What Metrics Does Google Analytics Track?

Google Analytics is packed with data that can tell you almost anything about who is visiting your website and what they do once they arrive. Understanding the key metrics it tracks is the first step toward turning that raw data into meaningful business insights. This article will break down the essential metrics in Google Analytics 4 you need to know.

First, A Quick Note on GA4's Event-Based Model

Before we get into specific metrics, it's important to understand the fundamental shift with Google Analytics 4. The previous version, Universal Analytics (UA), was built around sessions and pageviews. In GA4, nearly every interaction a user takes is measured as an event.

A user logging in is an event. Scrolling down a page is an event. Clicking a button, watching a video, and making a purchase are all events. This event-based model provides a much more flexible and user-centric way to measure behavior across both websites and mobile apps. Keep this concept in mind, as it's the foundation for many of the metrics we'll cover.

Core User & Traffic Metrics

These are the foundational metrics that give you a high-level overview of the traffic coming to your site. They answer the basic questions: How many people are visiting, and are they engaged?

Users: This is the total number of unique users who have had at least one session on your website during the selected time frame. GA4 focuses on active users, which is the platform's primary user metric.
New Users: This metric counts the number of users who interacted with your site or launched your app for the very first time. It's identified by the first_visit or first_open event. Seeing this number grow is a good indicator that your marketing efforts are attracting fresh eyeballs.
Sessions: A session is a group of user interactions with your website that take place within a given time frame. A session starts when a user views a page or opens your app in the foreground. By default, it ends after 30 minutes of inactivity, with no midnight reset like in Universal Analytics.
Views: What used to be called "Pageviews" is now simply "Views." This metric shows the total number of web pages and/or app screens your users saw. Repeated views of a single page are counted.
Engaged Sessions: This is a critical metric introduced in GA4 that replaces the old concept of "Bounce Rate." A session is counted as engaged if it meets at least one of these criteria: lasts longer than 10 seconds, includes a conversion event, or has at least 2 pageviews/screenviews. This is a much better way to measure if a user is actually interacting with your content, even if they only visit one page.
Engagement Rate: This is simply the percentage of sessions that were engaged sessions. For example, if you had 1,000 sessions and 700 of them were engaged, your engagement rate is 70%. Your goal is to get this number as high as possible, as it signifies that visitors are finding your site valuable.
Average Engagement Time: This reflects the average length of time your site was the main focus in the user's browser. It's a more accurate measurement than Universal Analytics' "Average Session Duration" because it only counts the time when your page is active - not when a user has it open in a background tab.

Acquisition Metrics: Where Do Your Users Come From?

Understanding which channels are driving traffic to your site is essential for knowing where to focus your marketing budget and efforts. Acquisition reports answer this question.

Session Source / Medium: This is likely the most important acquisition dimension. "Source" is the specific origin of your traffic (e.g., google, facebook, newsletter), and "Medium" is the general category (e.g., organic, cpc, email). You'll often see them combined, like google / organic or facebook.com / referral.
Session Campaign: If you use UTM parameters in your marketing links, the campaign name will appear here. This metric allows you to track the performance of specific initiatives, like a "summer_sale_2024" or "q4_webinar_promo."
First User Source / Medium: This dimension is extremely useful. It tells you the source and medium that brought a user to your site for their very first visit. While "Session Source / Medium" tells you where this specific session came from, "First User Source / Medium" tells you where that customer was originally acquired. This helps you distinguish between acquisition and retention channels.

Engagement & Behavior Metrics: What Do Users Do?

Once users arrive, what actions do they take? These metrics help you understand user behavior, which content is most popular, and how users are moving toward your key business goals.

Event count: Since everything is an event in GA4, this is a core metric. It represents the total number of times any event was triggered. You'll often look at this metric alongside the "Event name" dimension to see which specific actions are happening most frequently.
Conversions: A conversion is any event that you've marked as being particularly valuable to your business. This is the successor to "Goals" in Universal Analytics. A purchase event is a clear conversion for an e-commerce store, but you might also mark events like generate_lead, sign_up, or contact_form_submit as conversions.
Event count by event name: The GA4 Events report is powerful. Here you can see a list of every single event tracked on your site (e.g., page_view, session_start, click, scroll) and the total count for each. This tells you exactly what people are doing. For instance, you can see how many times users click a specific call-to-action button or scroll 90% of the way down a blog post.

Ecommerce Metrics

If you run a transactional website, GA4 offers a suite of powerful ecommerce tracking metrics. These are typically triggered by specific ecommerce events you set up (like add_to_cart, view_item, and purchase).

Total Revenue: The total revenue from purchases made on your website or app. This includes taxes and shipping if you pass those values with the purchase event.
Ecommerce purchases: The raw count of purchase events. This is the total number of completed transactions.
Items purchased: The total quantity of individual items sold across all transactions.
Average purchase revenue: Calculated by dividing total ecommerce revenue by the total number of transactions. This is your average order value (AOV).

Technology & Demographics Metrics

These metrics help you build a profile of your audience, answering questions about who they are and what technology they use to access your site.

Country / City: The geographic locations of your users. This is essential for local businesses or for understanding your international reach.
Device category: Breaks down your users into segments: desktop, mobile, and tablet. It's crucial to monitor this to ensure your site provides a good experience on all platforms.
Language: Derived from the language settings in a user's web browser.
Age and Gender: If you have Google Signals enabled, GA4 can provide aggregated and anonymized demographic data on your visitors.

Finding Your Way Around GA4

The GA4 interface can feel like a maze at first. Here’s a quick guide to where you can find these metrics:

Go to the Reports tab in the left-hand navigation.
Acquisition reports (under "Life cycle") will show you where your users are coming from (Source, Medium, Campaign).
Engagement reports show you what users are doing (Events, Conversions, Views by Page Title).
Monetization reports contain all your ecommerce data (Revenue, Purchases).
Tech & Demographics reports (under "User > User attributes") tell you about your audience’s devices, locations, and more.

For more advanced analysis, check out the Explore tab, where you can build custom reports and funnels to dig even deeper into your data.

Final Thoughts

Google Analytics 4 provides a deep set of built-in metrics that focus on user-centric behavior. By moving to an event-based model, it gives you the flexibility to track the interactions that truly matter to your business, helping you measure engagement far more effectively than previous versions.

If navigating GA4 feels cumbersome, we can help simplify the process entirely. By connecting Google Analytics to Graphed , you no longer have to hunt through reports to find what you need. We allow you to ask questions in plain English, like "Compare mobile vs. desktop engagement rate in the last quarter" or "Show me a dashboard of a sales funnel," and instantly get the answer visualized. It’s the easiest way to connect your data and turn it into actionable insights without the learning curve.