Google Analytics Mobile Sunset

Do you use Google Analytics Mobile to record your mobile apps data? If so, we suggest you read on. Google will Sunset Google Analytics Mobile and recommend transitioning their analytics to Firebase.

In October 2019, Google Analytics (GA) started winding down mobile-apps reporting based on the Google Analytics Services SDKs for Android and iOS.

What does this mean for me?

If you’re currently using GA’s free offering to receive mobile app data (no web data, no Measurement Protocol data) only from those SDKs, then:

• Data collection and processing for those properties will stop on October 31, 2019. No data after that date will be available in any of those properties.
• Access to the historical data in those properties via the Analytics interface or the API will remain available until January 31, 2020.

Why do I need to know this now?

It’s important that you know this right now because if you don’t take the appropriate steps, come February 2020 you could lose all your data linked to GA servers!

Google Analytics will be transitioning their analytics to Firebase, which they bought back in 2014.

Why has Google done this?

You might be wondering why Google has decided to make this change. According to some tech blogs, it could be because Goggle Analytics for mobile relies heavily on the paradigm outlined by web data collection.

This is completely understandable as it has been difficult to accurately track mobile app usage with Google Analytics, which is quite narrow in the data it’s able to report on.

In fact, users who want to drive full mobile user experiences with GA data have found themselves limited in integration possibilities. This is why Firebase is the best move forward. It is a ‘suite of data-oriented resources designed specifically for mobile applications.’

So, what should I do?

Whilst this announcement might seem sudden, Google actually started the process back in 2018 and has been extending the timeframe so that users can start working on a reliable migration plan to move their mobile GA tracking to Firebase.

It’s important that you plan ahead on how you’d like to support your mobile app analytics in the future and so we recommend you start getting familiar with the process as soon as possible, as it is not as easy as it may sound.

Team Mobi also recommends that even if you are using Google Analytics 360, you make the move to Firebase for your mobile analytics.

If that all sounds a bit too confusing, Google has put together a step-by-step recommendation which you can find here.

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For any further questions or help, don’t hesitate to contact us. 

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