The list
| Metric | How it’s counted |
|---|---|
| Sessions | The number of visits to the site. After a gap of 30 minutes or more, the next visit counts as a new session |
| Users | The number of people who visited during the period (one person counts once no matter how many times they come). Because the identifier changes daily, the same person is counted separately on different days |
| New users | The number of people visiting for the first time |
| Engagement rate | The share of sessions that stayed rather than leaving right away. A visit counts if it had any of 10 seconds or more on the site, 2 or more pages viewed, or a purchase. On Shopify, time on site can’t be captured, so it isn’t part of the count |
| Revenue | The total of order line items. Excludes tax and shipping (the same layer as Shopify, WooCommerce Analytics, and GA4). Built from orders on days where order data can be pulled, and from purchase events otherwise |
| Transactions | The number of orders placed with the store |
| CVR | The share of sessions with a purchase (sessions with a purchase ÷ sessions). Both numerator and denominator come from tracking |
| AOV | The average amount per order (revenue ÷ transactions). Both come from orders |
| Conversions (Revenue tab) | The same as the CVR numerator (the number of sessions with a purchase) |
The numbers have two sources
The numbers on screen are built from two sources: the tracking tag (the visits layer) and order data (the orders layer).
- Visits, pages, sources, devices, the funnel, CVR → tracking
- Revenue, transactions, AOV, per-product revenue → orders (tracking on days with no connection)
The rule we keep is that the numerator and denominator come from the same layer. CVR is tracking ÷ tracking; AOV is orders ÷ orders. That’s why transactions (orders) and conversions (tracking) don’t match. The reason for this gap is explained in When numbers don’t match.
Source (channel) classification
Channels on the Acquisition tab are classified using rules that follow GA4’s default channel grouping (Direct / Organic Search / Paid Search / Organic Social / Organic Video / Email / Referral / Unassigned, and so on). Classification is decided by the referrer and UTM parameters (utm_source / utm_medium / utm_campaign).
- If
utm_mediumis a free-form value not in the rules (for examplesns), it falls into Unassigned. GA4 does the same. - Traffic from YouTube goes to Organic Social with
utm_medium=social, but to Organic Video as an untagged referral. Standardize the UTMs on the links you send out and the Acquisition tab becomes easier to read.
Period unit
Regardless of the period length, improvement card figures are shown per 30 days. This is so cards can be compared on the same footing.