I saw somebody struggling with what should be a simple task recently, so I thought I’d document how to do it. The task involved switching off a regular emailed report from Google Analytics.
Setting up emailed reports is something everyone should do. None of us dip in to Google Analytics as regularly as we should. However, I suspect many people have reports emailed to them which they no longer need, but which they decide to just delete from their inbox every day.
Switch them off! It turns out to be very easy, once you know how.
Sign in to Google Analytics, and click “Admin” bottom left. In the third column (“View”), down the bottom you’ll find a “scheduled emails” link. This lists any emails, and under “Actions” you can delete the email.
Did reading this remind you that you used to get a report which – now you think about it – seems to have stopped? That’s because they all have a limited lifespan, which you’ll need to “extend” from time to time. Again, this can be done under “Actions”, if the report is still running. If it has already automatically stopped, and disappeared, you’ll need to set it up again. Find the report under “Customisation” > “Saved Reports”, click on the report and use the “Share” button.
There’s also another issue with Google Ads at the moment. My colleague Jackie West, who looks after our Google Ads clients’ monthly reports, says in the last few months all scheduled emailed pdf reports received from Google Analytics have been delivered blank. Google is continually telling us “…our team is aware of the situation as there are multiple accounts impacted due to this technical error. We are working to take care of this error, however, given its magnitude, I am afraid we would not be able to promise a time frame…”
To overcome this we manually download the reports – a tedious but necessary job.
If you are receiving your scheduled emails with blank pdfs, your only option at the moment is do as we do, manually download (although you may need to be patient, as often manual downloads also deliver blanks, so you would need to keep trying) – and of course we would recommend letting Google know.