Beginner's guide to Firebase Analytics

Beginner's guide to Firebase Analytics

Firebase Analytics is a great tool to better understand your customer behavior and app performance. In this article the beginner's guide to collecting and analyzing usage and behavior data of your app with Firebase Analytics. 

Notice about data

Before we begin, please note that the data gathered in Firebase is not all-inclusive. Due to technical limitations of Firebase event installations and the new app settings to opt out of tracking, the data is only a subset of the actual data. 

Our advice is to use Firebase for user behavior analytics and push notification analytics. And use your eCommerce backend and JMango360 dashboard for revenue and order data.

Dashboard

The Analytics section of Firebase provides a Dashboard which shows a summative graph of key metrics for your app. In here you can get the basic information and data of your users such as active users, users active in last 30 minutes, top conversion events, total revenue, app-version adoption, etc.

In the Dashboard you can:
  1. Set filter to limit the reports to a subset of data. For example, if you have both an iOS and Android version, the Dashboard will show the data for both of them. To view separate data for each version, just add a filter by platform.
  2. By default, the Dashboard shows the last 28 days of data. You can change this date range by using the date picker control.


Events & Conversions

Lying at the heart of Firebase Analytics, events are what happen in your app, such as user actions or system events. While many events are captured automatically as long as you use the Firebase SDK, up to 500 custom event types can be logged to provide more insight on what is happening in your app.

We have logged 23 custom events for you to to track important user activities on your app. For example, you can use an  add_to_cart event to track the number of times your users add products to their shopping cart, of course, during an active date range. 




Conversions are your most important events that contribute to the success of your business. When you label an event as a conversion event, it will be uploaded immediately by the SDK to make it actionable more quickly. Things like making a purchase, signing up for an account, sharing a product, and so on are all good events that should be labeled as conversions.

23 custom events have been logged to help you understand what your users are doing in your React Native Apps! Required version:
  1. Magento React Native 3.9.6
  2. BigCommerce React Native 3.8.3
  3. Lightspeed React Native 3.2.3

No
Event name
Manually triggered...
1
add_payment_info
when a user clicks on the Next button after choosing a payment method
2
add_shipping_info
when a user clicks on the Next button after choosing a shipping method
3
add_to_cart
when a user adds an item to the shopping cart
4
add_to_wishlist
when a user adds an item to wishlist
5
begin_checkout
when a user clicks on the Checkout button in their shopping cart
6
generate_lead
when a user submits a customer enquiry successfully
7
login
when a user logs in successfully
8
press_module_from_tab_more
when a user clicks on the More button in the bottom bar
9
press_sub_category
when a user clicks on a sub-category in a product category page
10
purchase
when the purchase is confirmed and the thankyou page is displayed
11
remove_from_cart
when a user removes an item from the shopping cart
12
remove_from_wishlist
when a user removes an item from wishlist
13
search
when a user performs a search by  Search Screen, Product Scanner B2C, or Product Scanner B2B
14
select_content
when a user selects one of the following content:
- LinkToPage: Link To Webpage on the side menu
-  CatalogFromMenu: Product Catalog, Info Page, Locations, Customer Enquiry, Look Book on the side menu
-  CatalogFromHomeScreen: Slide or Button linked to Product Catalog on the home screen
- not set: Product Scanner, Click-to-action (link to call/SMS/email)
15
select_item
when a user clicks on a product to view product details
16
select_promotion
when a user applies a valid coupon code in the shopping cart
17
share
when a user taps the Share icon to share a product
18
sign_up
when a user signs up an account successfully
19
update_to_cart
when a user edits their shopping cart
20
update_to_wishlist
when a user edits their wishlist
21
view_cart
when a user views their shopping cart
22
view_item
when a product details page is displayed to a user
23
view_item_list
when a product list is displayed to a user

Audiences

Audiences let you segment your users based on their event data and user properties.  For example, you can create an audience of users who view products multiple times but don't make a purchase. Users will be automatically included in the audience once they meet your criteria, and when they no longer do, they will be automatically excluded. 

You can make use of audiences to filter reports to analyze how different user segments engage with your app.



Funnels

Funnels let you visualize a series of steps (events) in your app and see how the completion rate changes. For example, you can create a 'checkout process' funnel that contains the necessary steps in the checkout process and then see how well your users are succeeding or failing at each step.

Funnels are a great way to understand how many users have completed a defined process and where they drop out of the process. You can filter a funnel by audiences, for example, to see how the completion rate varies by different user segments.



It's important to note that currently Firebase only implements open funnels of which each step is independent of the other. In other words, your users don't have to complete a previous step so as to be included in the next step. Thus, open funnels are only suitable for strict sequences of events such as the checkout process.

If you want to visualize a process of which all the steps are interdependent on each other, you should switch to Google Analytics and try closed funnels. Closed funnels let you filter out users step by step on the basis of the process. For example, you can create a closed funnel 'push to purchase' with three steps: (1) receive push message > (2) open push message > (3) make a purchase. 


Examples of some useful funnels you can create:
  1. Ecommerce lifecycle: (1) view_item_list > (2) select_item > (3) view_item > (4) add_to_cart > (5) view_cart > (6) begin_checkout > (7) add_shipping_info > (8) add_payment_info > (9) purchase
Note: Step 2 and 3 are optional if your app enable the Add to Cart button in product list. In that case, app users don't need to go through the product details page to add a product to cart.
  1. Checkout process: (1) begin_checkout > (2) add_shipping_info > (3) add_payment_info > (4) purchase
  2. Push to purchase (closed funnel): (1) notification_receive > (2) notification_open > (3) purchase

Integrate with Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 is the most recent incarnation of Google Analytics. This version offers a number of advantages for mobile app tracking measurement by leveraging the Firebase Analytics schema and reporting UI. 

With your Firebase project, it's easy to integrate with Google Analytics 4 to measure app data there. Please refer to [GA4] Firebase integration.

View push message delivery report

As our server calls to Firebase to send push messages to your app users, you can view message delivery report in Firebase. Just navigate to Firebase > Engage > Could Messaging > View FCM reporting dashboard to get insight into message delivery. Keep in mind that the reporting is subject to delays up to 24 hours due to batching of analytics data.
  1. Sends: The number of push notifications has been sent to users. 
  2. Received: The number of push notifications has been received by the app. This data is only available for Android and partially for iOS.
  3. Impressions: The number of push notifications has been displayed on the device while the app is in the background. This data is only available for Android.
  4. Open count: The number of push notifications opened by users. Reported only for notifications received when the app is in the background.

Hope you have a fair idea from this guide! Contact us for all support requests!

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