How to Add Google Analytics to iOS App

Adding Google Analytics to your iOS app is one of the best ways to understand how people actually use what you've built. Instead of guessing which features are popular or where users get stuck, you can get clear data on engagement, retention, and conversions. This guide provides a straightforward, step-by-step process for integrating Google Analytics into your Xcode project using the official Firebase SDK.

Why Track Your iOS App with Google Analytics?

Before diving into the setup, it’s worth understanding what you gain by adding analytics. This isn’t just about seeing a live user count, it’s about making smarter decisions for your app's growth.

• Understand User Behavior: See which screens get the most views, how users navigate through your app, and where they drop off. This helps you identify popular features to enhance and bottlenecks to fix.
• Track Key Conversions: Measure the actions that matter most to your business, whether it's an in-inapp purchase, a newsletter sign-up, or a trial start. Google Analytics lets you define and monitor these specific goals.
• Monitor App Health: Beyond user interactions, Firebase (which powers Google Analytics for mobile) can automatically log data on app crashes, launch times, and other performance metrics, giving you a full picture of the user experience.
• Segment Your Audience: Group users based on their behavior, demographics, or the device they use. This allows you to understand different user cohorts, such as power users versus casual browsers, and tailor the app experience accordingly.

Prerequisites: What You’ll Need

To get started, make sure you have the following ready to go. Having these in place will make the integration process smooth and quick.

• An Apple Developer Account: Necessary for building and managing iOS applications.
• Xcode: The integrated development environment (IDE) for building iOS apps. Ensure you have the latest version installed on your Mac.
• An Existing iOS Project: You should have a basic iOS app project set up in Xcode that you want to add analytics to.
• A Google Account: This is needed to access both the Firebase console and Google Analytics.

Step 1: Create a Firebase Project

Google has consolidated mobile app analytics under its Firebase platform. This means you’ll start by creating a Firebase project, which will automatically link to a Google Analytics property in the background.

1. Navigate to the Firebase console and sign in with your Google account.
2. Click on the "Add project" button.
3. Give your project a name that's easy to recognize (e.g., "My Awesome App Analytics").
4. On the next screen, you’ll be prompted to enable Google Analytics for the project. Make sure the toggle is switched on. This is the most important step for getting your app data flowing into GA.
5. Click "Continue" and either select an existing Google Analytics account or create a new one. For a new app, creating a new account is usually the cleanest approach.
6. After accepting the terms, click "Create project." Firebase will take a minute or two to provision your new project.

Step 2: Add Your iOS App to the Firebase Project

With your Firebase project ready, it’s time to register your iOS app with it. This links your specific Xcode project to the Firebase backend.

1. From your new project’s dashboard in Firebase, click on the iOS icon (the circle with the Apple logo).
2. You'll be brought to the "Add an Apple app to your project" screen. The first field is Apple bundle ID. This must be an exact match to the bundle identifier in your Xcode project.
3. The "App nickname" and "App Store ID" fields are optional. The nickname is for your own reference, and the App Store ID can be added later once your app is live.
4. Click "Register app."
5. On the next screen, you'll be prompted to download a configuration file named GoogleService-Info.plist. Download this file and save it somewhere you can easily find it. We'll use it in the next step.

You can ignore the rest of the steps on the Firebase console for now, as we’ll handle them directly in Xcode.

Step 3: Add the Firebase SDK to Your Xcode Project

This is where you'll connect your app's code to Firebase. The recommended way to do this is with Swift Package Manager (SPM), which is built directly into Xcode.

1. Add the Configuration File to Xcode

Locate the GoogleService-Info.plist file you downloaded. Drag and drop it directly into the file navigator pane in Xcode. Make sure it's at the root level of your project and not nested inside another folder.

When the "Choose options for adding these files" dialog appears, ensure that "Copy items if needed" is checked and that your app's target is selected in the "Add to targets" box. This ensures the file is included correctly when your app is built.

2. Add the Firebase Package Dependency

With the config file in place, you need to add the necessary code libraries (the SDK).

