It depends on seeing when response rises after a spot airs, and GA4 is already recording that response minute by minute.
How airing logs are matched to GA4 sessions
Every linear spot has a known air time. Your airing logs, often called post-logs, list the timestamp, network or station, creative and market for each airing. GA4 reports sessions by the minute and by location. We line the two up in three steps:
- Time. Each airing is placed on a minute-by-minute timeline of site activity.
- Market. GA4 location data (city and region) is mapped to the TV markets in your schedule, so a local spot is compared with response from its own market, while national airings are read against national activity.
- Baseline. Recent history, time of day and day of week set the level of activity we would expect with no spot on air.
When several spots air close together, in time or in the same market, their contributions are shared proportionally rather than credited to whichever one aired last.
What “spot-level lift” means
Spot-level lift is the response above baseline in the minutes after a single airing. For example, if a site normally sees about 40 sessions a minute from a market at 8:14 pm and sees 95 a minute right after a spot, the gap between the two is the modeled lift for that spot.
Response does not stop after one minute, so the model follows the decay over the following window instead of counting only the immediate spike. Because lift is estimated for every airing and then rolled up, you can compare two spots on the same network, or the same creative across dayparts, on equal terms.
Which KPIs come out
You choose the KPIs to track, from the events already in your GA4 property or from your own data. Common choices:
- Sessions and new users, straight from GA4.
- Sign-ups, leads and sales, from the conversion events GA4 already records.
- Calls, from call-center or call-tracking logs added alongside GA4.
Each KPI is broken out by station, daypart and creative, as well as by creative length and market, with cost-per metrics so you can see which part of the schedule delivers response at the lowest cost. Results refresh daily, so spot-level results are available the day after air.
Why this works for linear TV and not on-demand
The method depends on knowing exactly when an ad ran. Broadcast, cable, satellite and radio airings have precise, logged air times, and so do live CTV streams that carry the same timestamps. Pure on-demand viewing, such as streaming libraries, podcasts and ad-supported apps without ad-level timestamps, plays at a different moment for every viewer, so there is no single minute to measure against. Those environments need impression-level or identity-based methods. Linear TV does not, which is what makes a pixel-free approach possible.
Same-day onboarding
Getting started takes two things:
- Viewer (read-only) access to your GA4 property.
- Airing logs with timestamps, network or station, creative and market, as CSV or Excel.
Once both are in, onboarding is same-day. There is no pixel to deploy, no developer time and no waiting for new data to accumulate. Because GA4 already holds your history, past campaigns can be analyzed from the start. If your logs arrive in mixed formats, the optional full-service package takes care of the postlog clean-up.
Important: TV attribution results are modeled, assumption-based estimates intended for comparative and directional analysis. They are not guarantees of performance and should not be interpreted as proof that any individual outcome was caused by a specific ad.
Keep reading
- What Is TV Attribution for Linear Advertising?
- TV Campaign Measurement & Attribution
- TV Attribution for Call Center Analysis
See it on your own data. Plans start at $399/mo with flat monthly pricing by media-spend tier. See pricing.