Can Google Analytics Track Mobile Apps?

Wondering if Google Analytics can track your mobile app performance? The short answer is yes, but it’s a bit different from the website tracking you might be used to. While the old Universal Analytics was built for web pages, the new Google Analytics 4 was designed from the ground up to track both websites and mobile apps under one roof. This article will walk you through exactly how GA4 handles app tracking, what a shift to an event-based model means for your data, and how you can get started.

Goodbye, Pageviews. Hello, Events.

The biggest change with Google Analytics 4 is the shift from a session-based model to an event-based one. This is the secret sauce that makes it flexible enough to understand user behavior on both websites and mobile apps seamlessly.

In Universal Analytics, everything revolved around pageviews and sessions. A "session" was a group of user interactions within a given time frame. This model works perfectly when you’re thinking about someone browsing a website, clicking from one page to another. But in a mobile app, the concept of a "pageview" doesn't quite fit. Users aren’t visiting pages, they're completing actions, interacting with features, and moving through screens.

GA4 solves this by treating every single user interaction as an event. A pageview on a website is an event. But so is opening your app, completing a level in a game, adding an item to a cart, or simply swiping through a carousel. This flexible model allows you to define and track the actions that matter most to your specific app.

Common App Events in GA4

Here are a few examples of how this event-based model applies to different types of apps:

E-commerce App: You can track custom events like add_to_cart, begin_checkout, and purchase to understand the entire buying journey inside your app.
Gaming App: Track events such as level_start, level_win, in_app_purchase, or character_customization to see what keeps players engaged.
Content or Media App: Use events like screen_view to see which sections are popular, video_play to track media consumption, or article_scroll to see how far down users are reading.
SaaS or Productivity App: You might track project_created, task_completed, start_free_trial, or subscription_signup to measure how users are adopting your features.

This approach gives you a much richer, more detailed picture of how users are actually interacting with your app, not just how long they have it open.

How to Set Up GA4 for Your Mobile App

Getting your mobile app connected to Google Analytics 4 involves a few key steps. Since GA4's app tracking is built on Google's Firebase platform, you'll be using both to get everything running.

Step 1: Create a Google Analytics 4 Property

First, you need a GA4 property to send your data to. If you already have one for your website, you can use the same one to unify your data. If not:

Go to your Google Analytics account and click "Admin."
In the "Property" column, click "Create Property."
Follow the prompts to set up your new GA4 property.

This property will act as the central hub for all your analytics, whether from your website, your Android app, or your iOS app.

Step 2: Set Up a Firebase Project

Firebase is Google’s platform for mobile and web application development, and its Analytics feature is the engine behind GA4's app tracking. You’ll need to set up a Firebase project and link it to your GA4 property.

Head over to the Firebase console and create a new project.
During the setup, you'll be prompted to link your project to your existing Google Analytics 4 property.
Next, you'll need to register your app (iOS, Android, or both) with your Firebase project. This involves providing your app’s package name (for Android) or bundle ID (for iOS).

Step 3: Integrate the Firebase SDK into Your App

This is the part where your developer comes in. An SDK, or Software Development Kit, is a snippet of code that needs to be added to your app. The Firebase SDK is what allows your app to communicate with Firebase and, by extension, Google Analytics.

Your developer will need to:

Download the required Firebase SDKs for iOS and/or Android.
Add the SDK to your app’s codebase.
Initialize Firebase within the app.

Once the Firebase SDK is integrated, it will automatically start collecting a set of core events and user properties without any extra work. These include events like first_open (the first time a user launches the app), app_remove, session_start, and user properties like device type, OS version, and geography.

Step 4: Implement Custom Event Tracking

While the automatically collected data is a great starting point, the real power comes from tracking custom events specific to your app. Your developer will need to add a few lines of code to log these custom events whenever a user performs that action - for example, tapping an "Add to Cart" button or completing a tutorial.

This code snippet sends an add_to_cart event to GA4 along with helpful parameters, like the product's name and price. This is what lets you go beyond simple counts and analyze real business performance.

Unifying Web and App Data for a Complete Customer View

One of the most powerful features of GA4 is its ability to create a single, unified view of a user's journey across your website and mobile app. In the past, if a user discovered your brand on your website and later made a purchase in your app, they would look like two different people in your analytics.

GA4 solves this with a feature called User-ID. If a user logs into an account on both your website and your app, you can assign them the same unique User-ID in both places. GA4 will then intelligently stitch together their activity, giving you a full picture of their cross-platform behavior. This allows you to answer critical questions like:

How many users start their journey on our blog and end up converting in the app?
Which marketing campaigns drive the most valuable users, regardless of whether they convert on web or mobile?
Do users who interact with both our app and website have a higher lifetime value?

Creating this single customer view is invaluable for making smarter decisions about your marketing budget, product development, and overall user experience.

Key App Metrics to Watch in GA4

Once you're all set up, where should you focus your attention? Here are some essential metrics and reports in GA4 for understanding your app's performance:

Active Users (DAU, WAU, MAU): Look at your Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Active Users to understand your app's "stickiness" and overall user base growth.
User Engagement & Retention: The "Retention" report shows you cohorts of users and what percentage of them return to your app on subsequent days. High retention is a strong sign of a healthy app.
Events & Conversions: Designate your most important events (like purchase or sign_up) as "Conversions." This allows you to focus your analysis on the actions that drive business results.
User Acquisition: See which sources and campaigns are driving the most new app installs (first_open event) to measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
Tech Details: Get a breakdown of your users by device, OS version, and geography to ensure your app is optimized for your audience and to spot any technical issues that may be affecting a specific group.

Final Thoughts

So, yes, Google Analytics absolutely can track your mobile apps - and GA4 makes it more powerful than ever. By adopting an event-based model, GA4 gives you the flexibility to measure what truly matters in your app and unify that data with your website analytics for a complete 360-degree view of your customer journey.

Setting up tracking is the first step, but digging through all that data in GA4's reporting interface can still be time-consuming. We built Graphed to eliminate that friction. Once your data is flowing into Google Analytics, you can connect your account to our platform and start asking questions in plain English, like "Show me a comparison of new users from iOS vs Android this month" or "create a graph of our top 10 most frequent custom events." Instead of wrestling with complex reports, Graphed lets you have a conversation with your data, turning hours of analysis into a few seconds.