{"id":33612,"date":"2017-10-25T01:44:25","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T06:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crazyeggblog.wpengine.com\/?p=33612"},"modified":"2026-01-06T15:14:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T23:14:49","slug":"misunderstood-metrics-google-analytics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crazyegg.com\/blog\/misunderstood-metrics-google-analytics\/","title":{"rendered":"The Six Most Misunderstood Metrics in Google Analytics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google Analytics (GA) is capable of generating incredibly detailed and comprehensive data. It provides the insights needed to fine-tune your site, reduce UX friction and ultimately maximize conversions.
\n<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a catch. It\u2019s only effective if you actually know how to interpret the data. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, not all users fully understand the core metrics, and there\u2019s uncertainty as to how to decipher them. <\/p>\n

Here, we\u2019ll take a look at six of the most misunderstood metrics in GA to find out what the data means and how to apply it in order to optimize your site. <\/p>\n

1. Direct Traffic<\/h2>\n

At first glance, direct traffic seems pretty straightforward. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s usually one of two scenarios. It\u2019s either the result of a user manually entering your domain name directly or using a bookmark to access your site. \u00a0<\/p>\n

This wraps direct traffic up into a neat and tidy little package. <\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a lot more to it than that. <\/p>\n

When you get right down to it, Google attributes direct sessions any time it can\u2019t name another referrer. <\/p>\n

Or as Search Engine Land<\/a> puts it, \u201cOften traffic considered \u2018Direct\u2019 really means, \u2018we have no clue where it came from, maybe they typed the URL in or hit a bookmark.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s basically a last resort. <\/p>\n

And as Megalytic points out<\/a>, there can be a variety of scenarios:<\/p>\n

\"clicking<\/p>\n

Technically, any users who are unknown or undefined get lumped into direct traffic, which can make the data very misleading. \u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to keep this in mind and understand that direct traffic can go way beyond users manually entering your domain or accessing your site through a bookmark. <\/p>\n

What Are the Implications?<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s easy to see why GA users can be a little confused about direct traffic. The data can be inherently deceptive.<\/p>\n

So what does direct traffic really mean<\/i>?<\/p>\n

When you boil it all down, having a high volume of direct traffic tends to correlate into brand awareness. If a sizable percentage of visitors are reaching your site directly, it means that they\u2019re already aware of your brand. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s no need for these visitors to find you via search, a referring site, social media, etc. because they already know about your brand. <\/p>\n

Now, of course, there\u2019s always the \u201cwe have no clue where they came from\u201d factor on GA\u2019s end where it simply can\u2019t identify a referrer. <\/p>\n

But generally speaking, a spike in direct traffic typically means that your brand awareness is growing. <\/p>\n

A Quick Comparison<\/h3>\n

Let\u2019s take a look at the traffic breakdown of two random brands. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s brand A:<\/p>\n

\"traffic<\/p>\n

A grand total of 34.98 percent of their traffic is direct, which exceeds referral traffic, search traffic, social and so on. <\/p>\n

This is an indicator of solid brand awareness since the majority of visitors are accessing their site directly. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s brand B:<\/p>\n

\"traffic<\/p>\n

With 26.89 percent of their traffic being direct, it\u2019s solid but probably doesn\u2019t have the level of brand awareness that brand A has. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Accessing Your Direct Traffic<\/h3>\n

For a quick breakdown, click on \u201cAcquisition\u201d from your GA dashboard. <\/p>\n

\"acquisition\"<\/p>\n

Then click on \u201cOverview.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"aquisition<\/p>\n

Now you can see how your direct traffic stacks up against your other sources in a pie graph\u2026<\/p>\n

\"top<\/p>\n

as well the specific session numbers. <\/p>\n

\"direct<\/p>\n

This should provide intel on where your brand awareness is currently at.<\/p>\n

A high volume of direct traffic indicates that your brand searches are doing well, and a significant percent of your visitors already know about your brand. <\/p>\n

This is important because it means one thing – you\u2019re not overly reliant on Google for traffic. In turn, your traffic is less likely to be adversely affected the next time Google inevitably releases a new algorithm update. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s an inherent level of stability to your traffic, leads and ultimately conversions. \u00a0<\/p>\n

2. Behavior Flow<\/h2>\n

First viewing the behavior flow chart can leave GA users scratching their heads.<\/p>\n

