Google Analytics for Firebase Mobile Integration Guide

[kotomisak]

Hey! is there some advantage to track events to Firebase Analytics using the Custom Tag Bridge? Why not to directly write events to firebase? I already implemented this and I have feeling there is no added value of this approach - just overhead with more network communication. Am I right?

[craig_rouse]

@kotomisak if you already have Firebase Analytics implemented, you're correct that this would add an extra step.

However, the advantage to using our Remote Commands approach is that we are abstracting the implementation of tracking calls to a single API, so rather than you having to call the Firebase API directly, you can just call Tealium. There aren't really any extra network calls involved; everything is handled client-side after the SDK has been initialized. Once you have your Tealium tracking calls implemented, any additional calls needed for Firebase can be triggered through Tealium iQ, which avoids you having to make changes in your native code.

You could leave your existing Firebase tracking in place, and still implement the Tealium Remote Commands solution, which would allow you to dynamically add new events and variables to your Firebase implementation, without needing additional native code.

I hope this is clear. Please let me know if you have further questions.

Craig.

[kotomisak]

Hey Craig,

thx. for you reply!

What I agree with from your reply is, you can manage for example your logEvents on the Tealium side without any touch to code on the mobile app side. That's almost correct. There is one case, when you still need to update native code, that's when you add new type of custom event.

But solution using Tealium has also overhead (not completely true you said , there aren't really any extra network calls involved): Instead of send event from some central place in the app to Firebase Analytics directly, you have to handle remote command and then you direct it to Firebase Analytics. Thus instead of flow app->FirebaseAnalytics there is flow app->TealiumCustomBridge->app->Firebase Analytics.

So from this point of view there is extra overhead in network call. And moreover, there needs to be extra listener in the mobile app to listen and redirect incomming remote commands to FirebaseAnalytics.

So my question is rather, when I will accept above mentioned overhead, what I will get as an advantage? What I tried so far seems, that any event I want to track in FirebaseAnalytics, needs to be implicitely defined in CustomTagBridge/RemoteCommandInterceptor.

I know, that FirebaseAnalytics gather some events by default (without any effort). Is there some advantage when using Tealium in therms of some other data automatically added to tracking? 

Many thanks to clarify this,

MJ