Welcome to Part I of Edition No. 32 of my weekly newsletter, providing practical analysis in the world of digital content strategy.
Highlights from Friday’s updates:
Another Google Algorithm Update
The Latest Platform to Copy BeReal.
Another Way To Make Money on YouTube
Contents
I. Tip: Session-Based Audiences in GA4
II. Analysis: The Hidden-in-Plain-Sight Key to TikTok Success
Tip: Session-Based GA4 Audiences
One of the most common requests I receive when setting up Google Analytics 4 accounts is around creating audiences. Specifically, audiences based on the number of times a user has visited the site in a given period of time.
Before I show you how to do this, let’s speak the GA4 language.
What is often referred to as a “visit” is better known as a “session.”
What we’re looking for here, then, is the “session count,” which is an automatically included parameter.
Specifically, “session count” is based on the “session_number” parameter within the “session_start” event.
Got all that?
Even if you don’t, I have good news. The session_start event along with its session_number parameter, which is expressed in reports as the “session count” dimension, are automatically included in your GA4 dashboard.
Read More: Google Analytics 4 Session: What is it?
That means that in order to create those session-based audiences, you can more or less forget everything I just told you (though it would sure help you understand better how things work) and follow these steps:
1. In your GA4 dashboard, click the Configure menu on the left sidebar
2. Click the third option down, “Audiences”, on the left side of the window
3. Click the blue “New audience” button on the right
4. Select “Create a custom audience”
5. Click “Add New” dropdown menu, type “session” into the search bar and select the Session number dimension, highlighted below
6. Enter the conditions for the audience. In this case, I have selected the following:
Session count: 3–5. This can be a range, or “exactly matches =” a particular number
Membership duration: 30 days. This can be up to about 61 days or 427, depending on your user data retention. I think 30 days is a good range
Note: When selecting your number (e.g. ≥3), I would not click the “At any point in time box” that you’ll see because that will continue to include users who exceed the specified session count.
e.g. If you check that box for a session count of “1”, you’ll include every single user in the selected time frame, regardless of total session count. Why?
Because everyone will have had 1 session “at any point in time.” The problem is that you would now be counting everyone who moved on to higher session counts, too.
You would only really want to do this for your highest “greater than” session count specification. In the screenshot below, that’s 15. Even then, I prefer to use the ≥15 option instead of = 15 and then checking that box.
7. Save the audience
It will now appear in your Audience list. In this screenshot, the bottom two – All Users and Purchases – are included in your dashboard by default.
Bonus Tips 💡
Once you save an audience, you can’t edit its conditions. The name and description, yes, but you couldn’t change, for example, the session count from 3–5 to 3–6
Audience data starts accumulating from the moment you create it. It’s not retroactive
You can have a maximum of 100 audiences in GA4 (or 400 if you have GA4 360). If you hit your limit, you can archive unneeded audiences to create more
You can now select any of your audiences as a “comparison” in any report dashboard
Did you find this tip useful? Share it to help spread the word.
Analysis: The Hidden-in-Plain-Sight Key to TikTok Success
Most of the accounts I follow on my personal TikTok are food-related. My favorite is probably the TheMysteriousChef, who makes ridiculously gluttonous meals, usually outdoors, and usually with his beautiful wolf-ish dog lurking in the background.
A smoked brisket made in the snow, posted Feb. 19, has more than 40 million views. But I’m partial to this XXL sandwich – seen a paltry 3.1 million times – which could probably serve as dinner for a family of six.
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There are many successful users like him, and at the same time not like him at all. They’re racking up millions of views – and I don’t just mean with food content.
They all have one thing in common.
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