A Plain-English Guide to Google Analytics Terminology

If you’re looking to understand how people interact with your website, Google Analytics is one of the most powerful tools. Its multifaceted features and data-driven dimensions are ideal for measuring your site’s performance and recognising user behaviour. This complexity can be overwhelming though and so can its vocabulary.

That’s why we’ve put together this plain-English guide to Google Analytics terminology.

This glossary breaks down the most important GA4 terms in our opinion, so you’re well equipped to interpret your data and make informed business decisions.

Here are the 16 Google Analytics terms you should know:

1. Account
2. Property
3. Data Stream
4. Source
5. Medium
6. First User
7. Session
8. New User
9. Channel Groups
10. Unassigned Traffic
11. Key Event
12. Custom Event
13. Audiences
14. Engagement Rate
15. Exploration
16. Attribution Paths

1. Account

Your Google Analytics account stores all the data for your website; you will find everything you need once you log in here. If you’re managing multiple websites, you will most likely have multiple Google Analytics accounts that store their own specific data. It’s important to note as well that accounts and their assets can be shared with multiple users too.

2. Property

Within your account, you can create and track specific properties such as a website, mobile app, or device. Using a unique tracking ID and configuration settings, you can collect data specific to each property for you to analyse. You can also combine multiple data streams into a single report for that property.

3. Data Stream

As mentioned above, a data stream collects data for each of your properties which feeds into your analytics platform. You have the ability to create multiple data streams for each property, with each having a unique measurement ID, allowing real-time tracking of interactions.

4. Source

Source is a dimension that informs you on how people found your website. It differs slightly from “medium” which is explained below but can be used in combination with this to provide even more detail. If someone found your site when searching on Google, the source of this would be “google”.

5. Medium

Medium is a dimension that informs you of the specific category of the “source” that people used to find your website. Using the example above, if the source is “google”, the medium could be “organic” for organic search, “cpc” for paid search, or “referral” for inbound links from other websites. Other mediums include “email” and “social”, so you can measure the effectiveness of your different marketing channels.

6. First User

Not only can you measure how people found your website, but you can specifically analyse how a user first found your website. It shows you their first medium and reports on the source, so you can identify how users first find you.

7. Session

A session is a period of interaction by a single user of your website; this interaction could include pageviews or key events defined by you. If the user is inactive on your site for over 30 minutes or past midnight, the session will typically end. If the user interacts after this time, a new session will be reported.

8. New User

A new user is an individual visiting your site for the first time within a specific timeframe. However, it’s important to note, that if an individual has visited your site before but visits again after clearing their cookies or using a different device, they will be reported as a new user. A returning user is an individual that’s visited your site before, even if they didn’t engage.

9. Channel Groups

Channel groups combine source and medium to categorise where users came from so you can oversee the performance of your inbound marketing without manually setting up tracking. The default channel groups are “Organic Search”, “Paid Search”, “Social”, “Email”, and “Direct”. There is also the ability to add new ones too that would be beneficial to your reporting.

10. Unassigned Traffic

As previously mentioned, sources and mediums help you identify where your website traffic has come from. However, if a user doesn’t fit into the “default channel groups”, they become unassigned. This is currently true for various AI search engines that are available to use.

Pro Tip from Max: You can create your own channel groupings in the GA admin, for example for AI search traffic or to measure marketing campaigns where you’re using UTM tags.

11. Key Event

Key events, also known as conversions, are used to track important actions that are important to your business goals. This could be contact form submissions, email newsletter signups, clicks, purchases and more. Whatever you choose to define as a key event will be reported on when a user triggers this event.

12. Custom Event

The examples of key events above are Google’s default events; however, a custom event are events defined more specifically by you. For example, if you have different contact forms on different pages of your site, you can set up custom events for specific submissions from specific pages.

13. Audiences

In your account, you can set up audiences so your reports show information specific to users’ behaviours and attributes. For example, you could have audiences for users that viewed a specific service page or set certain parameters for returning users and actions. These audiences can also be used for advertising campaigns, such as Google Ads retargeting.

14. Engagement Rate

The engagement rate metric is important to measure as it identifies how interested visitors are in your site. It’s calculated by:

Engaged Sessions ¸ Total Sessions x 100 = Engagement Rate

Engaged sessions indicate users that clicked, commented, shared your content and spent time on your site.

15. Exploration

Explorations give you an alternative way to visualise data and reports. They give you the ability to add custom combinations of metrics and dimensions to provide you with more precise reporting options. The two explorations we would recommend are:

• Funnel Exploration: This allows you to identify different specific steps in a conversion journey
• Path Exploration: This refers to a sequence of pages users visit during a session so you can recognise any trends when it comes to users converting.

16. Attribution Paths

With different users using different marketing channels to lead them towards conversion, attribution paths give credit to those that led to the conversion taking place. This way, you can see which channels are performing best.

Pro Tip from Max: Make sure you check whether you’re using data-driven attribution to see richer data throughout the conversion journey.

Google Analytics doesn’t need to feel complicated or intimidating. With a clear grasp of these GA4 terms, you can move beyond surface-level numbers and uncover insights that inform your marketing and website decisions.

This glossary is here to be a practical reference whenever you have questions or need guidance around your account. Our SEO experts are also here if you need any help when it comes to Google Analytics and can help turn your data into actionable strategy.

Want to find out what we can do for you? Take a look through our case studies or contact us today by calling 01473 934050, emailing [email protected], or leaving us a message through our website.

Written by Max Ward Head of Campaign Performance

Max is an experienced SEO Manager with over 7 years in search engine marketing, specialising in strategic planning, performance analysis and ongoing optimisation. He has successfully led a wide range of SEO projects across various sectors, consistently driving improvements in organic visibility, website traffic and user engagement. Max combines a strong technical foundation with a deep understanding of content strategy and user behaviour.

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