Google Analytics Shares More User Data

By Jill Kurtz
Online Career Tips Editor

If you are doing any commerce or communication online, you know that analyzing use data is critical to understanding your effectiveness. You need to know who is visiting the site, how they got there, what they are doing while on the site, and why they left before you want them to.

Google Analytics is a great, free tool to gain such insight and more. It has recently been updated to add active user data. Active users are the number of people actively accessing your site or app.

The data is available in all Google Analytics accounts; no changes to the tracking code are necessary.

The Active Users report lets you see the following metrics:

• 1-Day Active Users: the number of unique users who initiated sessions on your site or app on the last day of your date range.
• 7-Day Active Users: the number of unique users who initiated sessions on your site or app during the last seven days of your date range.
• 14-Day Active Users: the number of unique users who initiated sessions on your site or app during the last 14 days of your date range.
• 30-Day Active Users: the number of unique users who initiated sessions on your site or app from during the last 30 days of your date range.

To open the Active Users report:

1. Sign in to Google Analytics.
2. Navigate to your view.
3. Select the Reporting tab.
4. Select Audience > Active Users from the Report navigation.

[Related: Social Media Marketing: It’s About Building Relationships]

Getting Insight

The more active users you have, the more opportunities there are to share information or make a sale. You want to keep people engaged so you have ongoing opportunities to interact with them.

Look for downward trends. If you have many 1-Day Active Users but the numbers drop off for longer-term users that can signal their initial enthusiasm isn’t translating into long-term engagement. For example, lots of users might be downloading an app but are finding that it doesn’t really meet a need or capture their interest.

Spend time learning how to use Google Analytics or the tracking tool(s) of your choice. Data is a key ingredient in the ongoing effort to refine your site to capture and engage your target audience.