\"behavior<\/p>\n

What does it all mean?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the formal definition that Google provides:<\/p>\n

\"about<\/p>\n

In other words, behavior flow marks the path visitors take and shows which pages they\u2019re looking after arriving on the initial landing page. <\/p>\n

It offers insight into how visitors are exploring your site and if any particular pages are resulting in site abandonment. This, of course, is crucial for understanding the overarching UX and what the average person\u2019s journey is like. <\/p>\n

By analyzing behavior flow, you\u2019ll be able to determine which content\/pages are receiving the most engagement and any potential content issues you may need to address. <\/p>\n

To access this feature, click on \u201cBehavior\u201d from your GA dashboard.<\/p>\n

\"home<\/p>\n

Then click on \u201cBehavior Flow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"behavior<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll see something that looks like this:<\/p>\n

\"behavior<\/p>\n

It begins by first looking at \u201cStarting pages.\u201d This is where visitors are first landing on your site.<\/p>\n

\"behavior<\/p>\n

You can follow their journey by looking at \u201c1st interaction,\u201d which is the next page they click on.<\/p>\n

\"behavior<\/p>\n

Pay attention to the connecting lines to see precisely which pages visitors are clicking on from the starting pages.<\/p>\n

\"behavior<\/p>\n

You can then tell where visitors are heading to after that by looking at \u201c2nd interaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"behavior<\/p>\n

This will give you a clear idea of the path visitors are taking. <\/p>\n

You\u2019ll also want to pay attention to the number of drop-offs that are occurring on each page, which can be done by hovering over the red area on the right-hand side of each page.<\/p>\n

\"behavior<\/p>\n

The red areas indicate the percentage of people that are \u201cdropping-off\u201d (leaving your site) in this step of the funnel. The thicker the red section is, the more people are dropping off.<\/p>\n

If you notice that there\u2019s a higher drop off on a particular page, then it likely has issues you\u2019ll need to address. These are the areas that can use improvement, and most deserve your attention. <\/p>\n

What you\u2019ll want to do is examine the pages with high drop-off and determine what potential obstacles are getting in the way and preventing them from completing the desired action (e.g., making a purchase). <\/p>\n

Maybe you need to place a link or CTA in a more conspicuous location. Or maybe there\u2019s excessive content to the point that it\u2019s distracting visitors from clicking on the link or CTA. \u00a0<\/p>\n

You may even want to consider removing pages that have a high drop-off rate and aren\u2019t directly contributing to your goals. The friction they create may simply mean that they\u2019re more trouble than they\u2019re worth. \u00a0<\/p>\n

It may take a little bit of detective work, but behavior flow should help you figure out what\u2019s preventing visitors from moving fluidly through your sales funnel. From there, you can make the necessary adjustments. <\/p>\n

3. Active Users<\/h2>\n

This metric is somewhat misleading. When hearing the term \u201cactive users,\u201d many people assume that this refers to visitors that are on your site right now.<\/p>\n

But this simply isn\u2019t the case. Visitors that are on your site right now are referred to as \u201creal-time users\u201d and that\u2019s a different metric entirely. <\/p>\n

Before we dive into the details, here\u2019s how to access this metric. <\/p>\n

First click on \u201cAudience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"audience<\/p>\n

Then click \u201cActive Users.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"active<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll see something that looks like this:<\/p>\n

\"1<\/p>\n

Right away, you\u2019ll notice that active users are broken down into 1 day, 7 day, 14 day and 30 day active users.<\/p>\n

\"1<\/p>\n

But what exactly does this mean?<\/p>\n

By examining the various timeframes, you can determine how many users visited your site during that particular period.<\/p>\n

\u201c1 Day Active Users\u201d are the users who visited your site during the last day, \u201c7 Day Active Users\u201d are the users who visited your site during the last seven days, etc. <\/p>\n

So from this report, we could tell that 1,924 people visited the site over the course of one day, 14,810 visited the site over the course of seven days and so on. This is valuable information to have because you can make comparisons based on different time periods. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a simple example of how you could use this metric. Let\u2019s say that wrote a guest post in hopes of bringing in a high volume of referral traffic, gaining exposure and strengthening your brand. <\/p>\n

