Product metrics – traffic [overview]

The guest author of the list is Michał Witkowski – Product analyst, team builder, psychologist, researcher. Since 2010, he has been dealing with the measurement and analysis of human behaviour, first at the university and then in business.

Active users

The number of users who performed any action on the product at the selected time. Usually reported by day, week and month. Activity is best defined as any action in the product (click, scroll, turning on the application, etc.). Avoid defining activity as using the product in a specific way (e.g. a user who has read at least one email in a given period of time is active).

Active accounts

Number of accounts on which at least one user was active in the selected period of time. The usual time periods are day, week and month. Activity is best defined as any action in the product (click, scroll, turning on the application, etc.). There are products that define activity as using a product in a certain way (e.g. in an email service there is an active user who has read at least one email in a given period). Such a definition should be avoided.

Paying users

Number of users who have made any payment on the product during the selected time period. In the case of subscription applications, it is more of a financial metric – users who had access to a paid subscription in a given period of time, did not necessarily use it. In subscription products, the number of payers may be greater than the number of active users.

Paying accounts

Number of accounts with paid subscription in the selected period of time. Usable almost exclusively for SaaS business applications.

DAU – Daily Active Users

Number of active users on the selected day. Activity in DAU should be defined as any action in the product (click, scroll, application activation).

MAU – Monthly Active Users

Number of active users in the selected month. A month is defined as 28 or 30 days, not a calendar month, to avoid problems with different lengths of months. Activity is any action in the product (click, scroll, turning on the application).

New users

The number of users who performed any activity in the product for the first time in the selected period. New users are most often reported by day (current chart, day by day) or by month/quarter (tables with monthly or quarterly results).

Churned users

The number of users who have left the product in the selected period. For subscription products, the number of users in their accounts that stopped paying during the selected period. For non-subscription products – the number of users who have not performed any activity for the last N days. Usually N = 28, but a different number of days can be selected.

Reactivated users

The number of users who returned to the product after leaving it previously. Other names are returning users and revived users. Returning users are most often reported by day (current chart, day by day) or by month/quarter (tables with monthly or quarterly results).

Users balance

A metric that easily shows whether the number of active users is increasing or decreasing.

New users + reactivated users – churned users

Bounce rate

There are many definitions of reflection. The most common is to display the page without taking any action. The time criterion (e.g. less than 5s spent on the page) or related to the activity defined as meaningful (e.g. scrolling beyond the headline of the text being read) is also typical. Mainly useful in website analysis (e.g. shop or portal).

Bounce rate = users who did not perform any action after entering the site / all active users

App installs

The number of users who installed the application for the first time in the selected period. Important supplement to the New users metric for mobile products that require prior installation (mobile products and some desktop products). Do not use it as a replacement for New users: installation is not product use.