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The Firebase Analytics dashboard shows a card for demographics, including age and gender.

According to https://support.google.com/firebase/answer/6317486?hl=en Firebase should be automatically collecting age and gender. Can anyone explain how it collects that information, and if anything else needs to be done in order to provide it?

In my dashboard, I'm seeing no age or gender data. I also haven't found any public API in the firebase-analytics SDK that would allow for setting the age or gender of the user.

If it comes from the advertiser id, does that mean we must also integrate with AdMob in order to get that data -- and if we don't use AdMob, then age and gender are impossible to gather? And does AdMob then also have to be linked with the Firebase project before it can start populating that data?

Joe
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3 Answers3

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On Android, this data is derived from the Advertising Id, which is automatically collected on devices with Google Play Services installed. On iOS, this data is derived from the Advertising Identifier (IDFA) when available (i.e. when your app links to the Ad Support Framework). AdMob is not a prerequisite for Age, Gender or Interests on either platform.

Clarifying note from comments: Firebase Analytics demographic reports is thresholded for privacy reasons. Once you have enough data -- at least 10 users per age/gender bracket -- data for that bracket will be shown.

Joe
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Steve Ganem
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  • Right, but what does "derived from the Advertising Id" actually mean? I understand that the data comes from the adid, what is not clear is how Firebase receives that gender or age designation for that particular adid in the first place. Since I can't assign an age or gender for the user via the Firebase SDK, how does that show up in Firebase? To be clear, the dashboard shows active users from my testing, but the demographics card is completely blank. The question is how does that card become **not blank**? – Joe May 24 '16 at 14:39
  • If I navigate to Settings > Google > Personal Info > Your Personal Info, I see that my birthday and gender are both set. If I also navigate into Ads Settings, I see a list of interests that have are checked, and I see my gender and an age range, with the description "To select relevant ads for you, an age range is assigned to your Google Account" (and it is accurately inclusive of my age). So shouldn't that mean that my advertiser id should already have that demographic data, thus it should appear in the Firebase dashboard? – Joe May 24 '16 at 14:43
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    Your Firebase Analytics demographic reports is thresholded for privacy reasons. Once you have enough data -- at least 10 users per age/gender bracket -- data for that bracket will be shown. – Steve Ganem May 24 '16 at 21:05
  • Thanks Steve, that is almost certainly the problem then... I'm just getting started with testing, so there's only 1-3 users each day. I'll try to get some more dogfooding and testing so we can get more data. – Joe May 25 '16 at 19:18
  • @Joe Is it necessary to enable google signals to see event demographics on firebase analytics? From here - https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9445345?hl=en – Dharmesh Dhameliya Jul 27 '21 at 10:42
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In case someone else stumbles upon this, make sure that you have the google signals enabled in the admin console. This is not part of the firebase analytics onboarding process as far as I remember, and it's off by default.

You can find how to do it here:

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9445345?hl=en

Nikos
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  • Thanks so much for this clarification, made my day! – Thomas P. Sep 24 '20 at 07:42
  • My app is already in App Store, get many user and no demographic has been shown. Then I come across this. I just activate Google Signals, so how long should wait to see demographics in analytics? – Aji Saputra Raka Siwi May 07 '21 at 20:49
  • @ThomasP. how many days do you need to wait until demographic being shown? – Aji Saputra Raka Siwi May 07 '21 at 20:50
  • @AjiSaputraRakaSiwi Did firebase shown demographics after enabling google signals? One more question which running in my mind, Is it necessary to login with google account to get demographics or will it fetch from Advertising ID from android devices automatically? – Dharmesh Dhameliya Jul 27 '21 at 05:23
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    @DharmeshDhameliya yes it shown demographic after enabling google signal, but I didn't remember how many days it should take to wait. You are asking about Android? I am using iOS and it only needs IDFA no need to sign in in any account – Aji Saputra Raka Siwi Jul 27 '21 at 09:44
  • Thank you @AjiSaputraRakaSiwi , Are you talking about firebase analytics events demographics right? Age, Gender and Interest demographics showing "No data available" . Just enable google signals yesterday, let see how much time it takes. – Dharmesh Dhameliya Jul 27 '21 at 09:53
  • Thanks again @AjiSaputraRakaSiwi. You saved our week. – Dharmesh Dhameliya Jul 27 '21 at 10:16
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Joe, if you are building iOS app and you have no access to IDFA you will not see demographics data for your users. You need to link to ad support framework. Please read the Apple developer documentation on when its okay to use ad support framework in your app.

djabi
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