Today we will learn if Google Analytics can track our IP address activity. This is important because with the internet being so available, does that also mean our activity on it is known as well?
Listen: knowing more information about your users is essential, so do you ever wonder if you can track IP addresses on Google Analytics?
Read below and find out if Google Analytics can see what users are doing!
What Is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics tracks website performance and collects visitor insights.
Tracking provides statistics and essential analytical tools for search engine optimization, discovering patterns and trends in user engagement and obtaining visitor information.
What does this mean for the users that Google Analytics tracks? Read and find out more below!
What is an IP Address?
An IP address is a particular address that identifies a device on the internet or a local network.
IP addresses allow information to be sent between devices on a network. These devices have a unique string of numbers to help differentiate between computers, routers, and websites.
So IP addresses are like a social security card to help identify the right people or devices!
How does IP Address Relate To Google Analytics?
Google Analytics collects IP addresses from website visitors every time they interact with the website. It could mean a user clicked on something, or it could mean the user merely let a page fully load.
The data is then reported and cut short before it enters Google Analytics. This information is then processed into data for Google to analyze.
Want to know the best part? Users visiting a website can have their IP address activity tracked, but not in a way you would expect.
3 Ways Google Can Process IP Address Data Activity
Collection
This stage is when Google obtains IP addresses through the Google Analytics tracking code you install on your website.
This is also known as Google Tag Manager. Collecting IP addresses is essential for Google to gather data so it can be read in reports in Google Analytics.
Configuration
This stage is where you can apply filters to IPs and also allows you to filter out any unwanted IPs you do not want to be shown as data, such as your home IP address.
The filters help make sure the data collected is not mixed with unwanted IP address data so that the activity can be reported correctly. This allows the user’s home IP address data to be left out of work IP address data.
The reports for Google Analytics would then be fully optimized in terms of data collection at this point.
Reporting
During this data collection stage, filtered IP addresses are removed to ensure that the address does not appear in any Google Analytics reports. Any IPs that were not taken out get filtered out automatically.
This helps ensure that any IPs not correctly filtered by the user would still not show any unfiltered data.
Tools That Could Track and Report IP Addresses
CRM Tools
Customer relationship management tools are capable of tracking IP addresses. These tools help business owners track all communications and maintain user relationships.
CRMs allow marketers to gain insights into users while personalizing patterns to gain new leads, which leads to an increase in sales.
You may wonder why this matters to me? Tools like these can track IPs, which could be used to track user activity by collecting data about the user online.
Automation Tools
Marketing automation tools use tracking codes like Google Analytics to collect user data. Tools like this allow you to see the IP address data of users that visit your website.
Landing Page Tools
Tools like this allow you to see which IP address visited your website, which also allows you to see events related to these IPs. Most landing page tools will show IP address data from visitors.
Web Hosting Tools
Hosting tools track and keep IP addresses in their server logs. IPs are protected by web host tools and manage a website’s security. These tools allow IP tracking outside of Google Analytics.
Why Google Analytics Does Not Share IP Address Information
Google Analytics does not share IP data because there are privacy issues collecting and sharing IP addresses.
On the other hand, Google decided a while ago that they would not store this type of data, especially with more internet privacy regulations; this decision will unlikely change for Google. That is good news for any users on the internet.
Final Thoughts
Here’s the truth: Google Analytics does not track any IP address activity and disapproves of it.
However, there are ways to track IP addresses through different tools. These tools allow you to gather data about website users.
Although you can monitor IPs and see user activity, this does not mean you should track IP addresses since it could land you in some hot water.
Picture this: you are in your lovely home, and your neighbor is peeking inside your house, watching your every move! Now think about it from an online perspective.
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