1. In Xcode, go to the menu bar and select File > Add Packages...
2. A new window will appear. In the search bar at the top-right, enter the Firebase repository URL:

https://github.com/firebase/firebase-ios-sdk

1. Xcode will fetch the repository. Once it's loaded, you can choose the packages you want to install. For basic analytics, you only need to select FirebaseAnalytics.
2. Click "Add Package." Xcode will then download and integrate the selected libraries into your project.

3. Initialize Firebase in Your App's Code

The final step is to add one line of code that initializes Firebase when your app launches.

Where you add this code depends on your project's lifecycle (UIKit or SwiftUI).

For UIKit (and older project templates):

Open your AppDelegate.swift file. First, import the Firebase Core library at the top.

import UIKit
import FirebaseCore // Add this line

@main
class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {
    func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {
        // Override point for customization after application launch.
        FirebaseApp.configure() // Add this line
        return true
    }
    // ... rest of the file
}

For SwiftUI:

In a SwiftUI app, you'll typically initialize Firebase in the type that conforms to the App protocol.

import SwiftUI
import FirebaseCore

class AppDelegate: NSObject, UIApplicationDelegate {
  func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey : Any]? = nil) -> Bool {
    FirebaseApp.configure()
    return true
  }
}

@main
struct YourAppName: App {
  // register app delegate for Firebase setup
  @UIApplicationDelegateAdaptor(AppDelegate.self) var delegate

  var body: some Scene {
    WindowGroup {
        ContentView()
    }
  }
}

And that’s it! Build and run your app (Cmd + R). If everything is set up correctly, Firebase will initialize and start collecting basic analytics data automatically.

Step 4: Verify Your Implementation with DebugView

You don't have to wait 24 hours to see if your analytics are working. Firebase provides a tool called DebugView that shows a real-time stream of events from your device.

1. In Xcode, go to Product > Scheme > Edit Scheme...
2. Select the "Run" action from the left sidebar and then go to the "Arguments" tab.
3. In the "Arguments Passed On Launch" section, click the "+" button and add the following argument:

-FIRAnalyticsDebugEnabled

1. Close the window and run your app on a physical device or simulator.
2. Open the Firebase console, navigate to your project, and click on "DebugView" in the left-hand menu.

You should see events like screen_view and first_open start to appear in the timeline within seconds. This confirms your integration is successful.

Step 5: Tracking Custom Events and User Properties

The automatic tracking is great, but the real power of analytics comes from logging events specific to your app's functionality.

Logging Custom Events

A custom event is any action you want to measure. This could be tapping a button, completing a level, or sharing content. To log an event, you just need one line of code.

First, import FirebaseAnalytics in the file where you want to track an event. Then, call the logEvent() method. For example, to track when a user shares an article:

// In your button's action method or view logic
Analytics.logEvent("share_article", parameters: [
  "article_title": "Tutorial on GA Integration",
  "share_medium": "messages"
])

You can see these events appear in DebugView in real-time, and they will be aggregated in your Google Analytics dashboard reports.

Setting User Properties

User properties are attributes you define to describe segments of your user base, like subscription level, preferred language, or a high score.

For example, when a user sets their favorite content genre, you could set a user property for it:

Analytics.setUserProperty("sci-fi", forName: "favorite_genre")

This allows you to filter reports in Google Analytics to see how "sci-fi" fans behave compared to other users.

Final Thoughts

Integrating Google Analytics into your iOS app transforms guesswork into informed decisions. By setting up a Firebase project, adding the SDK to Xcode, and logging key events, you can unlock a wealth of data about how users engage with your creation, helping you build a better, more successful app.

Once you start collecting all of this valuable app data alongside data from your other marketing and sales tools, the next hurdle is making sense of it all. This is where we designed Graphed to help. After connecting your Google Analytics account, you can skip learning the complex GA4 interface and simply ask questions in plain English, like, "Which custom events are most correlated with trial starts?" and instantly get an automatically generated dashboard that updates in real time.