Should I link Adwords to all Analytics profiles?

Question

I am setting up different Analytics profiles. The default one that shows everything, the master one that has the custom filters, and the test one where I test filters before moving them to master.

Should I link Adwords to all profiles or just the master profile? Are there advantages and disadvantages to both approaches?

I'm wondering if having it linked to all profiles will pollute or duplicate the data somehow.

The client is not actively using Adwords at the moment so I can't test this myself. But I'd like to set up the profiles correctly now so it will work when the client starts using Adwords again.

Answer 1

It shouldn't matter. You'd link GA to AdWords for two things: get a more indepth view of your paid traffic in Analytics and have some GA information (mainly conversion related info) in AdWords (if you link the two accounts in AdWords, that is). I'd say you're better off linking it always. There are plenty of segmentation/differation possible within GA regardless.

Edit: if anything, it'd make your data more valuable, instead of have multiple sets with several variants, besides just the filters.