Google Analytics 4 Dimensions and Metrics Definition
Google Analytics (GA) provides detailed statistics and reports about your website site’s traffic. You can track things like site visitors, page views, and average time on site. Google Analytics also provides information about which pages were most visited and where your traffic came from (e.g., organic search, social media).
You can set up goals to track conversions and define conversion types. For example, a conversion could be a purchase, a sign-up for a mailing list or an event. You can set up custom alerts to trigger notifications when a goal is reached or a conversion type is created.
Every report in Google Analytics is made up of dimensions and metrics.
Dimension: A dimension in Google Analytics 4 is a description, characteristic, parameter or attribute or of your data. Like Page, Landing Page, City, Device Category, and Source / Medium are all dimensions.
Metric: Metrics are the measurements made against these dimensions. Like sessions, pageviews, and bounce rate are all metrics.
You can use Google Data Studio (GDS) to visualize the same data that is available in Analytics customising reporting by building your own customised Google Data Studio Dashboard (what we can do for you).
The following is a guide to the most important Google Analytics 4 (GA4) terminology divided into 5 groups:
Most Used Metrics and Dimensions
Views
The number of app screens or web pages your users viewed. Repeated views of a single page or screen are counted. (screen_view + page_view events).
New Users
The number of users who interacted with your site or launched your app for the first time (event triggered: first_open or first_visit).
Total Users
The number of distinct users who have logged at least one event, regardless of whether the site or app was in use when that event was logged.
Active Users
The number of distinct users who visited your site or app.
7-day active users
The number of distinct active users on your site or app within a 7 day period. The 7 day period includes the last day in the report's date range.
28-day active users
The number of distinct active users on your site or app within a 28 day period. The 28 day period includes the last day in the report's date range.
Sessions
The number of sessions that began on your site or app (event triggered: session_start).
Engaged Sessions
The number of sessions that lasted longer than 10 seconds, or had a conversion event, or had 2 or more screen views.
Engagement Rate
The percentage of engaged sessions (Engaged sessions divided by Sessions).
Bounce Rate
The percentage of sessions that were not engaged ((Sessions Minus Engaged sessions) divided by Sessions). This metric is returned as a fraction; for example, 0.2761 means 27.61% of sessions were bounces.
Average Session Length (sec.)
The average amount of time (in seconds) per session your website or app was in the foreground of users' devices.
Total User Engagement Duration (sec.)
The total amount of time (in seconds) your website or app was in the foreground of users' devices.
User Source
User Medium
The referral medium that first acquired the user
User Ad Network Type Type
The advertising network that first acquired the user. An enumeration which includes 'Google search', 'Search partners', 'Google Display Network', 'Youtube Search', 'Youtube Videos', 'Cross-network', 'Social', and '(universal campaign)'
User Campaign Name
Name of the marketing campaign that first acquired the user. Includes Google Ads and Manual Campaigns
User Campaign ID
Identifier of the marketing campaign that first acquired the user. Includes Google Ads Campaigns
User Campaign Ad Group Name
The ad group name in Google Ads that first acquired the user
User Campaign Ad Group ID
The ad group ID in Google Ads that first acquired the user
User Campaign Creative ID
The campaign creative ID that first acquired the user
Ecommerce
Add-to-Carts
The number of times users added items to their shopping carts.
Checkouts
The number of times users started the checkout process.
Ecommerce Purchases
The number of times users completed a purchase. This metric counts 'purchase' events; this metric does not count 'in_app_purchase' and subscription events.
Item List Clicks
The number of times users clicked an item when it appeared in a list.
Item List Click Through Rate
The number of users who selected a list(s) divided by the number of users who viewed the same list(s). This metric is returned as a fraction; for example, 0.2145 means 21.45% of users who viewed a list also selected the same list.
Item List Views
The number of times the item list was viewed.
Item Promotion Clicks
The number of times an item promotion was clicked.
Item Promotion Click Through Rate
The number of users who selected a promotion(s) divided by the number of users who viewed the same promotion(s). This metric is returned as a fraction; for example, 0.1382 means 13.82% of users who viewed a promotion also selected the promotion.
Item Promotion Views
The number of times an item promotion was viewed.
Item Purchase Quantity
The number of times an item promotion was viewed.
Item Revenue
The total revenue from items only. Item revenue is the product of its price and quantity. Item revenue excludes tax and shipping values; tax & shipping values are specified at the event and not item level.
Item Views
The number of times the item details were viewed.
Purchase Revenue
The sum of revenue from purchases made in your app or site. Purchase revenue sums the revenue for these events: 'purchase', 'ecommerce_purchase', 'in_app_purchase', 'app_store_subscription_convert', and 'app_store_subscription_renew'. Purchase revenue is specified by the 'value' parameter in tagging.
Transactions
The count of transaction events with purchase revenue. Transaction events are in_app_purchase, ecommerce_purchase, purchase, app_store_subscription_renew, app_store_subscription_convert, and refund.
Transactions per Purchaser
The average number of transactions per purchaser.
Demographics
Interests
Interests demonstrated by users who are higher in the shopping funnel. Users can be counted in multiple interest categories. For example, 'Shoppers', 'Lifestyles & Hobbies/Pet Lovers', or 'Travel/Travel Buffs/Beachbound Travelers'.
Age
User age brackets.
Gender
User gender.
City
The city from which the user activity originated.
City ID
The geographic ID of the city from which the user activity originated, derived from their IP address.
Country
The country from which the user activity originated.
Region
The geographic region from which the user activity originated, derived from their IP address.
Data and Time
Date
The date of the event, formatted as YYYYMMDD.
Date + hour (YYYYMMDDHH)
The combined values of date and hour formatted as YYYYMMDDHH.
Date hour and minute
The combined values of date, hour, and minute formatted as YYYYMMDDHHMM.
Day
The day of the month, a two-digit number from 01 to 31.
Day of week
The day of the week. It returns values in the range [0,6] with Sunday as the first day of the week.
Hour
The two-digit hour of the day that the event was logged. This dimension ranges from 0-23 and is reported in your property's timezone.
Minute
The two-digit minute of the hour that the event was logged. This dimension ranges from 0-59 and is reported in your property's timezone.
Month
The month of the event, a two digit integer from 01 to 12.
Week
The week of the event, a two-digit number from 01 to 53. Each week starts on Sunday. January 1st is always in week 01. The first and last week of the year have fewer than 7 days in most years. Weeks other than the first and the last week of the year always have 7 days. For years where January 1st is a Sunday, the first week of that year and the last week of the prior year have 7 days.
Year
The four-digit year of the event e.g. 2021.