Session

A session is a period of continuous user activity within an app.

Why it matters

Helps in understanding user engagement.
Essential for calculating retention and churn rates.

How to measure

Track start and end times of user activity.
Commonly measured over daily, weekly, or monthly periods.

Details

In mobile applications, a session begins when a user opens the app and ends when they close it or become inactive for a predefined period. Sessions are vital for understanding user behavior, as they provide insights into how users interact with the app, which features they use, and how long they stay engaged. Tracking sessions helps mobile engineers and growth teams optimize the user experience and improve app performance.

To effectively manage sessions, it is important to define the session timeout period, which is the duration of inactivity after which a session is considered ended. This can vary depending on the app's nature and user expectations. Accurate session tracking requires integration with analytics tools that can capture session data and provide actionable insights.

Examples & formulas

For example, if a user opens an app at 10:00 AM and closes it at 10:30 AM, this constitutes one session. If they reopen the app at 11:00 AM, a new session begins.

Session Duration = End Time - Start Time

Common mistakes

Not accounting for background activity can lead to inaccurate session counts. Ensure sessions are only counted when the app is actively used.
Setting an inappropriate session timeout can skew engagement metrics. Tailor the timeout to match typical user behavior.