Lesson 5 of 10Article16 min
Core GA4 Metrics Explained
Core GA4 Metrics Explained
01Users, sessions, and engagement
- Users — approximate unique people (modeled with privacy constraints)
- Sessions — periods of activity; a user can have many sessions
- Engaged sessions — sessions that last long enough, convert, or have 2+ page/screen views
- Average engagement time — how long users were actively engaged
02Acquisition vs behavior vs outcomes
Acquisition asks where traffic came from. Behavior asks what they did. Outcomes ask whether business goals happened (leads, purchases, signups).
- Do not celebrate traffic alone — celebrate engaged sessions and conversions
- Bounce-like thinking still exists via engagement rate (inverse of bounce-ish behavior)
- Compare new vs returning when launching campaigns or content