Notes from college lecture on understanding Google Analytics Sessions and Users.

1. Notes on Google Analytics
Sessions and Users
Bryan Fendley

2. –Bill Gates
“I have been struck again and again by how
important measurement is to improving the
human condition.”

3. Everybody knows this stuff, right?
If you don’t understand the difference between
sessions and user and how they relate to visits, you will
never understand what your measuring.
If you don’t understand what it is your measuring, your
analysis could be wrong. This could cost your
company thousands and thousands of dollars.
Don’t under estimate the boring details.

4. GA and Cookies
• Set at the highest domain to track sub domains
• Help GA remember what a user has done
• GA cookies last 18 months

5. GA Cookies Remember
• Which domain to measure
• Unique users
• Traffic source
• Start and end of session
• And More

6. Sessions vs Users
• One user can have multiple sessions
• Session is like a visit
• User is a specific visitor
• Example: Think of trips to gas station during
month, one user - multiple sessions (visits)

7. Clicks vs Sessions
• Click column in reports indicates number of
times an advertisement was clicked
• Sessions is the number of sessions by a unique
user

8. Pageviews
vs
Unique Pageviews
• Every time a user visits a page, or refreshes =
Pageview
• Unique pageviews is the aggregate of views
during session

9. How Long Does
a Session Last?
• Until thirty minutes of inactivity by default
• This time window starts over after every
interaction

10. References
and
Further Learning
The difference between clicks, users, sessions, and more.
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1257084?
hl=en#visits_vs_visitors
Defining a session in analytics
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2731565?hl=en
Understanding how Google Analytics uses cookies
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/
cookie-usage?hl=en_US#analyticsjs