Every analytics platform tracks data and events in slightly different ways. This article explains how each of the key metrics in our Analytics Dashboard is calculated.
Unique Visitors
We track users with a unique user token stored as a first-party cookie in the user's browser. The cookie (and user token) will be cleared if the user clears their browser cookies or does not visit a Ceros experience for 1 year. The user token is specific to the user and the root domain of the experience (e.g. ceros.com) and is not experience-specific. If a vanity domain is used to access the experience, the cookie will be specific to the root of the vanity domain.
Smartphone vs. Tablet vs. Desktop Visits
A single user viewing an experience from a combination of smartphone, desktop, or tablet devices will each count as a unique visitor because each device will have different user tokens.
Disabled Cookies
If a user has cookies disabled, they will be treated as a new visitor each time they open an experience. However, all events logged during the session will be associated with the user token that was generated when the experience was opened.
Viewing Analytics Data
Data Freshness
- Data will be viewable in the Analytics Dashboard within a few seconds of an event being generated in a visitor’s browser.
- The data in the Analytics Dashboard is automatically refreshed every 10 seconds.
Dates
Analytics can be viewed from any date range between the first publication date and the current date.
- Filter dates are inclusive, meaning data logged between the start of the start date and the end of the end date will be included in the results.
- Filter dates and daily reports currently use Eastern Time (ET). Additional time zone selections will be added in the near future.
Basic KPIs
See specific sections for more info on each metric.
- Total Visitors: Number of unique visitors that view an experience over the selected time period.
- Total Opens: Total number of times an experience is launched in a new browser window over the selected time period.
- Total Page Views: Total number of times a page is looked at over the selected time period.
- Average Visitors Per Day: Total Visitors / Number of Days.
- Average Opens Per Day: Total Experience Opens / Number of Days.
- Average Page Views Per Day: Total Page Views / Number of Days.
Visitors
We define a visitor as a unique viewing user of an experience. A user who visits an experience multiple times is still considered to be a single unique visitor.
Average Visitors Per Day
The number of visitors that have viewed an experience/number of days in the date range. By selecting a specific date range for the lifetime of your experience, you can view an accurate depiction of how many users visited your experience on average each day.
Total Visitors
The number of unique visitors that view an experience between the selected start and end dates. Each unique visitor will only be counted once in this calculation. Note that the sum of the Visitors Per Day totals may not equal this value.
Visitors By Device
Breakdown of the specific devices used to view the experience for each visitor. All non-device visitors will be added to the Desktop category. The top 10 devices are displayed with the sum of the remaining categories grouped in an ‘Other’ category.
- Total: Total unique visitors that viewed the experience with a specific device.
- Percent (%): Percentage of all visitors that viewed the experience with a specific device.
Visitors By Device Type
Breakdown of the general type of device (Desktop vs. Smartphone vs. Tablet) used to view an experience for each visitor. All non-device visitors are grouped in the Desktop category.
- Total: Total unique visitors who view the experience from a specific device type
- Percent (%): Percentage of all visitors who view the experience from a specific device type.
Visitors By Browser
Breakdown of the specific web browser used to view the experience for each visitor. The top 10 browsers are displayed with the sum of the remaining categories grouped in an 'Other' category.
- Total: Total unique visitors who view an experience on a specific browser.
- Percent (%): Percentage of all visitors who view an experience on a specific browser.
Visitors By Country
Breakdown of the visitor’s country of origin. The top 10 countries are displayed and the sum of the remaining categories is grouped within the Other category.
- Total: Total unique visitors who view the experience from a specific country.
- Percent (%): Percentage of all visitors who view the experience from a specific country.
Opens
An experience 'open' is recorded when the experience is loaded into a user’s browser. It can be thought of as a session. If a user refreshes their browser, the experience will reload and a new ‘open’ event will be recorded.
Opens By Day
The number of times the experience was opened each day. If a user loads the experience multiple times in a single day, each load will count as an ‘open’.
Total Opens
The total number of experience 'opens' between the selected start and end dates.
Average Opens Per Day
Computed as Total Opens / Number of Days.
Page Views
A 'Page View' is recorded when a user views a single page of an experience. A Page View is recorded when the experience is initially opened (when viewing the first page). If a user navigates from page 1 to page 2 and then back to page 1, 3 page views will be recorded.
