What steps do I take to access my site's visitor demographics via google analytics?

Question

I am making a website for an author who recently finished writing a book. I want to track the demographics of visitors to a site. I have heard Google knows an visitor's gender and country as well as age (at least approximately).

My employer (the author) and I would like to track which visitors purchase books and therefore who to target with a marketing campaign in the future. What steps do I take to access this data? Is it even possible?

Answer 1

First, update your tracker

Now it should looks like:

ga('create', 'UA-XXXXX-Y', 'auto');
ga('send', 'pageview');

And you need this:

ga('create', 'UA-XXXXX-Y', 'auto');
ga('require', 'displayfeatures');
ga('send', 'pageview');

Enable demographic reports in administration

In Google Analytics select the Admin tab -> Property -> Demographic and Interests data. In the PROPERTY column, click Property Settings -> Advertising Features -> set Enable Demographics and Interests Reports to ON. -> Save.

Documentation

Tech: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/display-features Admin: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2819948?hl=en