Sessions
Date created: Oct 12, 2022 • Last updated: Oct 12, 2022
What is Sessions?
A Session, sometimes called a Visit, is the set of interactions, or web requests, made within a given time frame by a single user visiting a specific website. A single Session often contains multiple activities, such as page views, events, or transactions. In web analytics, a session is either capped by exiting the website or by a period of user inactivity.
Sessions Formula
How to calculate Sessions
A small-scale online furniture retailer enjoys success selling furniture through their website. They hold an end-of-year sale and see a spike in interest, which results in their website having 5,000 sessions in one week and 4,500 sessions the next week. The website's Sessions count for those two weeks is 9,500.
Start tracking your Sessions data
Use Klipfolio PowerMetrics, our free analytics tool, to monitor your data. Choose one of the following available services to start tracking your Sessions instantly.
What is a good Sessions benchmark?
Median weekly number of sessions for B2C with less than 50 employees is 1,850. For B2C companies with more than 50 employees, that number jumps to 9,050. For B2B companies, weekly sessions would be between 1,020 and 3,300.
How to visualize Sessions?
To visualize your Sessions data, use a chart that is easy to segment, such as a bar chart.
Sessions visualization example
Sessions
Bar Chart
Sessions
Chart
Measuring SessionsMore about Sessions
Sessions measures the count of a set of interactions made by a single user. This metric helps you track the total number of unique users that are interacting with your website. Google defines Session termination as 30 minutes of inactivity and at midnight. Though rarely applied, timezone settings and customized session timeout settings can impact this number across site.
The quality of your Sessions data can be negatively impacted by bot traffic, typically when it makes up 5% or more of your total sessions. Enable bot filtering options, provided by most analytics platforms, to overcome this problem.
Sessions is a good metric to help you understand true website usage, but it's also useful to look at your Unique Page Views to understand your website's reach and Website Bounce Rate to track the percentage of single-page sessions. Other key metrics to track along with Sessions are Average Time on Page and Page Views Per Session which allow a deeper understanding of user behavior on your website.
Recommended resources related to Sessions
Here is how Google Analytics defines Sessions.Here's why your HubSpot and Google Analytics Sessions don't match.Metric Toolkit
Start tracking your Sessions data
Use Klipfolio PowerMetrics, our free analytics tool, to monitor your data. Choose one of the following available services to start tracking your Sessions instantly.