Understanding the User Explorer Reports in Google Analytics
Google has been announcing some exciting new additions to the google analytics platform this year. The latest addition to the analytics platform is the much awaited feature: User Explorer. This feature allows the users to anonymously analyze the actions of visitors on the website. This new addition allows us to develop a deeper understanding of the kind of actions which would lead to a conversion and make necessary changes on the website to improve conversions rates. This report can be accessed in the Audience section of Google Analytics.
Google Analytics has introduced a new dimension called ‘Client ID’ which is assigned to each user. This is set by the ga cookie and recorded in google analytics. It is combination of a unique random number and the timestamp of first visit of the user. The user explorer report shows the engagement data like bounce rate, session duration and number of sessions along with the ecommerce revenue and conversion rate.
This Client ID is different from the User ID feature which was previously enabled in the google analytics platform. The main difference between the User ID and Client ID is that, while Client ID is auto generated by google analytics, User ID should be generated by us and passed on to the GA system. The User ID is generally generated when a user logins to the account. This allows you to track the activity of users across various devices once they login to the website or application.
Further details about user listed in the User Explorer report can be accessed by clicking on the Client ID. Once you click on the Client ID you can find detailed information about all the website interactions by the user. You can get the details like Acquisition Date, Acquisition Channel and Device. You can also look at the number of sessions generated by the user, the pages visited during each session, traffic source used to visit the website in each session, events completed and the conversions as per the goals defined.
This data can help us a long way in developing a deeper understanding about your website visitors and how the highly converting traffic interacts with your website. You can use these details to create and track high converting user segments and make necessary changes to increase conversions.