Page Views By Day
The number of times a single page was viewed each day.
Total Page Views
The total number of page views recorded between the selected start and end dates.
Average Page Views Per Day
Computed as Total Page Views / Number of Days.
Page Views By Page
The following metrics are computed for each page:
- Total Page Views: Total page views for a specific page.
- Percentage of Total Page Views: Percentage of all page views recorded for this page (i.e. number of page views for the page divided by the total number of page views across all pages).
Visitors by Page
This metric is the number of unique visitors who view each page of an experience. If a visitor views the same page on multiple days, they will only be counted as a single visitor to the page.
Total Visitors
The total visitors who open an experience (and view any page) over the time period.
Average Visitors Per Day
Computed as Total Visitors / Number of Days.
Visitors By Page
- Total Visitors: Total Visitors to visit the specific page over the selected time period.
- Percentage of All Visitors: Total Visitors (for page) / Total Visitors (overall)
- Percentage Difference: The +/- % column shows the percent difference of page visitors between the current and the previous page.
Inbound Referrals
Inbound referrals show how visitors are navigating to an experience by URL domain. For example, if a user navigates to an experience from a Google search results page, the referring domain would be www.google.com. The referring URL would be the full URL of the Google search results page. If a user navigates directly to an experience either from a bookmark or by typing the experience URL, no referrer information will be logged and these referrals will be displayed as direct.
Note: If you’re looking at analytics for an embedded experience, the recorded Inbound Referral data will not be very useful, as it will point to the host page as the referrer. Instead, you should look at the referral data from the container/parent page in your Google Analytics account or any other analytics platform you are using.
Referring Domains
The top 10 inbound referral domains are displayed with the sum of the remaining domains grouped within an ‘Other’ category.
- Domain: The domain of the page the user navigated from to view the experience.
- Total: Total visitors who navigate to the experience from a specific domain.
- Percent (%): Percentage of all visitors who navigate to the experience from a specific domain.
Referring URLs
The top 10 inbound referral URLs are displayed with the sum of the remaining URLs grouped within an 'Other' category.
- Domain: The domain of the page that the user navigated from to view the experience.
- Total: Total visitors who navigate to the experience from a specific URL.
- Percent (%): Percentage of all visitors who navigate to the experience from a specific URL.
Engagement KPIs
See the individual sections for more info on each metric.
- Total Time Spent for All Visitors: Total time spent by all users on all pages.
- Average Time Spent By a Visitor: Total Time Spent / Total Visitors.
- Average Time Spent on a Page: Total Time Spent / Total Page Views.
- Total Shares: Number of times a user clicked a link to share the experience on a social network.
- Total Interaction Clicks: Number of times a user clicked a component with an ‘on click’ interaction.
- Total Video Plays: Number of times a video started playing.
- % of Visitors Shared Socially: Percentage of all visitors who click on a sharing link.
- % of Visitors Clicked an Action: Percentage of all visitors who click on at least one component with an ‘on click’ interaction.
- % of Visitors Played a Video: Percentage of users to start playing a video.
- Total Outbound Link Clicks: Number of times a user clicked a component with an "On Click -> Go to URL" interaction applied to it.
- % of Visitors Clicked an Outbound Link: Percentage of the total visitors to click on an outbound link.
Time Spent
Time spent (e.g. page dwell) is tracked differently before and after April 1, 2016.
- We track the user view time in 5s increments while the user interacts with the page.
- Interactions include clicking, scrolling, and video playing. Note that this does NOT include videos with the ‘Loop Forever’ option checked.
- If a user has not interacted with the page for 30 seconds, we stop accumulating dwell time for the user. If the user resumes interaction with the page, tracking will resume.
- We stop tracking immediately if the page is hidden in a tab or is not the window in focus. Likewise, we resume tracking when the tab or window has focus again.
Time Spent by Day
The total time spent on all pages of the experience each day.
Total Time Spent for All Visitors
Total time spent time on all pages over the time period.
Average Time Spent by a Visitor
The average amount of time visitors view the Experience. This metric is calculated as the Total Time Spent for All Visitors / Total Visitors.
