To understand the difference between unique users and visits on our website, it’s important to first know the meaning of other closely related concepts.
The first thing we need to know is what does a user mean for Google Analytics (GA)?
Let’s assume the GA (UA) tracking code is properly set up on our website. When a user first lands on our site, they are anonymously identified with a number or string of characters commonly known as a cookie. This cookie is stored in the user’s browser and lasts 2 years, but that period is renewed every time a hit is sent to GA. In other words, every time that same user accesses our site and interacts with our content.
A cookie is a text file holding a small piece of information about the visitor or the visitor’s computer. Thanks to cookies, GA can individually and anonymously identify our website’s visitors, providing very reliable data about users and visits.
The cookie GA uses is first-party and protects the privacy and security of user information. These cookies are only accessible to the site that set them, unlike third-party cookies, which other sites can access and which are commonly used for advertising.
Users or browsers?
One very important point is not to confuse visitors or users with browsers, because ultimately GA identifies browsers, not users. For example, a user can access the same website from their laptop, phone and tablet. In reality it’s one user, but GA counts 3 different users because it can’t link the different devices and browsers. In this case GA would count 3 unique users and 3 visits, when in fact there is 1 unique user and 3 visits.
The same would happen if they accessed it from the same computer or device but using different browsers.
Likewise, 3 members of the same family may share a computer and all 3 visit the same website. In that case GA would treat it as a single user with several sessions or visits, when there are actually 3 different users.
Universal Analytics’ User-ID feature aims to improve this, but it only applies to users who have logged in and are identified. You need to link your website’s users (registered customers) with GA.
New users vs. returning users
Other concepts to keep in mind are new users and returning users.
The total users metric for a given period includes both new and returning users.
New users are those who are not identified, meaning they don’t have the cookie in their browser, either because they haven’t visited the site in 2 years or because they deleted the browser cookie.
Returning users are those who already have the cookie in their browser because they have visited the website before.
It’s important not to confuse returning users with loyal users: the former simply already have the cookie in their browser, while the latter have had several sessions (visits) on our site within a period.
For example, a returning user who has visited the site before and has the cookie was counted as a new user on their first visit, and as a returning user on later visits. If in that case they only visited twice, the same user will be counted as both new and returning for that same period.
A user may also be counted as returning for having a session in the period being analyzed, even though their previous visit was a year ago.
So we can say a returning user is someone who already knows us or has been on our site within the last 2 years, while new users are, in theory, those who don’t know us and are visiting our site for the first time, as they don’t have the cookie in their browser.
Visits or sessions
Sessions are the interactions a user has with a website over a period of time. These interactions can be page views, events, social interactions or transactions.
A single unique user can have several sessions within a period. Keep in mind that sessions stay active for up to 30 minutes after the last interaction with the site. So a user browsing a website who stays inactive for 35 minutes and then resumes browsing would count for GA as the same user but 2 different sessions or visits.
A visit ends after 30 minutes of inactivity on the site or when you close the browser and don’t come back to the page for 30 minutes.
Conclusions
Based on the above, you need to bear in mind the characteristics and meaning of each of these metrics when analyzing your website data, as in some cases they can cause confusion and misinterpretation.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us; at Trilogi we’ll be happy to advise and help you.
You can find more information on other key metrics in this post.
