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If your business has a website you're likely familiar with GA4 (Google Analytics 4). Being such a powerful tool, it offers a wealth of data that gives so much insight. However, if you're a beginner, all this data can be quite overwhelming. To help you start simplifying, here are a few key GA4 metrics that are essential for every beginner -
Users
These are the number of people who've visited your site during a certain time frame. This is also defined by GA4 as anyone who has an engaged session or they trigger the first_event or engagement_time_msec on your website.
It's very helpful to gauge the size of your audience and stay aware of your website's performance (growth or decline) over time. More users means more reach.
New Users
Just like users, new users are the number of people who've visited your site during a certain time frame. The difference here is new users are users who have never been to your website before. So for specifics, news users have triggered the first_open or first_visit event in a specified date range.
An important thing to note is not all new users are active. So you may see new users exceeding active users. However, new and active users are never going to exceed total users.
Increases in new users means your marketing efforts are attracting a fresher audience.
Returning Users
These are the number of users who have visited your website more than once during the selected time frame. This is regardless of whether or not the previous session was an engaged session in the specified date range.
This one is extremely important as it's key to understanding
How well your website converts new users into repeat visitors
Your user retention and customer loyalty
Which portion of your audience comes back / What product or service brings people back
Sessions
These are the number of individual browsing sessions that happen on your website during a certain time frame. What's important to know here is one user can have multiple sessions and there's no limit to how long a session can last. By default, a session times out after 30 minutes of user inactivity.
Keeping track of this metric helps you understand how engaged people are with the content on your website. High sessions means high interest
Engaged sessions
This metric defines the number of times a session lasts longer than 10 seconds, has at least 2 page views or a conversion event is triggered. So for it to be counted, one or more of these conditions has to happen.
In simple terms, a high number of engaged sessions indicates that your website is meeting the needs of the visiting users.
Average Engagement Time
This is the average amount of time users stay actively engaged on your site. In other words, the average amount of time your website was the focus in the browser. So if the user went to another tab and came back to your website, it does not count the time in other tabs.
This metric massively helps in not just understanding the quality of user engagement but also how long it might take for certain actions to be completed and coupled with other pages being visited, it lets you know just how long your website is navigated and how each page interests the user
Engagement Rate & Bounce Rate
Engagement rates are the percentage of engaged sessions compared to the total number of sessions. This metric provides a clear indicator of how often your website visits to your website involved some form of meaningful engagement
Bounce rates on the other hand are the opposite of engagement rates; highlighting the number of non-engaged sessions. This helps identify how often visits on the website did not involve any form of meaningful engagement.
Session Conversion Rate
This is the percentage of sessions that have resulted in a conversion. The session conversion rate formula is calculated by -
Session Conversion Rate = (Number of conversions / Number of sessions) x 100
This metric assists in assessing how effective your marketing campaigns have been in driving conversions.
Entrances & Exits
Entrances are the number of sessions that began on a particular page. This one is important for understanding how and what landing page users began their journey on your site.
Exists on the other hand are the number of sessions that ended on a particular page. This helps identify the last points of interaction users have with your site before leaving.
For example, a user can have a couple of sessions on your site like this -
Monday: Enter > Page Y > Page F > Exit
Tuesday: Enter > Page F > Exit
Wednesday: Enter > Page Y > Page F > Page Y > Exit
So we'd see that Page Y had 2 entrances and Page F had one entrance. On the other hand, Page F had two exits whilst Page Y had one exit
Views Per User
These are the average number of pages users will see during a specified time. Naturally, a higher amount highlights that your website has content / answers keeping your site visitors engaged.
Conclusion - GA4 Metrics
So, hopefully, this guide simplifies the key metrics you need to be tracking in GA4 and how they align with your business objectives. It’s essential to keep in mind that while GA4 offers a wealth of data, the key to success lies in focusing on the metrics that truly meet your business needs. Avoid getting overwhelmed by the flood of information and hone in on the data that directly supports your goals.
Here at Ennko Ltd, we understand that navigating GA4 can be quite complex and time-consuming. So we're here to help by either taking care of the heavy lifting so you can focus on growing your business. Contact us today so we optimise your efforts or sign up to one of our workshops / webinars.
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