What is happening?
The Attribution Model or Budget Optimiser cannot attribute performance to your paid marketing because almost 100% of the recorded sessions in GA4 are appearing as "Non-paid" (e.g., Organic Search, Direct, or Referral). Without data linking sessions to your paid spend, Alvie cannot calculate the effectiveness of your ad accounts.
Error: We have insufficient GA4 data for the spend channels. Non-paid channels account for close to 100% of all recorded sessions. Please have a look your custom grouping to see if everthing looks as expected.
Why did this happen?
This error usually indicates a "tracking gap" between your ad platforms and GA4. Common causes include:
Missing UTM Parameters: Your ads are running, but the destination URLs do not have UTM tags (like
utm_medium=cpc), causing GA4 to categorize the traffic as "Direct" or "Unassigned."Auto-tagging Disabled: Google Ads "Auto-tagging" (GCLID) is turned off, or your website is stripping these parameters upon landing.
Incorrect Channel Grouping: Your paid traffic is reaching GA4, but your Custom Channel Grouping rules in Alvie are too narrow, causing paid traffic to fall into a non-paid category.
Aggressive Filtering: An attribution filter in Alvie is accidentally excluding your paid traffic (e.g., filtering for a specific country where your ads aren't running).
Follow these steps to resolve the issue:
Navigate to External Platform: Log in to Google Analytics 4 and go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition.
Locate the Source: Check the "Session default channel group" report. Do you see "Paid Search," "Paid Social," or "Cross-network"?
If you only see "Direct" and "Organic," your tracking tags (UTMs) are missing or broken.
Action: * Audit Your Grouping: In Alvie, go to Setup > Custom Groupings. Ensure your rules correctly identify paid traffic (e.g., a rule that looks for
mediumcontainingcpc,ppc, orpaid).Check Attribution Filters: Ensure you haven't applied a filter in your Attribution Model settings that is removing your paid sessions.
External Steps (If applicable): Ensure Auto-tagging is enabled in Google Ads and that your Meta/TikTok ads include standard UTM parameters.
Verify: Once tracking is corrected or grouping rules are updated, click Run now in Alvie. It may take 24–48 hours for new, correctly tagged data to populate GA4 and clear the error.
Prevention & Tips To avoid seeing this error again:
UTM Standardization: Use a consistent naming convention for all ads (e.g., always use
utm_medium=paid_socialfor Meta).Test Landing Pages: Use the GA4 Realtime Report to click on your own live ads and verify that the
sourceandmediumare appearing correctly.Still need help? If you can see paid traffic in GA4 but Alvie still reports this error, please reach out to the Alvie support team.
If you encounter any further issues or need additional assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out to the Alvie support team.