Card Types & Metrics
~6 min readCard Types & Metrics
A card type is a preset that decides which Google Analytics metric a card tracks, what its starting goal is, and how it's displayed. You pick a preset when you add a card, then adjust the goal, visualization and time window to suit. The card's metric is fixed by the preset — to track a different metric, add a different preset.
The four ready-made dashboards use 23 of the presets; see Your First Dashboard for exactly which. The library holds 31 in total.
The preset library
Presets are grouped by category in the Add card panel. Every goal below is a relative goal ("grow by %") that you can edit.
Traffic
| Preset | What it tracks |
|---|---|
| Total Sessions | Sessions this month vs. the previous period |
| Sessions Growth Goal | Sessions vs. the previous period, shown as a metric with trend |
| Sessions Trend | Daily sessions, last 30 days vs. the 30 days before |
| New Users | New users this month vs. the previous period |
| Monthly New Users Goal | New users this month, shown as a gauge toward the goal |
| Active Users | Active users, last 30 days vs. the same 30 days a year earlier |
| Audience Growth | Active users this month vs. the previous period |
| Sessions per User | How many sessions each user has, vs. the previous period |
| Sessions per User Trend | Daily sessions per user, last 30 days |
| Pageviews Trend | Daily pageviews, last 30 days |
Engagement
| Preset | What it tracks |
|---|---|
| Engagement Rate Goal | The share of sessions that were engaged |
| Bounce Rate | The share of sessions that were not engaged — lower is better |
| Avg Session Duration | Average length of a session |
| Avg Engagement Time | Average time users spend actively engaged |
| Pages per Session | Pages viewed in a typical session |
| Stickiness (DAU/MAU) | The share of your monthly users who are active on a given day |
Conversion
| Preset | What it tracks |
|---|---|
| Key Events | The number of key events (conversions) |
| Key Event Rate Trend / Key Event Rate Goal | The share of sessions that contain at least one key event |
Revenue (requires ecommerce tracking)
| Preset | What it tracks |
|---|---|
| Total Revenue / Monthly Revenue | Total revenue |
| Revenue Trend | Daily revenue, last 30 days |
| Transactions | The number of purchases |
| Avg Order Value | Average purchase revenue |
| Cart Volume | Daily add-to-carts, last 30 days |
| Revenue by Channel | Top channels ranked by revenue, last 30 days |
Acquisition and content
| Preset | What it tracks |
|---|---|
| Organic Search Sessions | Sessions from the Organic Search channel |
| Traffic by Channel | Top channels ranked by sessions, last 30 days (bar) |
| Top Landing Pages | Top landing pages ranked by sessions, last 30 days (bar) |
A few presets (for example Bounce Rate and Key Events) appear twice in the library with different default visualizations. They track the same metric — pick whichever display you prefer.
Metrics
| Metric | What it measures | Unit | Better when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sessions | Visits to your site or app | count | higher |
| Active Users | Users who had an engaged session (or a first visit) in the window | count | higher |
| New Users | Users who visited for the first time | count | higher |
| Total Users | All distinct users | count | higher |
| Pageviews | Pages (and app screens) viewed | count | higher |
| Key Events | Events you've marked as key events (conversions) in GA4 | count | higher |
| Session Key Event Rate | Share of sessions with at least one key event | % | higher |
| Engagement Rate | Share of sessions that were engaged | % | higher |
| Bounce Rate | Share of sessions that were not engaged | % | lower |
| Avg Session Duration | Average session length | seconds | higher |
| Avg Engagement Time | Average engaged time per user | seconds | higher |
| Pages per Session | Average pageviews per session | number | higher |
| Sessions per User | Average sessions per user | number | higher |
| Stickiness (DAU/MAU) | Daily active users ÷ monthly active users | % | higher |
| Total Revenue | Revenue from purchases and subscriptions | currency | higher |
| Transactions | Completed purchases | count | higher |
| Avg Order Value | Average purchase revenue | currency | higher |
| Add to Carts | Times a product was added to a cart | count | higher |
How Google Analytics defines "engaged." A session is engaged if it lasted 10 seconds or longer, had a key event, or had two or more page or screen views. Bounce Rate is simply the opposite of Engagement Rate: bounce rate = 100% − engagement rate.
Rates are shown as percentages. Google Analytics reports its rate metrics as decimals between 0 and 1; dashboardSMASHBOARD multiplies them by 100 so goals and card values read as normal percentages.
Metrics depend on your GA4 setup. Key event metrics need key events configured in GA4. Revenue, Transactions, Avg Order Value and Add to Carts need GA4 ecommerce events. Cards for metrics your property doesn't collect show zero.
Breakdown cards
Breakdown cards rank a metric by a dimension and show the top results as a Bar:
| Breakdown | Dimension |
|---|---|
| Traffic by Channel | Session default channel group (Organic Search, Direct, Paid Search, Referral, …) |
| Revenue by Channel | Session default channel group |
| Top Landing Pages | Landing page |
Breakdown cards show the top five results.
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