Audience reports in Google Analytics will help you get valuable insights regarding the characteristics of the users who visited your website or used your mobile application. This report consists of data that is associated with a user such as age and gender, different kinds of interest such as Affinity Categories, In-Market Segments, and Other Categories. This information will help you understand users better which in turn will help your marketing efforts.
This is the first in a series of blog posts about the different Audience Reports available in Google Analytics. Read the second article in the series: Audience Reports: User Explorer + Demographic Reports.
Active Users Report
The Active Users report is a great tool for understanding the unique users who initiated sessions to your site over a 30-day period. The report breaks down visitors by 1-day, 7-day, 14-day, and 30-day active users as illustrated in the example below.
Note: The metrics in the report are relative to the last day in the date range you are using for the report.
What You can Learn from this Report
You can track the level of user interest in your website or mobile application. For example, the user numbers in this report should all be within the acceptable range of your target numbers for your site or mobile application. If the active users in the report are below your target numbers, you may need to re-evaluate your marketing campaign(s) to ensure that you are reaching the correct audience.
The numbers in this report can also be affected by other factors. For example, if your numbers for your 1-Day Active Users are high but that number drops off below expectations for long-term users, this may indicate that a new update to your website or mobile application is causing an issue. This drop-off could also indicate that user enthusiasm with your website or mobile application is not being sustained for long-term engagement.
Cohort Analysis
The information in this report is helpful for understanding the behavior of specific groups of users who visit your website or mobile application. For example, a cohort would be all users with the same Acquisition Date. You would then be able to isolate and analyze the behavior of this cohort using this report.
What You can Learn from this Report
Isolating and analyzing cohorts is helpful if you want to measure response to short-term marketing efforts (for example, a branding campaign utilizing a one-day video ad). This report can also show how individual groups of users’ behavior and performance change from month to month, week to week, or day to day relative to when the users were acquired.
We hope you will check back regularly to learn more about the additional Audience Reports available in Google Analytics.
Want to learn more about Active Users and Cohort Analysis reports? Contact your InfoTrust Consultant today!
