16 September 2025

Tracking Demographics by URL in GA4: Is It Possible?

Google Analytics 4 (GA4), the newest version of Google’s powerful web analytics platform, has introduced a lot of changes — and naturally, with those changes come new questions. One of the most common is: Can you track demographics by URL in GA4? In this article, we’ll break down how demographics tracking works in GA4, what’s currently possible, and what alternatives or workarounds exist for marketers looking to understand the demographics of users on specific pages of their site.

Understanding Demographics in GA4

GA4 includes a wealth of features that allow marketers and analysts to understand their users better. One such feature is access to user demographics like:

• Age
• Gender
• Interests
• Location
• Language

These insights come from Google’s signals — data from users who are signed into their Google accounts and have ad personalization turned on. However, unlike Universal Analytics (UA), which had a dedicated Demographics and Interests report, accessing and analyzing this data in GA4 requires a different approach.

How GA4 Collects Demographic Data

Demographic and interests data in GA4 is only collected when:

1. The site meets eligibility requirements (i.e., implemented Google Signals and enabled personalized advertising).
2. Users are logged into their Google accounts and have agreed to share this data.
3. The site’s privacy policies are configured properly and consent is obtained if required.

Once the above conditions are met, a subset of user data begins showing in GA4 under the “User Attributes” section. This means demographic data is aggregated at the user level but isn’t seamlessly matched to URL data by default.

Can You Track Demographics by URL?

The short answer is: not directly. GA4 does not provide an automatic interface or report that lets you filter or break down demographic data by individual URLs or pages out-of-the-box. This represents a notable limitation for marketers who want detailed, page-level behavior segmented by demographics.

But all is not lost! There are several ways to approach this limitation using customizations, combinations of reports, and external tools like BigQuery.

Workaround #1: Use Exploration Reports

GA4 offers a feature called Explore Reports (formerly “Analysis Hub”) that allows advanced users to create custom analysis experiences. Using this feature, you can:

• Create a new exploration with User Demographics as dimensions (e.g., age, gender, interests).
• Include Page path as a dimension.
• Add metrics such as Users, Page views, or Engaged sessions.

This approach enables some level of connection between users’ demographic attributes and the pages they visit.

However, keep in mind that all demographic data in GA4 is sampled and limited due to privacy controls. This often means that sample sizes are too small to attribute meaningful demographic breakdowns to individual URLs, especially on low-traffic pages.

Workaround #2: Leverage BigQuery Integration

One of the more powerful features of GA4 is its free native integration with BigQuery — a scalable cloud-based data warehouse. With BigQuery, you can export raw GA4 event-level data and run SQL queries to combine user properties (like demographics) with page views.

Here’s how you can leverage this:

1. Set up BigQuery export from GA4.
2. Pull user demographic data from the user_properties.
3. Join it with page path data from page_view events.
4. Use SQL to filter and group data by both demographics and specific URLs.

This solution requires some technical skills, but it offers the most granular control and customization. It’s a great option if you’re working with a data team or are comfortable with SQL.

Workaround #3: Use Secondary Dimensions in Standard Reports

In the GA4 standard reports, you can sometimes apply a secondary dimension to see user attributes. For example, go to the Pages and Screens report and try to apply age or gender as a secondary dimension. This can give you an idea of demographic data at the page level, although once again, privacy thresholds and data sampling can limit visibility.

These reports can be made more powerful by applying segments or comparisons. For example, comparing traffic to a page between users aged 25-34 and users aged 45-54.

Why Is Demographic Tracking by URL So Limited?

Google’s data policies have increasingly leaned toward user privacy and data aggregation. Providing detailed demographic tracking down to the individual page level could potentially become sensitive or expose user-identifiable behavior. Therefore, GA4 imposes limits on how that data can be queried to ensure compliance with GDPR and other privacy regulations.

In addition, Google Signals data — the foundation for demographics — is not available for all users. This adds layers of incompleteness that make many datasets insufficient for granular, per-page demographic insights.

Best Practices for Navigating These Limitations

Here are a few best practices to get the most out of demographic tracking in GA4 while respecting the limitations:

• Use aggregations: Instead of looking at single URLs, group similar pages (e.g., by topic, category, or funnel stage) to analyze broader demographic trends.
• Pay attention to sample sizes: Hide rows with insufficient data as they won’t give statistically meaningful insights.
• Pair tools: Consider combining GA4 reports with tools like Data Studio, Looker, or BigQuery for more flexible visualizations and deeper dives.

What the Future Might Hold

Google is likely to continue refining GA4 based on feedback and demand, and while direct demographics-by-URL reporting isn’t currently available, updates could bring more flexibility over time. Third-party tools in the Google Cloud ecosystem might also evolve to offer simplified interfaces for this type of analysis.

Moreover, as machine learning becomes a more significant part of GA4’s analytics fabric, we might see smarter demographic prediction models that work even without identifiable data — opening up new possibilities for page-level understanding driven by anonymized insights.

Conclusion

Tracking demographics by URL in GA4 isn’t a native feature — but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. While privacy-friendly design dictates many of GA4’s boundaries, analysts and marketers still have creative ways to approach the challenge using:

• GA4’s Explore Reports
• BigQuery exports and custom queries
• Secondary dimensions and segmentation

The goal isn’t just to get data, but to get actionable and compliant data. By understanding how to work within GA4’s rules and capabilities, you can still unlock important demographic insights that inform your content, design, and marketing strategies.

Remember: As with all analytics efforts, the key is not in the tool you use, but how creatively and ethically you apply it to serve your audience and business goals.