GA4: User Acquisition vs. Sessions

The reports in Google Analytics 4 can be confusing. Take, for example, acquisition reports — the channels sending traffic to your site — at Reports > Acquisition. The section lists two types of acquisition: user and traffic (i.e., sessions).

I’ll address those reports in this post.

Traffic Sources in GA4

“User  acquisition” vs. “Traffic acquisition”

These two reports in the Acquisition section disclose where each visitor came from. User acquisition represents the initial source that brought the person to your site. Traffic acquisition is the most recent.

Say a first-time visitor came to your site from clicking an organic search listing. GA4 will group that initial visit in the “Organic search” channel for both reports. But if she leaves and returns a few days later from a Facebook ad, GA4 will list the second visit in the “Paid social” channel in the “Traffic acquisition” report and “Organic search” in “User acquisition.”

In other words, the “Traffic acquisition” report doesn’t differentiate between new and returning users. It shows the total sessions and where each originated. The “User acquisition” report shows the total users and their initial (first-time) source.

Channels

Both reports show “default channel groups” — traffic-source categories — including:

• “Direct.” Visitors who typed your URL in their browser’s search bar.
• “Organic Search.” Visitors who clicked an organic listing on Google, Bing. or another search engine.
• “Organic Social.” Visitors who clicked an organic post on a social media site.
• “Email.”
• “Paid Search.”
• “Paid Social.”
• “Referral.” Visitors who clicked non-ad links on third-party sites.
• “Organic Video.” Visitors who clicked non-ad links on sites such as YouTube, TikTok, and Vimeo.

For details on each channel, click the drop-down menus on each report. In “User Acquisition,” click the “First user default channel group” menu and select “First user source” for the list of originating domains.

For detailed sources of users, click the “First user default channel group” menu and select “First user source.” Click image to enlarge.

In the “Traffic Acquisition” report, click “Session default channel group” and select “Session source.”

For detailed sources of sessions, click the “Session default channel group” menu and select “Session source.” Click image to enlarge.

The numbers may be different owing to new versus returning visits.

You can limit both reports to a single page via the “Add filter” option at the top.

• Select “Add filter.”
• Click “Select dimensions.”
• Select “Landing page + query string”
• Select “contains” below “Match type.”
• Paste your page’s URL slug (the part after the “/”) or any word (such as “smaller”) from that URL.

The traffic and user acquisition reports will now show data for that URL.

Limit the acquisition reports to a single page, such as this example for a URL containing “smaller.” Click image to enlarge.

In many cases, the user and traffic acquisition reports are interchangeable. The differences, again, result from returning visitors. Regardless, the reports show the sources of traffic — channels that introduce your brand and drive return visits.

Charts: Ecommerce in the U.K.

Insider Intelligence projects U.K. ecommerce retail sales to decrease in 2023 by 0.6%, leading to a reduced share of total retail sales at 32.0%. This is a decline from its peak of 37.6% in 2021.

–

Amazon.co.uk secured the top U.K. ecommerce position in 2022 with net sales of $15.36 billion, followed by Sainsburys.co.uk at $7.59 billion. Tesco.com claimed the third spot with net sales of $7.16 billion.

That’s according to Statista, which defines ecommerce as the sale of physical goods via a digital channel to a private end user.

–

Per Insider Intelligence (formerly eMarketer), China will remain the world’s largest ecommerce market in 2023, followed by the U.S. The U.K. will finish third with total annual ecommerce revenue in 2023 of $196 billion.

–

According to Semrush, in September 2023, Amazon.co.uk was the most trafficked retail site in the United Kingdom, with nearly 412.93 million monthly visits. Ebay.co.uk secured second with 176.08 million, while Argos.co.uk drew 43.45 million visits.

Brand Metrics for Ecommerce Companies

Brand metrics describe how shoppers feel about a business and its products.

Brand metrics are often predictive, indicating how likely shoppers will purchase, and prescriptive, defining the features to emphasize and promote.

What marketers learn from brand metrics could impact content marketing, search engine optimization, advertising, and even personalization on a store’s website or in email and text messages.

What Are Brand Metrics?

Brand metrics are measurements — quantitative and qualitative assessments allowing marketers to track and analyze a brand’s performance, strength, and perception over time.

These metrics offer insights into brand awareness, loyalty, and overall brand health relative to the company’s target audience and the broader market.

For the most part, brand metrics are subjective indicators of potential performance based on what shoppers say they believe or what they say they will do.

The metrics often include:

• Brand awareness. Measures the percentage of a target market that is familiar with a brand. A relatively high level of brand awareness can be a competitive advantage and is frequently the first step in the buyer’s journey. Brand recall, recognition, and share of voice are related metrics.

• Brand equity. The value that a brand adds to a product. It is why some folks pay more for an iPhone. Brand equity is often gauged in terms of buyer perceptions and associations.

• Brand loyalty. Assesses the likelihood that customers will repeatedly purchase a brand’s products regardless of whether it is a retailer or direct-to-consumer business. Loyalty indicates a stable customer base and can forecast sales. High brand loyalty often reduces marketing costs.

• Brand consistency. Measures how uniformly a brand presents itself across channels and touchpoints. Marketers can use this measurement to ensure shoppers receive a consistent brand experience, which, in turn, can reinforce brand identity and trust.

• Shopper satisfaction. Evaluates how happy customers are with a brand’s products or services. Often, this metric is associated with a Net Promoter Score.

• Purchase intent. Gauges the likelihood that a shopper will buy a brand’s product. This metric helps forecast sales.

Brand metrics often derive from surveys and conjoint analysis, where respondents consider multiple features jointly.

How to Use Brand Metrics

In general, brand-related measures provide three types of insights:

• Familiarity,
• Perception,
• Investment.

Consumers familiar with a store or product are relatively easier to convert into customers. Thus boosting brand awareness can lead to lower customer acquisition costs.

Moreover, shoppers familiar with a product or brand often have favorite features. Thus, familiarity with a product or brand can lead to relatively more personalized messaging.

Perception metrics tell marketers if their brand adds value to the selling proposition. Shoppers might pay more for a product from a store they trust. This is common with Amazon. Shoppers would rather purchase a product from Amazon because they believe the company will deliver quickly, manage returns well, and ultimately stand with the shopper if there is a problem.

Measures of investment indicate the likelihood of a purchase. Shoppers likely to buy could respond to unique, specialized marketing campaigns versus those with low intent.

Integrating these insights into marketing decisions ensures a more targeted approach.

Imagine, for example, a DTC business specializing in bar and cocktail products. If it has high brand loyalty — meaning its customers love the brand — the company could run a refer-a-friend campaign. But a similar campaign for a lesser-known brand would not likely work since shoppers would presumably not recommend an unfamiliar product.

A company with loads of brand loyalty could try a refer-a-friend campaign.

Measurement Frameworks

Brand measures, while indicative, complement a broader marketing framework.

For example, the Data & Marketing Association in the U.K. released a comprehensive marketing measurement framework that encourages using brand metrics with other performance indicators.

Such frameworks are not a rote way to measure every promotion but rather a method for developing campaign measurements wherein brand metrics play a role.