Google Analytics 4 (GA4) introduced several new metrics to provide more comprehensive insights into user behavior and engagement compared to what they previously had in Universal Analytics (UA). Here’s a guide to help you understand these new metrics and how they can be valuable for your analytics:
1. Engagement Rate
What Engagement Rate Measures
Engagement Rate measures the level of interaction visitors have with your website or app. It considers events, screen views, and other interactions.
Why Engagement Rate is Valuable
It helps you gauge the effectiveness of your content and user engagement strategies. A high engagement rate indicates that users are actively interacting with your site or app.
2. Engagement Time
What Engagement Time Measures
Engagement Time calculates the average amount of time users spend actively engaging with your content or app.
Why Engagement Time is Valuable
It helps you identify which pages or app screens are holding users’ attention the longest. This data can guide content optimization and user experience improvements.
Note: You can see the engagement time in various ways, like per active user seen above. This helps get a bit more granular with your data. We often use average engagement time per session to get an idea of how long each session is, no matter if it’s the same user from a different session or a new user.
3. Engagement Event (Aka Events)
What Engagement Event Measures
Engagement Events are specific actions users take within your site or app that are considered indicators of active engagement. These can include video views, scroll, and more.
Why Engagement Event is Valuable
Identifying Engagement Events helps you understand what actions contribute most to user engagement. You can optimize your content and user interface around these events to boost engagement.
Note: You can create your own events so that you can keep track of specific actions users take that are important to you. This can be done in GA4, but we normally recommend setting up a Google Tag Manager to then create your own events.
4. Views per Engagement
What Views per Session Measures
Views per Session shows the average number of pages viewed during an engaged session.
Why Views per Session is Valuable
It helps you understand how deeply users go into your content before they disengage. A high Pages per Engagement metric suggests that users explore your site or app thoroughly.
5. Scroll
What Scroll Measures
A scroll event occurs when a user has scrolled down about 90% of a webpage that they are on.
Why Scroll is Valuable
This allows you to get some insight into which web pages users are actively diving into most of the content. Even if someone doesn’t exit a page right away, it doesn’t always mean they scroll and see some other parts of the page. This event allows you to see that.
6. Engagement User ID
What Engagement User ID Measures
Engagement User ID helps track individual user engagement across devices and platforms.
Why Engagement User ID is Valuable
This metric enables a more complete understanding of user behavior, allowing you to create personalized experiences and track users effectively across their entire journey.
7. Key Events (Aka Conversions)
What Key Events Measure
If you’re looking for “goals” or “conversions, you’re probably lost. Key events are now the new GA4 “conversion”. These are specific events that you mark as “key,” or in other words, events that are important.
Why Key Event is Valuable
These are the important events that users perform on your website or app. We normally use these for events that are connected to leads, such as form submissions, phone call clicks, email clicks, widget submissions, etc. but it could also be used for things like video plays on an important video embedded in your website. Just remember, what you mark as a key event can impact other things, such as Google Ads.
8. First User Engagement Event
What First User Engagement Measures
This metric identifies the first user interaction event in a session, indicating the initial engagement with your content.
Why First User Engagement is Valuable
Knowing the first interaction can help you understand what draws users to your site or app. It can inform content strategy and user onboarding.
9. Event Count
What Event Count Measures
Event Count provides a total count of events tracked on your site or app. This can be impacted by the custom events you set up, if you delete other events, or if you just leave your GA4 property set up the way it was when you created it.
Why Event Count is Valuable
It helps you understand the overall level of user engagement and the volume of interactions on your platform. This is only the case if you take creating your events seriously. If you don’t, then this number is less important.
Remember that the availability of these metrics and their specific implementation in GA4 might change over time as Google updates the platform. With that, there are also some familiar metrics that are tracked a bit differently than they were in Universal Analytics. If you’re looking for help with understanding that, regularly check Google’s official documentation and release notes for the most up-to-date information on GA4 metrics and how to effectively use them for your analytics and optimization efforts.