Why are sessions higher than users in Google Analytics?
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Before 2014, when you logged into Google Analytics, you were given the category names “visits” & “unique visitors” to describe the website traffic you were receiving, which made sense. Then Google decided to quietly change that terminology to “sessions” and “users” which really makes a lot less sense unless you take the time to understand GA (sigh). The Gist of What Users Vs. Sessions in Google Analytics Means:Users = “Unique visitors”, or a person who
has come to your website. Here’s a simple way to remember:Think of your website like a restaurant. One person (user) can visit and leave a restaurant multiple times in one day. Each time they visit, do stuff, and leave is a session. For Example:In our office, people love Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Let’s say Brian walks to Krispy Kreme tomorrow morning for a dozen doughnuts, then later in the day goes to get another dozen doughnuts for Jeremy (he really likes doughnuts). That would be 1 User and 2 sessions that day. Sessions should always be the same number or higher than users. Ready to grow your business online?Whether you’re trying to build brand awareness on social media or needing to drive more traffic from search engines, we’re here to help you connect with your audience and hit those strategic goals. Let’s Talk! Google Analytics is one of the most powerful tools for monitoring and analyzing your web data. You can learn a lot about who is visiting your site — if you know the lingo. So let’s start with some of the basics: What’s the difference between users and sessions? In Google Analytics-ese, Users means the number of unique visitors to
your site. Essentially, these are the actual people landing on your website, which means that if someone were to visit your site 100 times on the same device or browser, they would still only count as one user. Google Analytics counts these repeat customers as Returning Users. Sessions in Google Analytics are defined as
the total number of visits to your site — including both new and repeat visits. So that same person who visited your site 100 times on the same device is counted as one user, but 100 sessions. However, if that person visited 3 pages on your site in each of those 100 sessions, while this would count as 300 Pageviews (the number of pages viewed on one website), it would still only be 100 sessions. Online Course Google Analytics for NonprofitsMaster Google Analytics to drive impact! Users vs. Sessions in Google AnalyticsThe easiest way
to remember the difference is to think of bacon. Where to find Users and Sessions — and what to do nextBut where do you find these metrics in Google Analytics? Although they appear in the same area and can often display similar numbers, you can see now what the differences are. After your organization runs a paid advertising campaign or boosts a social media post to raise awareness beyond your core group of supporters, the new users metric
compared against Source and Medium is helpful in indicating how successful these efforts were at bringing in new users. Can users be more than sessions in GA?The biggest difference is that a user can have multiple sessions, but they would still only be counted as one user.
Why are GA sessions higher than clicks?Why do I have more sessions than clicks? This is normal behavior and indicates positive engagement with your website. When a user clicks one of your Google Ads ads and auto-tagging is turned on, we assign a unique click id (gclid value) to that user.
What is the difference between users and sessions in Google Analytics?Analytics measures both sessions and users in your account. Sessions represent the number of individual sessions initiated by all the users to your site. If a user is inactive on your site for 30 minutes or more, any future activity is attributed to a new session.
Why are unique page views higher than sessions?What is the difference between unique pageviews and sessions? A unique pageview is the time a user spends on a single page, regardless of how many times they leave and come back to that same page. A session is the entire time someone spends on a website, which can include multiple pageviews or ecommerce transactions.
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