Google Analytics provides invaluable insights on user behavior, traffic sources and overall website performance. Google Analytics’ session is one of its key metrics. This metric measures the user’s interactions with your website during a specified period. To interpret your data correctly, you must know when a’session’ begins and ends. This article explores the concept and default settings for session timeouts in Google Analytics. It will also show you how to customize them.
What is Google Analytics’ Session?
Google Analytics sessions are a set of interactions between users and your website over a certain period of time. These interactions could include pageviews, events, transaction, or other engagements tracked by Analytics. Imagine a session is a visit to your website, which includes all actions that a user performs during the visit.
Example:
- A user arrives on your home page, browses through several products, places an item in the shopping cart and makes a purchase. All these actions can be tracked in one session as long as the user doesn’t leave or stop using the site.
Sessions are important because they can help you determine user engagement and activity. The total number can show how popular a website is, as well as how often visitors return to your content.
When Does a Session Finish by Default
Google Analytics terminates a session by default if it meets two primary conditions.
- 30 minutes of Inactivity When a user has been inactive for 30 mins, the session will be automatically ended. Google Analytics counts a session as complete if you do not receive any interaction from a user for a period of 30 minutes. This includes no page views, scrolling or clicking. If the user continues to interact with your site after this time, a new Google Analytics session will start.
Example:
- An article is read on your blog by a user for 20 minutes. After that, the user continues to browse through your website. This activity continues within the session.
- The session is terminated if the browser remains idle for 30 minutes or more. Any further actions will start a fresh session.
- At Midnight Crossing the Day Boundary
Session also ends at midnight, irrespective of the activity. Google Analytics records separate sessions for every day if an individual visits your site after 11:59 pm and continues browsing.Example:
- The user shops in your ecommerce store from 11:50 pm to 12:10 am. Analytics will track interactions between 11:50 and 11:59 pm as one session, and activities after 12:00 am as a second session.
- Campaign Source Modification
When the traffic source (campaigns), changes during a browsing sessions, a new browser session starts. Two different sessions will be created, for instance, if the user first arrives on your website via an email (campaign A), and then clicks on PPC ads (campaigns B).
Customizing the Session Timeout Setting
For most websites, the default session timeout is 30 minutes. You may want to change the default session timeout period depending on how your website is used and its nature.
How to Customize the Session Timeout
- Login to Google Analytics
Open your account, and then select the property. - Click on Admin Settings
Click on “Property Settings”. Then, navigate to the “Admin Section” and click “Tracking Info.” - Change Session settings
In “Session Settings,” the timeout can be increased to a maximum 4 hours, or reduced to 1 minute. This feature can be particularly useful on websites where users are often inactive over long periods. For example, blogs and learning platforms.Example:
- In an online learning platform, the extension of the session timeout up to 1 hour prevents students from being marked inactive before they have finished reading their course materials.
- Save changes
Click “Save”, to apply the new session settings.
Factors to consider when adjusting the timeout setting
It may seem like an excellent idea to customize the session timeout, but it is important to strike a balanced between your website goals and user behavior.
- Shorter Timeouts
Use shorter timeouts (5-10 minute) for websites with a high-speed, like news portals. The users will typically scan the content quickly. Short timeouts are more accurate in determining the session duration. - Longer Timeouts
Use longer timeouts for sites like online courses or research platforms where users are spending a significant amount of time on a single page.
Final Thoughts
Understanding how Google Analytics terminates sessions by default and the importance of session timeouts is key to accurately interpreting website data. For most websites, the default conditions are 30 minutes of inactivity or crossing midnight. Customizing these settings to better match your users’ behavior is possible.
By customizing session timeouts you can gain a more accurate understanding of user engagement, and make better decisions about how to improve their experience. If you run a blog or ecommerce site, learn how to set up session settings.
