How to set up demographics and interests reports in Google Analytics

set up demographics tracking in Google Analytics

Demographics and interests reports in Google Analytics give you additional insight about your users, allowing you to do analysis based on age, gender and interest categories. You get a much better idea of who your users are and the setup is so quick to do, there’s no reason not to.

To get this information, you need to do minor tweaks to your Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. Those changes will allow Google to share anonymised data about your site or app visitors, and once set up, you can use this information to understand the behaviour patterns of your users by different profiles.

analyse people by their gender age and interests

You will be able to see:

  • If a particular age group converts more
  • Whether you get more visits from males or females from a particular country or city
  • If your users are more into travelling, movies or social media

set up demographics report in google analytics

You’ll also be able to:

  • Build remarketing lists
  • Build segments for more detailed information about your users
  • Target your ads to specific users

What reports will you get?

Demographics Overview: snapshot view of your users by age and gender

Age: Acquisition, Behaviour and Conversions metrics by age group (below 18 are not included)

Gender: Acquisition, Behavior and Conversions metrics by gender

Interests Overview: top 10 interests of your users in 3 areas: Affinity Categories, In-Market Segments and Other Categories

Affinity Categories (reach): view of users by their lifestyle with Acquisition, Behaviour and Conversions metrics broken down by Affinity Categories

In-Market Segments: view of users by their product-purchasing interests with Acquisition, Behaviour and Conversions metrics broken down by In-Market Segments

Other Categories: more specific view of users with Acquisition, Behaviour and Conversions metrics broken down by Other Categories

How does Google get this data?

Google collects demographics and interests data from the third-party DoubleClick cookie for web traffic and anonymous identifiers for mobile app activity, like the Android Advertising ID and the iOS Identifier for Advertisers.

But Google is unable to collect this data if the cookie or anonymous identifier isn’t present, or if there’s no profile information available. As a result, this data may only be available for a subset of your users. This will be shown on the report as a % of traffic the report represents.

When is threshold applied?

There are occasions when data is withheld from your reports to ensure the anonymity of users. For example, this might happen when you don’t have enough data for a particular age range or gender.

When the threshold has been applied, you will see a notification below the report title.

3 simple steps to set this up

1. Enable the feature in Google Analytics

Go to Admin > Property > Property Settings.

Scroll down to Advertising Features, and set the option to Enable Demographics and Interests Reports to ON.

enable demographics and interests reports in google analytics

Now save.

2. Enable the feature in Google Tag Manager

Go to edit your GA pageview tag > Configure Tag.

Under the tracking ID, tick the Enable Display Advertising Features box.

enable demographics and interests reports in google tag manager v2

Save the tag, and you’ve got one last step to do.

3. Enable the report in Google Analytics

For this go to Audience > Demographics > Overview report.

how to get demographic data in google analytics

Click Enable, and you’re all set.

You should see your demographics and interests data within 24 hours of enabling the feature.

We also provide consultancy services if you need help with more advanced setup.

 

Further reading:

 

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