Google Analytics 4 metrics and dimensions

 

Notes:

  • Custom metrics and dimensions are available in DashThis 🚀 - in your dashboard, under the widget menu to the left, click custom + choose the graph type then scroll down the list to the custom metrics category.
  • For custom metrics, there are 3 variations in the API: (1) the sum for the period (which has no prefix), (2) the average for the period, and (3) the number of times the event has been tracked.
  • To select a custom dimension, please make sure to use one of the following graphs: List, Multi-list, Stacked-column, & Pie chart.

 

 

Metric Name

Description

Calculations (if applicable)

Active users The number of distinct users who visited your site or app.  
Add-to-carts The number of times users added items to their shopping carts.  
Advertiser Ads Clicks The total number of times users clicked on your advertising campaign through an Ads platform (e.g., The Google Ads clicks metric applies to Google Ads).  
Advertiser Ads Cost The total amount you paid for your advertising campaign through an Ads platform (e.g., The Google Ads cost metric applies to Google Ads).  
Advertiser Ads Cost per Click The average cost you paid per click for your advertising campaign through an Ads platform (e.g., The Google Ads cost per click metric applies to Google Ads).  
Advertiser Ads Impressions The total number of times your advertising campaign was shown to users through an Ads platform (e.g., The Google Ads impressions metric applies to Google Ads).  
Average purchase revenue per user The average purchase revenue per active user is the total purchase revenue per active user that logged any event. The summary metric is for the time period selected.  
Average Engagement Time per  Session The average amount of time a user spends on your web page or app. UserEngagementDuration/Sessions
Bounce rate The percentage of sessions that were not engaged ). This metric is returned as a fraction; for example, 0.2761 means 27.61% of sessions were bounced. Sessions - Engaged sessions / divided by Sessions
Cart-to-view rate The number of users who added a product(s) to their cart divided by the number of users who viewed the same product(s). This metric is returned as a fraction; for example, 0.1132 means 11.32% of users who viewed a product also added the same product to their cart. Added to cart / viewed product
Checkouts The number of times users started the checkout process.  
Click-Through-Rate (CTR %) Google Ads is the percentage of ad impressions that resulted in a click. Number of clicks / Ads impressions *100%
Key Events The number of events marked as Key Events.  
Cost per Key Event Cost per Key Event is ad cost divided by Key Events. Ad cost / Key Events
Ecommerce purchases The number of times users completed a purchase. This metric counts 'purchase' events; this metric does not count 'in_app_purchase' and subscription events.  
Engaged Sessions The number of sessions that lasted longer than 10 seconds, had a Key Event or had 2 or more screen views.  
Engagement Rate The percentage of engaged sessions. This is calculated by dividing the number of engaged sessions by the total number of sessions.  
Engaged sessions per user  The number of engaged sessions per user. Engaged sessions / Users
Event Count The number of times your users triggered an event.  
Event count per user The average number of events per user (Event count divided by Total users).  
Event Value The sum of the value attributed to an event.  
Events per session The average number of events per session (Event count divided by Sessions).  
First-time purchasers The number of users that completed their first purchase event.  
First-time purchaser rate % The percentage of active users who made their first purchase. This metric is returned as a fraction; for example, 0.092 means 9.2% of active users were first-time purchasers.  
First-time purchasers per new user The average number of first-time purchasers per new user.  
Item list clicks The number of times users clicked an item when it appeared in a list.  
Item list views The number of times the item list was viewed.  
Item Quantity The number of units for a single item included in purchase events.  
Item promotion clicks The number of times an item promotion was clicked.  
Item promotion views The number of times an item promotion was viewed.  
Items purchased The number of units for a single item included in purchase events. This metric counts the quantity of items in purchase events.  
Item revenue The total revenue from items only. Item revenue is the product of its price and quantity. Item revenue excludes tax and shipping values; tax & shipping values are specified at the event and not item level.  
Item views The number of times the item details were viewed.  
Margin The margin results come from taking the total revenue - Ads cost /Total revenue Total revenue - Ads cost /Total revenue
New users The number of users who interacted with your site or launched your app for the first time.  
Purchase Revenue The total revenue attributed to e-commerce purchases made in your app or site.  revenue coming from in-app purchases + e-commerce purchases +  purchase events
Purchase-to-view rate The number of users who purchased a product(s) is divided by the number of users who viewed the same product(s). This metric is returned as a fraction; for example, 0.128 means 12.8% of users that viewed a product(s) also purchased the same product(s). purchased product / viewed the same product
Purchaser rate % The percentage of active users who made 1 or more purchase transactions. This metric is returned as a fraction; for example, 0.412 means 41.2% of users were purchasers.  
ROAS $ (Return on Ad Spend) *this metric only populates with a dimension The return on ad spend is calculated as the revenue for selected Key Events divided by the total cost for your ads. Revenue / Total Ads Cost
Sessions The number of sessions that began on your site or app. Learn more about sessions.  
Session Key Event rate The percentage of sessions in which any Key Event was triggered.  
Session rate for purchase The percentage of sessions in which a specific Key Event was triggered.  
Sessions per user The average number of sessions per user. Sessions / Active Users
Shipping amount Shipping amount associated with a transaction. Populated by the 'shipping' event parameter.  
Tax amount Tax amount associated with a transaction. Populated by the 'tax' event parameter.  
Total purchasers The number of users that logged purchase events for the time period selected.  
Total revenue The sum of revenue from purchases, subscriptions, and advertising.  Purchase revenue + Subscription revenue + Ad revenue

Total Users

The number of unique users who have logged an event.  

