Understanding Analytics Reporting Dashboard
This article explains the metrics displayed in your platform's analytics dashboard. The dashboard is powered by Plausible Analytics, a privacy-friendly analytics tool that provides simple and meaningful insights into how visitors use your platform. The examples below use dummy data to illustrate how the metrics work.
Dashboard Overview
At the top of the dashboard, you will see a summary of key platform's performance metrics for the selected period (for example, with the filter set to the last 28 days).
Example:
| Metric | Example value |
|---|---|
| Unique Visitors | 82 |
| Total Visits | 214 |
| Total Pageviews | 2.4k |
| Views per Visit | 11.2 |
| Bounce Rate | 22% |
| Visit Duration | 2m 05s |
These metrics help you understand:
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how many people visit your platform
-
how they navigate through it
-
how engaged they are with your content
💡 Tip: Use a longer time period for more reliable insights
If your platform has a relatively small number of visitors, short time ranges (for example last 7 days) can sometimes give a misleading picture of usage.
This happens because a single user — such as a platform manager or administrator navigating through the platform — can generate multiple pageviews and visits. When combined with only a few other visitors, this may give a distorted picture of how the platform is used.
To get a more accurate understanding of how your platform is used, we recommend reviewing analytics over a minimum period of 28 days. A longer timeframe smooths out individual activity and provides a more reliable view of visitor behaviour.
Core Metrics Explained
Unique Visitors
Unique Visitors represent the number of individuals who visited your platform during the selected time period.
Plausible does not use cookies or persistent tracking. Instead, it counts visits in a privacy-friendly way. Because of this approach, the same person visiting on different days or devices may be counted separately.
Example
If someone visits your platform from a laptop and later from their phone, this will count as two unique visitors.
Total Visits (Sessions)
A visit (also called a session) is a group of interactions a user has with your platform.
A session starts when someone opens your platform and ends when they are inactive for 30 minutes.
Example
-
A visitor reads two pages → 1 visit
-
The same visitor returns later that day → another visit
Total Pageviews
Pageviews represent the total number of times pages on your platform were loaded.
If a visitor refreshes a page or visits the same page again, each load counts as a new pageview.
Example
| Visitor action | Pageviews |
|---|---|
| Homepage → About → Contact | 3 |
| Refresh homepage | +1 |
Total pageviews: 4
Views per Visit (Pages per Session)
Views per Visit shows the average number of pages viewed during each visit.
Formula: Views per Visit = Total Pageviews ÷ Total Visits
Example
-
Total Pageviews: 2,400
-
Total Visits: 200
Views per Visit = 12 pages per visit
This metric indicates how deeply visitors explore your platform.
Bounce Rate
Bounce Rate is the percentage of visits where the visitor leaves the site after viewing only one page and does not perform another interaction.
A bounce occurs when a visitor:
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views only one page
-
does not trigger any tracked events
-
leaves the site immediately
Example
| Visits | Bounces |
|---|---|
| 200 | 50 |
Bounce Rate = 25%
A high bounce rate can indicate that:
-
visitors quickly found what they needed
-
the page did not match their expectations
-
the page did not encourage further navigation
Visit Duration
Visit Duration measures the average time visitors spend on your site during a visit.
Visits that only contain a single page view are counted as 0 seconds, because there is no second interaction to calculate time from.
Example
| Visit | Duration |
|---|---|
| Visit 1 | 2m 10s |
| Visit 2 | 45s |
| Visit 3 | 0s |
Average visit duration is calculated across all visits.
Traffic Sources
The Sources section shows where your visitors come from.
Example:
| Source | Visitors |
|---|---|
| Direct / None | 60 |
| Internal tools | 25 |
| Document portals | 18 |
| Email campaigns | 7 |
| Search engines | 5 |
What "Direct / None" means
This appears when the system cannot determine where the visitor came from. Examples include:
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typing the platform's URL directly
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opening a bookmarked page
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links in documents or messaging apps without tracking parameters
UTM parameters can be used to track campaigns more accurately.
Top Pages
The Top Pages section shows which pages receive the most visitors.
Example:
| Page | Visitors |
|---|---|
| /activities/funding-event | 42 |
| /activities/community-day | 38 |
| / | 29 |
| /activities/list | 26 |
| /how-it-works | 18 |
This helps identify:
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popular content
-
high-traffic entry points
-
pages that drive engagement
Visitor Locations
The map displays the countries or regions where visitors are located.
This data helps you understand:
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geographical reach
-
where your audience is located
-
potential regional engagement patterns
Location data is aggregated and does not identify individuals.
Browsers and Devices
The dashboard also shows which browsers visitors use.
Example:
| Browser | Visitors |
|---|---|
| Edge | 46 |
| Safari | 21 |
| Chrome | 15 |
This information helps ensure that your platform works well across the browsers your visitors actually use.
Current Visitors (Real-Time)
At the top of the dashboard you may see Current Visitors, which shows how many people are actively browsing the site right now.
This number includes visitors who loaded a page within the last five minutes.
How to Use These Metrics
These metrics help answer questions such as:
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How many people visit the platform? → Unique Visitors
-
How often do they return? → Total Visits
-
What content is popular? → Top Pages
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How engaged are visitors? → Views per Visit & Visit Duration
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Where do visitors come from? → Sources
-
Are visitors exploring the site or leaving quickly? → Bounce Rate
Together, these insights help improve platform content, usability, and communication strategies.