What are User Properties? Examples for User Properties in Analytics

User properties

Persistent user attributes in analytics platforms used to segment audiences, personalize experiences, and enable cohort and long-term analysis.

Overview of User Properties

• Defining user properties

  User properties are attributes or characteristics—such as language preference, subscription level, or device type—assigned to a user. They persist across sessions and events, giving you a stable profile for each visitor.

• User properties vs. event parameters

  Event parameters describe a single interaction (e.g., a button click’s label), while user properties apply broadly to the user across all events and sessions. This makes user properties ideal for segmentation and cohort analysis.

Implementing User Properties

• Plainsignal integration

  With PlainSignal’s cookie-free simple analytics, you can attach user properties via data attributes on the tracking script. For example:

  <link rel="preconnect" href="//eu.plainsignal.com/" crossorigin />
  <script
    defer
    data-do="yourwebsitedomain.com"
    data-id="0GQV1xmtzQQ"
    data-api="//eu.plainsignal.com"
    data-user-id="12345"
    data-user-plan="premium"
    src="//cdn.plainsignal.com/PlainSignal-min.js">
  </script>
  

  These custom attributes (data-user-id, data-user-plan) will be captured as user properties in the PlainSignal dashboard.

• Ga4 integration

  In Google Analytics 4, you define user properties via the gtag configuration or the Measurement Protocol. Example using gtag:

  <script>
    window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
    function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
    gtag('js', new Date());
    gtag('config', 'GA_MEASUREMENT_ID', {
      'user_properties': {
        'membership_level': 'gold',
        'favorite_category': 'books'
      }
    });
  </script>
  

  These properties become available in GA4 audiences and explorations.

Common Use Cases

• Segmentation and analysis

  Use user properties to break down reports by custom attributes. For example, segment sessions by membership_level to compare engagement between free and premium users.

• Personalization and targeting

  Leverage properties like favorite_category or preferred_language to serve tailored content and recommendations. In ad platforms, you can build audiences based on these properties for more precise targeting.

Best Practices and Considerations

• Privacy and compliance

  Ensure you collect user properties in line with data protection regulations and only after obtaining proper consent.

  • Gdpr:

    Avoid capturing personally identifiable information (PII) without explicit consent. Provide users with access and deletion rights.

  • Ccpa:

    Allow California residents to opt out of data collection and to request deletion of their user profiles.

• Naming conventions

  Use a consistent naming scheme to avoid confusion and errors when analyzing data.

  • Snake_case:

    Use lowercase letters and underscores to separate words, e.g., membership_level.

  • Camelcase:

    Start with a lowercase letter and capitalize subsequent words, e.g., favoriteCategory.

Related terms