Transactions

The number of times users completed a purchase. in-app purchase + e-commerce purchase + purchase + app store subscription renewal + app store subscription convert + refund

Transactions per purchaser

The average number of transactions per purchaser.  
Views The number of app screens or web pages your users viewed. Repeated views of a single page or screen are counted.  
Views per session The number of app screens or web pages your users viewed per session. Repeated views of a single page or screen are counted. (screen_view + page_view events) / sessions.  

 

 

 

Dimension Name

Description

Age User age brackets.
Campaign The name of the marketing campaign. Present only for Key Events. Includes Google Ads Campaigns, Manual Campaigns, & other Campaigns.
Campaign ID The identifier of the marketing campaign. Present only for Key Events. Includes Google Ads Campaigns, Manual Campaigns, & other Campaigns.
City  The city from which the user activity originated.
Content Group The name of a collection of content.
Content-type The category of the selected content.
Continent The continent from which user activity originated. For example, if someone visits your website from the United States, the text 'Americas' populates the dimension.
Country  The country from which the user activity originated.
Date The date of the event, formatted as YYYYMMDD.
Day of Week The day of the week. It returns values in the range [0,6] with Sunday as the first day of the week.
Default Channel Grouping The channels by which users arrived at your site/app and triggered a key event. An enumeration that includes 'Direct', 'Organic Search', 'Paid Social', 'Organic Social', 'Email', 'Affiliates', 'Referral', 'Paid Search', 'Video', and 'Display'.
Device category The type of device: Desktop, Tablet, or Mobile.
Event Name The name of the triggered event.
First user campaign The campaign by which the user was first acquired.
First user medium The medium by which the user was first acquired.
First user source The source by which the user was first acquired.
First user default channel grouping The channels by which users first arrived at your site/app. An enumeration that includes 'Direct', 'Organic Search', 'Paid Social', 'Organic Social', 'Email', 'Affiliates', 'Referral', 'Paid Search', 'Video', and 'Display'.
First user source/medium The combined values of the dimensions 'firstUserSource' and 'firstUserMedium'.
First user source platform The source platform that first acquired the user. Please do not depend on this field returning 'Manual' for traffic that uses UTMs; this field will update from returning 'Manual' to returning '(not set)' for an upcoming feature launch.
Full page URL The hostname, page path, and query string for web pages visited; for example, the full page URL portion of https://www.example.com/store/contact-us?query_string=true is www.example.com/store/contact-us?query_string=true.
Gender User gender.
Google Ads Customer ID The Customer ID from Google Ads for the campaign that led to Key Event. Customer IDs in Google Ads uniquely identify Google Ads accounts.
Google Ads Group Name The ad group name in Google Ads of the ad that led to a Key Events.
Google Ads Keyword Text The matched keyword that led to the Key Event. Keywords are words or phrases describing your product or service that you choose to get your ad in front of the right customers.
Google Ads Network Type The location where your ad was shown (google.com, search partners, display network) that led to a Key Events.
Google Ads Query The search query that led to a Key Events.
Hostname Includes the subdomain and domain names of a URL; for example, the Host Name of www.example.com/contact.html is www.example.com.
Hour The hour when an event was collected, formatted as a two-digit number from 0 to 23.
Interest Interests demonstrated by users who are higher in the shopping funnel. Users can be counted in multiple interest categories. For example, 'Shoppers', 'Lifestyles & Hobbies/Pet Lovers', or 'Travel/Travel Buffs/Beachbound Travelers'.
Is Key Events event The string 'true' if the event is a Key Event. Events are marked as Key Events at collection time; changes to an event's Key Events marking apply going forward. You can mark any event as a Key Event in Google Analytics, and some events (i.e. first_open, purchase) are marked as Key Events by default. To learn more, see this Google Article.
Item Affiliation The name or code of the affiliate (i.e., partner or vender) associated with an item (e.g., a product you sell).
Item brand Brand name of the item.
Item category The hierarchical category in which the item is classified. For example, in Apparel/Mens/Summer/Shirts/T-shirts, Apparel is the item category.
Item category 2 The hierarchical category in which the item is classified. For example, in Apparel/Mens/Summer/Shirts/T-shirts, Men's is the item category 2.
Item category 3 The hierarchical category in which the item is classified. For example, in Apparel/Mens/Summer/Shirts/T-shirts, Summer is the item category 3.
Item category 4 The hierarchical category in which the item is classified. For example, in Apparel/Mens/Summer/Shirts/T-shirts, Shirts are the item category 4.
Item category 5 The hierarchical category in which the item is classified. For example, in Apparel/Mens/Summer/Shirts/T-shirts, T-shirts are the item category 5.
Item list name The name of the item list.
Item ID The ID of the item.
Item name The name of the item.
Item promotion name The name of the promotion for the item.
Item Variant The item variant or unique code or description (e.g., XS, S, M, L for size; Red, Blue, Green, Black for color) for additional item details or options.
Landing page The page path + query string is associated with the first pageview in a session.
Language The language setting of the user's browser or device. e.g. English
Medium The medium is attributed to the Key Event.
Month The month when an event was collected, formatted as a two-digit number from 01 to 12.
Order coupon Code for the order-level coupon.
Page location The protocol, hostname, page path, and query string for web pages visited; for example, the page location portion of https://www.example.com/store/contact-us?query_string=true is https://www.example.com/store/contact-us?query_string=true. Populated by the event parameter 'page_location'.
Page Path and screen class The page path (web) or screen class (app) on which the event was logged
Page path + query string The web pages visited, are listed by URI. The URI is the portion of a page's URL following the domain name; for example, the URI portion of www.example.com/contact.html is /contact.html.
Page path without query string The portion of the URL between the hostname and query string for web pages visited; for example, the pagePath portion of https://www.example.com/store/contact-us?query_string=true is /store/contact-us.
Page path + query string and screen class The page path (web) or screen class (app) on which the event was logged.
Page referrer The full referring URL includes the hostname and path. This referring URL is the user's previous URL and can be this website's domain or other domains. Populated by the event parameter 'page_referrer'.
Page title The web page titles used on your site.
Page title and screen class The page title (web) or screen class (app) on which the event was logged.
Page title and screen name The web page title or app screen name.
Region The geographic region from which the user activity originated, is derived from their IP address.
Search term The term searched by the user. For example, if the user visits '/some-page.HTML?q=some-term', this dimension returns 'some-term'. Automatically populated if Enhanced Measurement is enabled. Populated by the event parameter 'search_term'.
Session Campaign The campaign that initiated a session on your website or app.
Session Default Channel Grouping The channels by which users arrived at your site/app when they initiated new sessions
Session Manual Ad Content The ad content that led to a session. Populated by the utm_content parameter.
Session Medium The medium that initiated a session on your website or app.
Session Source The source that initiated a session on your website or app.
Session source/medium The combined values of the dimensions 'sessionSource' and 'sessionMedium'.
Session source platform The source platform of the session's campaign. Please do not depend on this field returning 'Manual' for traffic that uses UTMs; this field will update from returning 'Manual' to returning '(not set)' for an upcoming feature launch.
Source The source attributed to the Key Event.
Source/medium The combined values of the dimensions 'source' and 'medium'.
Source platform The source platform of the Key Event's campaign. Please do not depend on this field returning 'Manual' for traffic that uses UTMs; this field will update from returning 'Manual' to returning '(not set)' for an upcoming feature launch.
Stream ID The numeric data stream identifier for your app or website.
Stream name The data stream name for your website or app.
Transaction ID An identifier you create for an ecommerce transaction.
Week The week when an event was collected, formatted as a two-digit number from 01 to 53.
Year The year when an event was collected, formatted as a four-digit number (e.g., '2020').

