Google Analytics is adding two new metrics to GA4 properties that provide more insight into how many pages visitors view and how long they stay.
Views per session and average session duration are now available in Explorations and Reporting Customization in GA4.
Views per session tracks the number of app screens or webpages people look at during a single visit, while average session duration measures the time users spend on the website.
An announcement from Carly Boddy, Product Manager at Google Analytics, shows how to add these metrics when building custom reports:
Build reports from scratch to meet your business needs in Reporting Customization with these new metrics now available #GA4 pic.twitter.com/GZf3PcPtyS
— Carly Boddy (@carly_boddy) November 30, 2022
If you track views per session and average session duration for Universal Analytics (UA) properties, there are a few key differences to know regarding GA4.
You’re likely to see a difference in session counts, which can vary from business to business based on the following factors:
- Geography: UA properties count a new session at midnight even if the user hasn’t left, which means session counts might be higher than GA4. Consider the time zones of your users and how likely they are to cross the midnight threshold to restart a session.
- UTM Tagging: UTM tagging on your website will reset the session in UA, which means you may see a much higher count of sessions in UA than in GA4.
- Filters: The data in UA reporting may be subject to view filters that exclude data. The data in GA4 reporting for GA360 customers may be subject to filters that define which data from a source property appears in a sub-property.
- Estimation: GA4 properties use a statistical estimate of the number of sessions on your website or app by estimating the number of unique session IDs, while UA properties don’t estimate the number of sessions. GA4 properties more efficiently count sessions with high accuracy and low error rate.
Source: @carly_boddy on Twitter
Featured Image: photo_gonzo/Shutterstock