Average Time Spent on a Page
The average amount of time visitors spend during each page view. This metric is calculated as the Total Time Spent For All Visitors / Total Page Views.
By Page Breakdown
- Average Time Spent: Average time spent on the page per page visitor (e.g., the total time spent on a page/number of page visitors).
- Total Time Spent: Total time spent on the page across all visitors.
Social Shares
Social shares are recorded when a visitor clicks one of the preset social sharing options in the header menu of an experience. Shares are also recorded when a user clicks a component with a sharing interaction assigned.
Note: We only track whether the user clicked the sharing links. We do not track whether a user actually shared the experience.
Social Shares by Day
The number of times a social sharing link was clicked each day.
Total Shares
The total number of times a sharing link was clicked.
Shared Through
A breakdown of sharing clicks by social platform.
- Shares: Number of times a user clicked a sharing link in an experience.
- Percent % of Total: Number clicks on a specific social share / total number of sharing link clicks.
- Shared by: Number of unique visitors to click a sharing link.
- Share Rate: Percentage of visitors to click a link to a specific social platform.
Interaction Clicks
Interactions clicks are recorded when a visitor clicks a page component that has an ‘on click’ interaction.
Interaction Clicks by Day
The number of times an interaction link was clicked each day.
Total Interaction Clicks
Total number of times an interaction link was clicked over the time period
Interaction Clicks by Page
- Page Number: Page number of the experience. Pages with no interaction clicks will be omitted.
- Interaction Clicks: Number of interaction clicks on the page.
- Percent % of Total: Percentage of all the interaction clicks that occurred on this page (i.e. interaction clicks on the page / total interaction clicks across all pages).
- Clicked by: Number of unique visitors who click an interaction link on the page.
- Click Rate: Percentage of visitors who click an interaction link on the page.
Interaction Clicks by Object
A breakdown of clicks per interaction link. The top 100 interaction click objects will be displayed with the sum of the remaining interaction links grouped within the Other category.
- Object Name: The name of the component (set in the Studio).
- Page: Number of the page that contains the object.
- Clicks: Number of clicks of the interaction link.
- Clicked by: Number of unique visitors to click the interaction link.
- Click Rate: Percentage of visitors to click the interaction link.
Video Engagement
A Video Play is recorded when the video plays initially either by automatic or user-initiated play. The play event is only triggered once per video per session.
- If a user stops/starts playback, manually scrubs to a different spot in the video, or switches pages, no additional play events will be recorded.
- If the user refreshes the browser, a new session will be started.
- If ‘Loop Forever’ is enabled within your video's settings, video engagement data will not be recorded.
Video Plays by Day
The number of times a video was played by day.
Total Video Plays
The total number of times a video was played.
Video Plays per Video
A breakdown of video plays per video. The top 50 videos will be included with the sum of the remaining video plays grouped within the Other category.
- Video: Original filename of the video when it was added to the studio canvas. If a video appears multiple times throughout the experience, there will be a separate row for each instance.
- Plays: Number of times the video was played.
- Played by: Number of unique visitors to play the video.
- Average Consumption: Average consumption percentage by unique visitors. Note: This will not be calculated if 'Loop Forever' is enabled.
- Completed by: Number of unique visitors who have viewed at least 90% of the video. Note: This will not be calculated if 'Loop Forever' is enabled.
Outbound Link Clicks
Outbound links are a special on-click interaction link with a target that redirects the user to a page outside of the experience (targeted with a "Go to URL" interaction). Clicks on these links will also appear in the Interaction Clicks analytics data.
Outbound Link Clicks by Day
The number of times an outbound link was clicked by day.
Total Clicks
The total number of times an outbound link was clicked.
Outbound Link Clicks by Page
The top 50 URLs will be included with the sum of the remaining outbound link clicks grouped within the Other category.
- Outbound Link URL: The URL of the outbound link interaction. If an outbound link URL occurs multiple times in the Experience, the total click count will be aggregated together in a single row.
- Clicks: Number of outbound link clicks for the URL.
- Percent % of Total: Percentage of all clicks that occurred for this outbound link (i.e. outbound link clicks for the URL / total clicks across all outbound links).
- Clicked by: Number of unique visitors to click an outbound link for the URL.
- Click Rate: Percentage of visitors to click an outbound link for the URL.