Analytics Metrics Glossary

This glossary defines the metrics you see most often in tinyanalytics. The same definition follows the metric across reports unless a page states a narrower scope.

Core metrics

Metric	Definition
Sessions	The number of distinct sessions in the date range. A session is one visitor’s activity within a 30-minute sliding window of inactivity.
Users	The number of distinct visitors. A visitor is counted by the ID you supplied with identify, when present, otherwise by their cookieless ID. One signed-in person on a phone and a laptop counts as one user when both devices use the same identified ID.
Pageviews	The total number of pages viewed — every page load and, in a single-page app, every route change.
Events	All accepted events in the range, including pageviews, custom events, autocaptured interactions, engagement, errors, and performance events. A report can narrow this to one event type.
Pages per session	The mean number of pageviews per session.
Events per session	The number of accepted events divided by sessions.
Bounce rate	The percentage of sessions with exactly one pageview.
Session duration	The average time between a session’s first and last event, in seconds.
AI traffic (AI sessions)	The number of sessions that entered from an AI assistant — a visitor who clicked through from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, and similar. Each session is counted once, by the assistant it arrived from.

Acquisition metrics

Metric	Definition
New users	Users whose first-ever event falls inside the selected date range.
Returning users	Users active in the selected date range whose first-ever event happened before the range started.
New-user share	New users divided by all users in the row or report, expressed as a percentage.
First-touch channel/source	The acquisition channel or source from a user’s first-ever session. Later sessions do not rewrite it. See User acquisition.
Session channel/source	The entry acquisition context of the session being measured. The same user can have sessions attributed to different sources over time.

Conversion and revenue metrics

Metric	Definition
Goal conversions	Sessions that matched a goal’s page, custom-event, or autocapture rule inside the selected range.
Goal conversion rate	Converting sessions divided by all sessions in the same selected date range and filter scope.
Total revenue	Gross positive revenue in the selected range, converted to the site’s reporting currency.
Net revenue	Total revenue minus Stripe refunds and lost disputes. Client-event revenue has no negative adjustments.
Refunds	The amount subtracted by Stripe refunds and lost disputes.
Average order value	Total revenue divided by the number of orders.
Paying sessions	Distinct sessions that produced at least one revenue event.
Orders	Completed revenue-bearing purchases reported by the selected revenue source.

What counts as a session?

A session is one visitor’s activity within a 30-minute sliding window of inactivity. Every event the visitor sends pushes the window forward; the session ends only after 30 minutes of silence, and their next visit starts a new one. Because the window slides, a visitor who’s active across the half-hour boundary stays in a single session rather than being split in two.

How is a bounce counted?

A bounce is a session with exactly one pageview — the visitor saw one page and didn’t view another. Bounce rate is the percentage of sessions that bounced. Custom events don’t change the count: a single-pageview session is a bounce even if the visitor clicked a button or submitted a form on that page.

Why can user counts change after identify?

identify() can merge recent anonymous activity into the stable ID you provide. That can turn two anonymous cookieless IDs into one identified user and improve cross-device totals. Historical pageviews and events remain in place; only the effective user used by people-level reports changes.

Data dictionary

The events, properties, and traits catalog.

Dashboard overview

See these metrics for your site.

How cookieless identity works

How a visitor becomes a “user.”

How traffic is classified

How referrers become channels.

User acquisition

Apply the new and returning definitions by first-touch source.

Revenue analytics

Understand the source and currency rules behind revenue metrics.

Definitions & methods

Trust & privacy

AI tools

Analytics Metrics Glossary

Core metrics

Acquisition metrics

Conversion and revenue metrics

What counts as a session?

How is a bounce counted?

Why can user counts change after identify?

Data dictionary

Dashboard overview

How cookieless identity works

How traffic is classified

User acquisition

Revenue analytics

​Core metrics

​Acquisition metrics

​Conversion and revenue metrics

​What counts as a session?

​How is a bounce counted?

​Why can user counts change after identify?

​Related

Data dictionary

Dashboard overview

How cookieless identity works

How traffic is classified

User acquisition

Revenue analytics

Core metrics

Acquisition metrics

Conversion and revenue metrics

What counts as a session?

How is a bounce counted?

Why can user counts change after identify?

Related