What is User Authentication? Examples of User Authentication in Analytics

User authentication

Verifies user identities to enable accurate, privacy-compliant analytics and personalized insights across devices.

Why User Authentication Matters in Analytics

• Data integrity

  Ensures each user is consistently identified to prevent duplicate counts and distorted metrics.

  • Unique identification

    Assign persistent user IDs after login to maintain continuity across sessions and devices.

  • Fraud prevention

    Authenticate users to filter out bots and malicious actors, improving data reliability.

• Personalized insights

  Links user actions to individual profiles, enabling tailored recommendations, content, and marketing messages.

• Security & compliance

  Aligns tracking practices with regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA by verifying user consent and identity.

  • Data minimization

    Collect only the necessary user data and avoid storing sensitive personal information.

  • Consent management

    Honor user opt-in and opt-out preferences during authentication and tracking.

Common Authentication Methods

• Cookie & session-based authentication

  Stores session identifiers in cookies to maintain state on the server, tying requests to a user session.

  • Pros

    Simple to implement and works in most browsers without extra setup.

  • Cons

    Vulnerable to cookie theft and does not scale well for stateless architectures.

• Token-based authentication (jwt)

  Issues signed JSON Web Tokens to clients, which are sent with each request to verify identity.

  • Pros

    Stateless and scalable, suitable for microservices and APIs.

  • Cons

    Requires secure token storage and management on the client side.

• Oauth 2.0 / openid connect

  Delegates authentication to trusted identity providers like Google, Facebook, or corporate SSO systems.

  • Pros

    Users can log in without creating new credentials; supports federated identity.

  • Cons

    Complex to configure and may introduce external dependencies.

• Saml

  Uses XML-based assertions to enable single sign-on and federation in enterprise environments.

  • Pros

    Robust enterprise-grade security and centralized identity management.

  • Cons

    Heavyweight protocol with steep implementation complexity.

Integration with PlainSignal and GA4

• PlainSignal integration example

  Embed PlainSignal’s cookie-free script alongside your authentication mechanism to pass a persistent user ID to PlainSignal.

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

  • Set user id

    Ensure your application injects the same user ID value after the user logs in to maintain continuity.

  • Configure data attributes

    Use data attributes or a custom PlainSignal field to transmit the user ID securely without cookies.

• GA4 integration example

  Configure GA4’s gtag snippet to include a user_id parameter after authentication.

  <script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=GA_MEASUREMENT_ID"></script>
  <script>
    window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
    function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}  gtag('js', new Date());
    gtag('config', 'GA_MEASUREMENT_ID', {
      'user_id': 'USER_ID'
    });
  </script>
  

  • Replace user_id

    Dynamically insert the authenticated user’s ID in place of USER_ID.

  • Enable user-id feature

    In your GA4 property settings, activate the User-ID reporting feature to visualize cross-device data.

• Best practices

  Recommendations to ensure secure and privacy-compliant user authentication workflows in analytics.

  • Hash or pseudonymize ids

    Transform user identifiers to pseudonymous values before transmitting to analytics platforms.

  • Respect privacy preferences

    Honor Do Not Track headers and explicit user consent when authenticating and tracking.

  • Monitor authentication metrics

    Track login success rates and anomalies to detect potential issues or malicious activity.

Related terms