Firebase series · Part 2 of 4
Google Analytics for Firebase: Understand What Your Users Do
Analytics tells you who uses your app and what they do in it: which screens they open, where they drop out, which features they ignore. It is free and unlimited for events, and it connects to the rest of Firebase. This is the overview; Google’s guide has the setup.
- What: event-based usage analytics for mobile and web apps.
- Core terms: event, parameter, user property, conversion, audience.
- Automatic: first_open, session_start, screen_view and more.
- Delay: reports can lag 24 hours or more. Use analytics.google.com for deeper reports and DebugView for live checks.
- Connects to: Remote Config, A/B Testing, Crashlytics, BigQuery.
Contents
1. What it is
Add the Analytics SDK and your app starts reporting how it is used. The console turns that into charts: users per day, retention, funnels, and the paths people take. You do not need to build any backend.
2. Events and user properties
Everything is an event: a name, a time and up to 25 parameters that give detail. A user property describes the user (plan, language, test group). Mark important events as conversions (key events) to track goals.
3. Automatic vs custom events
Many events are collected for you, like first_open, session_start, screen_view and app_update. Recommended events such as login or purchase have standard names and parameters, which unlock built-in reports. Add custom events only for things the standard list cannot express.
4. Reports and audiences
- Dashboards: users, engagement, retention, revenue.
- Funnels and paths: where people drop out of a flow.
- Audiences: groups such as “bought in the last 7 days”, usable to target Remote Config, messaging and A/B tests.
- BigQuery export: raw events for your own SQL.
Reports are not instant. Standard reports can take 24 hours or more to fill in, so a number that looks wrong today may be right tomorrow. The Firebase console shows a quick view. For fuller and more flexible reporting, open the same data in Google Analytics (analytics.google.com), which you reach by linking the Firebase project to a GA4 property. There you get Explorations, funnels, audiences and custom reports. For same-minute checks while developing, use DebugView (next section) or the Realtime report.
5. Checking your events: DebugView
Reports can lag by hours. DebugView shows events from a debug device in near real time, so you can confirm that an event fires with the right parameters before you ship.
6. A tiny example
Firebase.analytics.logEvent(FirebaseAnalytics.Event.SELECT_ITEM) {
param(FirebaseAnalytics.Param.ITEM_ID, "sku_42")
}
Firebase.analytics.setUserProperty("plan", "premium")7. Privacy and good habits
- Do not send personal data (names, emails, phone numbers) as parameters.
- Respect consent rules for your regions and allow users to opt out.
- Plan an event list first, with consistent snake_case names, before you code.
- Remember the limits on event names, parameters and custom definitions.
Official links
Setup steps change often, so follow Google’s own guides rather than a copy here.
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