 

 

A few things to know:

  • If you want to collect specific demographic data in GA4 (like age and gender), you need to make sure that you have this option activated under your data collection settings.

    Go to the admin gauge icon (bottom left) > click on data settings > click on data collection > click on get started to activate. Please note that your data will only appear in DashThis the following day.

  • Due to a restriction in Google's API, Advertising metrics are only available with dimensioned widgets: List, Multi-list, Stacked-column, and Pie chart. 

  • The following metrics did not begin to populate with data until September 8, 2022. You may see inconsistent data for these metrics when you include dates prior to September 8, 2022. For more information, please visit Google Support

    • Items clicked in list
    • Items clicked in promotion
    • Items viewed
    • Items viewed in list
    • Items viewed in promotion

 

  • Another good thing to keep in mind when creating GA4 widgets is quotas. What are they? Well to explain this in the least technical way possible: Google installed quota limits to control the system from crashing if ever too much data is being pulled in at the same time. This rule applies to everyone with a website plugged into GA4 and unfortunately, there's no cheating - we just need to be patient. So, when you see a widget in DashThis displaying the message ‘’quota reached’’, this is a good example of Google saying, ‘’hey you are fetching too much data right now, we need to wait a bit'’ - but on the bright side, DashThis will tell you exactly when to come back and check your data results 😊

    If you want to know more about this, check out Google developer page on Limits and Quotas on API Requests.

 

 

If you would like to request more metrics and dimensions, please reach out to our Support Team. 

 



What's next:

Google Analytics 4 filters
Google Analytics 4 notes/limitations