GA4 Firebase Integration: 5 Easy Steps

Today, more than 2000 companies are using Firebase as the primary platform for developing their Mobile and Web Applications. This Google-backed platform provides numerous features that allow companies to develop engaging Mobile and Web Applications, and enhance their business reach. Moreover, with its Machine Learning capabilities and reliable real-time Databases, Firebase acts as a robust platform for companies to develop sophisticated applications. 

In industries, Data Analytics is a growing necessity. Irrespective of the business objectives or the products and services a company deals with, Data Analytics finds its application everywhere. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a popular tool that companies use to track user interactions on their various platforms like Websites, Mobile Applications, etc. GA4 is a modified version of Google Analytics and is loaded with various new features that can benefit Marketers in their work. Companies are looking to set up a GA4 Firebase Integration to better analyze their application data collected in Firebase using GA4.

This article will introduce GA4 and Firebase with their key features and will provide you 5 easy steps to set up your GA4 Firebase Integration. These steps are easy to use and once you are familiar with them you can manually link your Firebase Project with a GA4 Property. Read along to learn more about these 2 tools and set up your own GA4 Firebase Integration!

Also you can check out our article on GA4 BigQuery integration.

Prerequisites

• A Firebase Account.
• A Google Analytics Account.
• Working knowledge of Firebase Projects.
• Working knowledge of GA4 Properties.
• A Firebase Project (Optional).

Steps to Set Up the GA4 Firebase Integration

To analyze the data generated by your application using Google Analytics 4 (GA4), you need to set up a GA4 Firebase Integration. For this, you must create a Firebase Project first and then link the Project to your GA4 Property. If you did not activate Google Analytics for your Firebase Project initially, but want to activate it later, you can choose to automatically create a new GA4 Property or link it to an existing GA4 Property.

When creating a Project in Firebase, you can choose the option to Integrate Google Analytics. If you already have one or more GA4 accounts, you can link your Firebase Project to one of them and set up your GA4 Firebase Integration. If you don’t already have a GA4 account, a new account called Default Firebase Account will be created for you.

This method involves creating a Firebase Project and manually linking it to a GA4 Property. The following 5 steps will set up your GA4 Firebase Integration:

• Step 1: Log into your Firebase account and select the Project that you want to use for the GA4 Firebase Integration.
• Step 2: After opening the Project, it’s time to add a GA4 Property to that Project. For that select the Project settings as shown in the below image. 

• Step 3: To further complete your GA4 Firebase Integration, in Project settings, go to Integrations and navigate to Google Analytics card and click on Enable. This is shown in the below image.

• Step 4: Choose a GA4 account or create a new account. If you choose an existing account for your GA4 Firebase Integration, you can choose to select an existing GA4 Resource in that account or create a new Resource. When you create a new account, a new GA4 Resource will be created for you, and your Project will be linked to that Resource.
• Step 5: After the linking is successful, configure the Google Analytics settings as shown in the below image to successfully set up GA4 Firebase Integration.

That’s it! Your GA4 Firebase Integration is complete.

Introduction to Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

Millions of businesses use Google Analytics reporting tools extensively to track user interactions with Web Domains, Mobile Applications, and Offline APIs. Most companies are familiar with this platform. It is a tool that can help them track received Web Traffic, track key Marketing Channels, and measure key KPIs. Now, with Google Analytics 4 (GA4), Google offers a new version that is very different from the traditional Universal Google Analytics. Google describes the goal of the new GA4 as the next-generation method of Tracking and Artificial Intelligence-supported Predictive Data Analytics. By using Google’s advanced Machine Learning, the new GA4 can fill in data on Website Traffic and User Behavior without having to rely on traffic from all parties.

The new GA4 has many important features that make it a significant improvement over the Google Analytics platform that Google offered previously. The most starking difference between the Google Analytics and the new GA4 is the User Interface (UI). Traders and companies should not expect to find many of the standard reports or even some of the functions that they previously used in Google Analytics. Furthermore, Google Analytics provided 3 levels of data organization Account, Resources, and View, but now there are only 2 levels in GA4 namely Account and Ownership. Another major difference is the new Data Modeling Function, which uses Artificial Intelligence to fill in the data gaps that may exist in traditional Data Analytics.

The GA4 can provide valuable insights related to the data that you have gathered from various applications that are developed using Firebase. For this, you need to set up the GA4 Firebase Integration and then analyze your data using GA4.

Key Features of GA4

Below are some of the key features of GA4 which make it so popular in the current market:

• GA4 aims to enable Marketers to better understand the customer’s journey across devices. Moreover, it seems to be more focused on gaining insights from the buyer’s journey from beginning to end, rather than just measuring individual indicators by Device, Page, or Market Segment.
• GA4 introduced the Data Streams feature while the earlier version used Views and Segments.
• GA4 allows Marketing Teams to Edit, Correct, and Customize the way they track events without having to edit any code. This proves very helpful once your GA4 Firebase Integration is set.
• GA4 ​relies on Machine Learning for the main form of data measurement, and its Data Modeling feature can infer existing data and make assumptions about user behavior. Furthermore, The new Artificial Intelligence-driven Insights feature is designed to automatically highlight meaningful information for Marketers.

About Firebase

Firebase is a Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS) Software Development platform that allows users to develop Web and Mobile Applications. BaaS is a Cloud Computing service model that allows Web and Mobile Application developers to connect their applications to internal Cloud Storage and APIs generated by Server Applications.

Firebase is effective for your Marketing Teams in improving the buyer’s experience. It is a robust platform that supports developers in building Mobile and Web Applications. At the core of Firebase is a set of tools that developers can trust to build applications and also extend them according to their needs. Developers who rely on this platform can access the services they need for their development, so they can focus on providing reliable applications. Since the services are hosted on the Cloud, developers can easily scale as needed.

Firebase is currently one of the leading Application Development platforms trusted by developers worldwide. Furthermore, once the GA4 Firebase Integration is complete, all applications developed on Firebase platforms can be analyzed using GA4.

Key Features of Firebase

The following features are responsible for the immense popularity of Firebase in today’s market:

• Firebase enables you to track a user’s journey across multiple devices. Furthermore, You can set up a GA4 Firebase Integration and use it to export your Mobile Application data to BigQuery for further analysis.
• With Firebase Hosting, you can easily develop a Mobile Landing Page, Website, etc. Also, it allows you to transfer data quickly anywhere.
• Firebase offers Remote Configuration, which enables developers to change applications on the fly.
• Firebase provides a Cloud-based Software Development Kit (SDK) for connecting Mobile Devices with offline users. So, the user can pick up the automatic data transfer when the connection is established again.

Conclusion

The article introduced you to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Firebase and discussed their key features. Moreover, the article provided a step-by-step explanation of the method using which you can easily set up your GA4 Firebase Integration. The method involved setting up a Firebase Project and linking it to GA4 for Data Analytics. This is a manual process and you need to perform all the required steps every time you want to set up a GA4 Firebase Integration for a Firebase Project. 

Now, Data Analytics often requires you to collect data from various sources and transfer it to a Data Warehouse. Hevo helps transfer data from Firebase and Google Analytics 4 to a destination of your choice for free.

Hevo Data provides an automated Data Pipeline that can seamlessly transfer your data and also provide you real-time access to your data. It is a faster way to move data from 150+ data sources such as SaaS applications or Databases into a Data Warehouse to be visualized in a BI tool. Hevo is fully automated and hence does not require you to code!

FAQs