I'm wondering if it is possible to receive user specific information (frontend or backend) from Google Analytics.
For example: A user arrives on our site and we can read from Google Analytics, hey this person is XX years and has these interests.
I've read some blogs about Google Analytics and the cookies, from which it should be possible to extract the unique user ID (NOT given by us but by Google Analytics). Maybe that's where the identification could start.
Is it possible and if, how?
Kind regards!
What you are referring to is the Demographic and interest reports. This data comes to Google by the way of DoubleClick cookie.
What is the Double click cookie?
DoubleClick uses cookies to improve advertising. Some common applications are to target advertising based on what’s relevant to a user, to improve reporting on campaign performance, and to avoid showing ads the user has already seen.
User ID in Google analytics:
User ID enables the analysis of groups of sessions, across devices, using a unique, persistent, and non-personally identifiable ID string representing a user.
Note: The user id is used internally by Google Analytics its not possible for you to see this User id via the Website or the API.
Personal information:
The Google Analytics terms of service, which all Google Analytics customers must adhere to, prohibits sending personally identifiable information (PII) to Google Analytics (such as names, social security numbers, email addresses, or any similar data), or data that permanently identifies a particular device (such as a mobile phone’s unique device identifier if such an identifier cannot be reset), even in hashed form. Your Google Analytics account could be terminated and your data destroyed if you use any of this information.
Answer: It is not possible to receive personal user specific information from Google Analytics, while it is possible for you to send this information yourself in the form of a custom dimension it is not advisable because it is against the terms of service.