Published on 2025-06-26T05:33:37Z

What are Daily Active Users (DAU)? Examples and Use Cases

Daily Active Users (DAU) is a core engagement metric in digital analytics that represents the number of unique users interacting with a product, app, or website within a single 24-hour period. By counting each user only once per day, DAU provides a clear measure of daily reach and user retention. It helps teams evaluate feature adoption, monitor growth trends, and compare performance across different time frames or segments. DAU is often paired with Monthly Active Users (MAU) to calculate the stickiness ratio, revealing how frequently users engage on a day-to-day basis. Analytics platforms like Plainsignal (cookie-free) and Google Analytics 4 (GA4) offer built-in DAU reports, making it easy to visualize and act upon this vital metric.

Illustration of Daily active users (dau)
Illustration of Daily active users (dau)

Daily active users (dau)

DAU counts unique users interacting daily with a product, crucial for tracking engagement and growth

Understanding Daily Active Users

This section defines DAU, explores its calculation methodology, and clarifies how sessions are counted to derive unique daily users.

  • Definition of dau

    DAU is the number of unique users who engage with a product within a 24-hour period, counted once per user to avoid duplication.

  • Calculation methodology

    DAU is typically derived by identifying unique user identifiers (like user IDs or device cookies) and counting them per day.

    • Session-based measurement:

      Counts all sessions but deduplicates by user, ensuring each person is only counted once per day.

    • User id-based measurement:

      Relies on authenticated user IDs to accurately track returning users across devices within the day.

Why DAU Matters

DAU serves as a critical indicator of daily user engagement, product health, and growth, guiding product decisions and strategy.

  • Engagement indicator

    High DAU signals that users consistently find value in the product, reflecting healthy engagement.

  • Growth tracking

    Monitoring changes in DAU over time reveals trends, the impact of features, and marketing effectiveness.

  • Investor & stakeholder metric

    Investors and stakeholders use DAU to assess product-market fit and long-term viability.

Tracking DAU with Plainsignal and GA4

This section compares how to implement and leverage DAU tracking in PlainSignal (cookie-free analytics) and Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

  • Plainsignal implementation

    PlainSignal offers a lightweight, cookie-free approach to measure DAU. Integrate its script to start tracking unique daily users without relying on cookies.

    • Setup script:

      Include the PlainSignal script in your site’s <head> to initialize the tracker.

    • Example code: 

      
<script defer data-do="yourwebsitedomain.com" data-id="0GQV1xmtzQQ" data-api="//eu.plainsignal.com" src="//cdn.plainsignal.com/PlainSignal-min.js"></script>

  • Ga4 implementation

    Google Analytics 4 provides built-in DAU reporting and detailed event-based analytics for deeper insights.

    • Gtag setup:

      Add the GA4 gtag.js script with your Measurement ID to your website’s code to begin data collection.

    • Viewing dau reports:

      In the GA4 dashboard, navigate to Reports > Lifecycle > Engagement to view Daily Active Users trends.

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