GA4 replaced Universal Analytics with a fundamentally different measurement model — and a significantly longer list of available metrics. The problem isn't that GA4 lacks data. It's that the native interface buries the numbers that matter under layers of pre-built reports you can't easily customise.
Moving GA4 data into Data Studio solves this. You choose which metrics appear, how they're compared, and who sees them. But to build a useful report, you first need to know which metrics are worth tracking. Here are the eight that belong in every GA4 Data Studio dashboard.
1. Sessions
What it measures: The number of individual visits to your site in a given time period. GA4 defines a session as starting when a user arrives and ending after 30 minutes of inactivity or at midnight.
Why it matters: Sessions is your headline traffic number — the first metric stakeholders look at and the baseline against which everything else is measured.
What good looks like: Growth is relative to your baseline. A healthy site shows consistent week-over-week sessions with positive trends in the channels you're investing in.
Data Studio tip: Add a date comparison control to your report so sessions automatically display the percentage change against the previous period — no manual calculation needed.
2. Engaged Sessions
What it measures: Sessions where the user spent at least 10 seconds on the site, viewed more than one page, or completed a conversion event.
Why it matters: Raw sessions count every visit, including bots, accidental clicks, and immediate back-button presses. Engaged sessions filter to visits where something real happened.
What good looks like: An engagement rate (engaged sessions ÷ sessions) above 60% is solid for most content sites. Below 40% is a signal that traffic quality or landing page relevance needs attention.
Data Studio tip: Track engaged sessions alongside sessions in a dual-metric scorecard to make engagement rate immediately visible without adding another card.
3. Engagement Rate
What it measures: Engaged sessions divided by total sessions, expressed as a percentage. GA4's replacement for bounce rate.
Why it matters: GA4 deprecated bounce rate in favour of engagement rate because the engagement model is more meaningful — a short visit isn't automatically a failure if the user got what they needed.
What good looks like: 60–70%+ for content or service sites. E-commerce landing pages might run lower (40–55%) if users are comparing options across multiple sites.
Data Studio tip: Display engagement rate as a scorecard with a conditional colour rule — green above 60%, yellow 40–60%, red below 40% — so performance is visible at a glance.
4. Users
What it measures: The number of distinct visitors in the selected period. GA4 uses a combination of user IDs, Google signals, and device-based identifiers to deduplicate visitors.
Why it matters: Comparing users to sessions tells you whether growth is coming from new visitors (more users) or returning visitors making more visits (sessions growing faster than users).
What good looks like: Depends on your goals. High new user share (70%+) indicates strong acquisition. High returning user share indicates a loyal audience — both are healthy depending on your business model.
Data Studio tip: Use a stacked bar chart to show new vs. returning users over time. It tells a more nuanced growth story than sessions alone.
5. Conversions
What it measures: The number of times users completed a goal you've defined in GA4 — a form submission, purchase, sign-up, or any other event you've marked as a conversion.
Why it matters: Every other metric is context for this one. Traffic, engagement, and time-on-site only matter insofar as they lead to conversions.
What good looks like: Conversion rate benchmarks vary enormously by industry and goal type. Establish your own baseline over 60–90 days, then track relative changes.
Data Studio tip: Add a conversion event dimension to break down which specific goal (form vs. purchase vs. sign-up) is driving your conversion count — GA4 reports all goals together by default.
6. Total Revenue
What it measures: E-commerce purchase revenue reported to GA4 via purchase events. Requires GA4 e-commerce tracking to be configured on your site.
Why it matters: The most direct measure of whether your traffic is generating business value. Pairs with sessions and conversions to calculate revenue per session.
What good looks like: Track trend over time and by channel. Revenue per session is more useful than total revenue for diagnosing which acquisition channels are most efficient.
Data Studio tip: If your site sells products with very different price points, add Item name as a dimension below the revenue scorecard to see which products are driving the total.
7. Average Session Duration
What it measures: The average time users spend on your site per session. Calculated as total session duration divided by session count.
Why it matters: A meaningful supporting metric for content sites — longer sessions suggest users are reading, exploring, or engaged. For transactional pages (checkout, booking), shorter sessions can be fine.
What good looks like: Content blogs typically see 2–4 minutes. SaaS product dashboards and tools often see 5–10 minutes. Compare against your own baseline rather than industry averages.
Data Studio tip: Break session duration down by landing page to identify which entry points lead to the deepest engagement — useful for deciding where to invest in content improvements.
8. Bounce Rate
What it measures: The percentage of sessions where users left without any engagement action — no second page, no 10-second dwell, no conversion. Technically the inverse of engagement rate.
Why it matters: Included in the GA4 connector for teams transitioning from UA reporting. For new implementations, engagement rate is the better metric — but bounce rate remains useful when you need to compare with historical UA data.
What good looks like: Below 40% is generally strong. Above 70% warrants investigation into landing page relevance and page load speed.
Data Studio tip: Add page title as a dimension alongside bounce rate to find the worst-performing landing pages and prioritise them for improvements.
Putting it all together
These eight metrics form a complete picture of your site's performance: how much traffic you're getting (sessions, users), whether it's quality traffic (engagement rate, engaged sessions), whether it converts (conversions, revenue), and how deeply visitors engage (duration, bounce rate). Together they tell a coherent story — traffic volume alone never does.
The fastest way to get all eight metrics into a single, clean view is with a GA4 Data Studio template. Our GA4 Insights template surfaces these metrics in a pre-built dashboard you can connect to your property in minutes — no design work required.