GA4: Fixing alignment discrepancy between Total visitors and Total users

Currently, Realtime Analytics uses 'Total daily visitors' to measure user engagement over specific time ranges.

For privacy protection, we currently reset Unique User IDs every 24 hours. While this practice enhances user privacy, it leads to inflated visitor counts compared to GA4, especially when analyzing data over periods longer than a day.

This daily reset means a single user visiting your site on multiple days is counted as a new unique visitor each day. Consequently, our 'Total daily visitors' metric often reports significantly higher numbers than GA4's 'Total users' for the same period.

What's changing

We're developing an advanced method to track unique visitors over extended periods without compromising user privacy. This new approach will:

1. Align more closely with GA4's 'Total users' metric

2. Provide more accurate long-term visitor data

3. Maintain strong privacy protections by avoiding the storage of personal data and Unique User IDs

Once implemented, you'll see a new metric that offers a more realistic view of your unique visitor count over time. This change will allow for more accurate comparisons with GA4 data and provide a clearer understanding of your true user base.

We're in the final stages of testing this new methodology. Soon, we'll transition from 'Total daily visitors' to 'Total users,' mirroring GA4's terminology. This update will significantly enhance the accuracy and usefulness of your analytics data.

We appreciate your patience during this transition and look forward to providing you with more precise and valuable insights into your audience engagement.