Understanding User Behavior with Sessions Analysis and Sankey Diagrams

September 29, 2023
Understanding User Behavior with Sessions Analysis and Sankey Diagrams

Sessions are an essential metric for behavioral analytics. A session is a period of time during which a user interacts with an app or website continuously, without an extended period of inactivity. Both Google Analytics and App Store Connect define sessions as a user's activity on a site or app that starts when they first interact with it and ends when they have not interacted with it for a set period, usually 30 minutes. By analyzing sessions, data analysts can gain valuable insights into how users interact with an app or website, which can help to improve user experience and drive conversions.

Insights from Session Analysis

Analyzing sessions can bring valuable insights into user behavior, which can help to optimize user experience and engagement. By tracking metrics such as session duration, pages per session, and bounce rate, analysts can gain an understanding of how users interact with a site or app. For instance, if users are leaving an app after only a few seconds, it may indicate a problem with the onboarding process or a critical usability issue. Alternatively, if users are spending a long time in a session, it may indicate high engagement levels, which can be a good indicator of a successful app or website. By analyzing user behavior at the session level, analysts can identify patterns that can help to improve user engagement and conversion rates.

Splitting a user journey into sessions allows data analysts to bring focus to the beginning and end of an interaction, which are often the most critical times when it comes to finding levers for optimization. By understanding how users enter and exit a session, analysts can identify opportunities to improve acquisition, retention, and monetization. For example, by looking at the entry point of a session, analysts can determine which marketing channels are driving the most traffic, and optimize marketing efforts accordingly. Similarly, by analyzing the exit point of a session, analysts can identify points where users are dropping off and optimize the user experience to reduce churn. By taking a session-based approach to analysis, data analysts can gain a deeper understanding of the user journey, and make data-driven decisions to optimize user experience and drive business growth.

Sankey Diagrams and Session Analysis

SankeyJourney is an online tool that enables data analysts to easily create Sankey diagrams to represent customer journeys. Sankey diagrams are a useful way to visualize the flow of users through an app or website. SankeyJourney has a session feature that allows users to consider sessions separately, giving them a better sense of what users are doing on the app or website. The session feature provides a detailed analysis of user behavior, showing how users move through the app or website, which pages they visit, and where they drop off. With this level of detail, analysts can pinpoint areas of the app or website that are causing problems and improve them to optimize user experience.

Another benefit of using SankeyJourney for session analysis is the ability to edit the time of a session. The default session duration is set to 20 minutes, but this can be adjusted to provide more control over the graph displayed. For example, data analysts can look at daily sessions, which span 24 hours, or microsessions that last less than one minute. This flexibility enables analysts to drill down into user behavior and identify patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed. By gaining a detailed understanding of user behavior at the session level, analysts can make informed decisions that can help to optimize user experience and drive conversions.

Interface of SankeyJourney with control over the session reset delay

Conclusion

Analyzing sessions is an essential part of behavioral analytics, providing valuable insights into how users interact with an app or website. By tracking metrics such as session duration, pages per session, and bounce rate, data analysts can gain an understanding of how users engage with a site or app, which can help to improve user experience and drive conversions. SankeyJourney's session feature is an excellent tool for session analysis, enabling analysts to visualize the flow of users through an app or website and identify areas for improvement. By using session analysis to optimize user experience, app and website owners can increase user engagement, retention, and conversion rates.

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