You could examine the data from active users to determine how much traffic you generated in the subsequent period of time after the post was published. <\/p>\n

All you have to do is click on \u201c7 Day Active Users,\u201d \u201c14 Day Active Users\u201d and so on to plot them on the chart. Then compare the data with \u201c1 Day Active Users\u201d with a longer range of time. <\/p>\n

If you notice that 7 Day, 14 Day and 30 Day active users have increased substantially, then the guest post was successful. If there was no noticeable increase, then it only had a minimal impact. <\/p>\n

This makes active users a great feature for determining how effective a particular promotion was, how much attention a guest post brought your brand, etc. <\/p>\n

4. Benchmarking<\/h2>\n

The chart GA displays can be overwhelming in and of itself. Users see a hodgepodge of green and red boxes along with a myriad of numbers.<\/p>\n

\"Default<\/p>\n

What the?<\/p>\n

At its simplest, benchmarking provides you with data to determine how your business stacks up against similar competitors. <\/p>\n

To access this metric, click on \u201cAudience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"reports<\/p>\n

Then \u201cBenchmarking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"select<\/p>\n

GA will then display a rough overview of your data.<\/p>\n

Making sense of the data requires you to examine the individual data points to see how your site compares against similar competitors.<\/p>\n

Or as Google puts it:<\/p>\n

\"Google<\/p>\n

From there, it\u2019s a matter of examining the data. Luckily, Google makes it pretty simple. <\/p>\n

Green shows where you\u2019re outperforming competitors and red shows where you\u2019re underperforming. Looking at the individual boxes will provide more detail on the specifics.<\/p>\n

\"Default<\/p>\n

You can tell how your performance compares by channel, location and device. <\/p>\n

Just click one of these three options under \u201cBenchmarking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"benchmarking<\/p>\n

Also note that you can specify your industry vertical, country\/region and class size (the number of daily sessions you receive).<\/p>\n

\"select<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re wondering how your site fares, benchmarking can provide some real clarity. It will also bring any potential issues to your attention so you\u2019ll know where to put your attention moving forward. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an example using this particular report:<\/p>\n

\"Default<\/p>\n

By looking at this report, we can quickly deduce that email and direct traffic are outperforming similar competitors. Email, in particular, is crushing it. <\/p>\n

\"default<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s good. Keep it up.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the rest of the traffic channels are underperforming when compared to similar competitors. <\/p>\n

\"default<\/p>\n

This report lets us know that organic search, display, paid search, etc. are all lagging behind and could use some improvement. Therefore, you would want to prioritize which traffic sources are most important and focus on the appropriate marketing channels.<\/p>\n

For instance, if organic search traffic were a top priority, you would want to focus on improving SEO and give that the bulk of your attention. \u00a0<\/p>\n

By analyzing the data from benchmarking reports, you should inevitably have a better, more well-rounded marketing campaign where no critical areas are lacking. <\/p>\n

5. Bounce Rate<\/h2>\n

Finding your bounce rate is easy. Just click on \u201cAudience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"audience<\/p>\n

Then on \u201cOverview.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"audience<\/p>\n

Bounce rate will be displayed along with other data like sessions, users, pageviews, etc.<\/p>\n

\"bounce<\/p>\n

Most of us know what bounce rate means, but if you need some refreshing, Google defines it as:<\/p>\n

\"about<\/p>\n

In other words, it\u2019s the percentage of visitors who land on a single page but fail to explore any additional content on your site. They enter and they exit. That\u2019s all. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s no real engagement happening. The higher the bounce rate, the fewer people are exploring your site. <\/p>\n

So in most cases, this is considered as a bad thing. It means visitors aren\u2019t checking out additional content, signing up for your newsletter, learning about your brand, etc. <\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not always bad<\/i>. <\/p>\n

The exception is when a single page session is expected. For instance, when your goal is to get visitors to a single page, extract the necessary information and leave. In that case, a high bounce rate would be fine. <\/p>\n

So it\u2019s important to slash through the misconception that a bounce rate is always bad<\/i>. <\/p>\n

However, in the majority of cases, it\u2019s not desirable. <\/p>\n

And this begs the question. What\u2019s a reasonable bounce rate?<\/p>\n

To answer this question, it\u2019s helpful to look at some data provided by Rocket Fuel<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"number<\/p>\n

According to them:<\/p>\n