Google Analytics demographics

Who doesn’t want more information about their customers and potential customers?  You can do this when you use Google Analytics.

You have the option to take advantage of additional information that Google collects that is independent from your website.  These include details such as:

• age
• gender
• purchasing habits
• lifestyle and segment categories

So what’s the catch?

The catch comes mainly in the form of a small amount of extra administrative work.

The here is a small administrative cost in the form Google’s requirement for a privacy policy of a robust privacy policy.  But that really can be a small administrative cost if you use a service like iubenda.com to write and keep up with writing a robust privacy policy for you.

It also means that you won’t try to combine any personally identifying information you have with the non personally identifying information they have in order to snoop on your customers.

See Google’s policy for the complete list of requirements.

We said the catch comes “mainly” in extra administration because, for some, they will also want to wrestle with the ethics of data collection.  What is legal and what is ethical is not always the same, and there are a variety of opinions on what type of data collection and usage is ethical.  The information that Google Analytics audience demographics provides is not individually identifying (e.g. people’s identities are safe).  But you’ll have to come to your own conclusion.