Love or hate the Google Analytics 4 platform, it is here to stay! Including its new or amended metrics in any performance report, presents interpretation challenges. The metrics do not all align perfectly with what was used in Universal Analytics, the platform GA4 replaced.
To help you understand better what these metrics mean, here is a compilation of the most important metrics definitions and what they mean.
Google Analytics 4 Glossary Of Important Metrics With Their Definitions
Views
Total number of web pages your users saw. Repeated views of a single screen or page are counted.
For example, a user who navigates to the “home” page, then the “contact” page, and then back to the ‘home’ page will result in two views of the ‘home’ page and one view of the “contact” page.
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/11986666?hl=en#zippy=%2Cin-this-article
Active Users
Number of distinct users who visited your website or application and engaged with your site.
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/11986666?hl=en#users&zippy=%2Cin-this-article
New Users
Number of users who interacted with your site for the first time.
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/11986666?hl=en#users&zippy=%2Cin-this-article
Engagement Rate
The engagement rate is the percentage of engaged sessions on your website. It replaces Bounce rate, which was measured the opposite, visits with no engagement.
For example, a user visits your website, reads some content for less than 10 seconds, and then leaves. While they were on your website, they didn’t trigger any events or visit any other pages.
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/12195621?hl=en
Sessions
A session is a period of time during which a user interacts with your website. It is initiated when a web page is opened and no engagement has been recorded yet. By default, a session ends (times out) after 30 minutes of user inactivity. There is no limit to how long a session can last.
Engaged Sessions
An engaged session is a session that lasts longer than 10 seconds, has a conversion event, or has at least 2 pageviews or screen views.
Sessions Per User
The average times a user visits your website.
Conversions
A conversion is any user action on your website that’s valuable to your business. For example, a user downloading a pdf, submitting a form or subscribing to your newsletter are examples of conversions.
Ave. Time On Site
Average time in seconds a user spends on your site.
Session Medium
Medium is one of the dimensions (along with Medium, Campaign and Channel) which allow you to see how people found your website. It refers to the medium that acquired the user in the first session. Medium is a primary dimension.
Session Source
Source is the secondary dimension. For example, organic (search engine) traffic will be broken down by the specific search engines like ‘Google’, ‘Bing’ etc.
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/11242841?hl=en#zippy=%2Cin-this-article
Session Default Channel Grouping
Channels are rule-based definitions of your website’s traffic sources that let you monitor the performance of all of the channels sending traffic to your website.
If you require any help with Google Analytics 4, do not hesitate to contact us!
