Google Analytics Adds Absolute Benchmarking: Compare New Users & Total Revenue with Peers

Google Analytics now lets businesses benchmark absolute metrics like New Users and Total Revenue. Learn how this update works, why it matters, and how to use benchmarking to measure real growth, revenue, and user performance against industry peers.

Why Benchmarking Matters

Think of benchmarking as a compass in your digital analytics toolkit. When you look at your own website or app metrics (say, 10,000 users, or ₹5 lakh revenue), you know whether your performance is going up or down over time—but you often don’t know how that compares with others in your industry.

Without context, those numbers can be misleading. Is 10,000 users “good” for your niche? Is your revenue strong or weak relative to peers? That’s where benchmarking comes in.

Until recently, Google Analytics allowed benchmarking of normalized metrics — that is, ratios, percentages, or per-user/per-session averages (like bounce rate, session duration, engagement rate). But raw, absolute numbers like New Users or Total Revenue could not be benchmarked.

Now, Google has expanded its benchmarking feature to include unnormalized (absolute) metrics such as New Users and Total Revenue, enabling businesses to see how their raw numbers stack up (in a fair, normalized way) compared to peers. (Search Engine Land)

This is a big shift — businesses can now benchmark not just efficiency or ratios, but actual scale metrics.

In this article, we’ll explore:

1. What Google Analytics benchmarking is (in GA4).

2. The recent expansion to absolute metrics.

3. How Google estimates benchmarks for absolute metrics.

4. The benefits, use cases, and pitfalls.

5. How to use it in practice.

6. Tips, best practices, and future outlook.

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What Is Benchmarking in Google Analytics (GA4)?

Basics and Purpose

Benchmarking in GA4 is a mechanism for comparing your site’s performance against anonymized, aggregated data from other sites (or apps) in your industry peer group. (Google Help)

It helps you answer questions like:

• Are my user acquisition metrics strong compared to similar companies?

• How does my engagement (session duration, events per session) compare with peers?

• Am I monetizing my traffic as well as others in my vertical?

Rather than trying to guess what’s “good,” you get reference ranges (e.g. 25th percentile, median, 75th percentile) for a chosen metric. (Google Help)

These benchmark ranges are shown as:

• A median line (50th percentile)

• A shaded band (25th to 75th percentile)

• Your own performance line, over time (Google Help)

Thus, you can immediately see whether you’re underperforming (below 25th), average (around median), or among the leaders (above 75th).

Preconditions & Access

Not all metrics are benchmarkable, and your property must satisfy certain preconditions:

• Your GA4 property must have Modeling Contributions & Business Insights enabled in Admin settings (Account Settings). (Google Help)

• You must opt in to benchmarking (enable the benchmarking badge for a metric). (Google Help)

• Sufficient volume of data is required. Properties must have minimum thresholds to qualify to be included in peer groups, and benchmarks will only be shown when peer group data is sufficient. (Google Help)

• Benchmarking data is refreshed daily (every 24 hours). (360om.agency)

• Historic benchmarking is only available starting May 30, 2024 onward (or after your property becomes eligible). (wix.com)

Also, you can’t benchmark metrics that reflect total scale (in older versions) — but this is what the new expansion is trying to address.

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The New Capability: Benchmarking Absolute Metrics (New Users, Total Revenue)

What Changed

Until now, Google Analytics only let you benchmark normalized metrics — metrics that express performance in relation to something else: e.g. “per user,” “per session,” percentages (bounce rate, engagement rate), averages, etc. (Google Help)

What was missing were unnormalized or absolute metrics — raw totals like New Users, Total Revenue, Total Purchases, etc. These tell you the scale of your business, not just efficiency. Google has now added 20 new unnormalized metrics to benchmarking, including New Users and Total Revenue. (Search Engine Land)

With this expansion, you can see benchmark ranges (25th, median, 75th) for absolute numbers — allowing you to assess whether your absolute performance is in line with peers of similar scale. (Search Engine Land)

How Google Does It: Estimating Absolute Benchmark Ranges

Because absolute numbers depend heavily on scale (i.e., very large sites will naturally have much higher totals), a direct comparison would be unfair. Google addresses this by estimating benchmarks for absolute metrics via a normalization / scaling model.

Here’s how it works in simplified form:

1. For a given peer group, Google knows the normalized metric — e.g. “revenue per active user” or “new users per active user” — from that group’s aggregate data.

2. It then multiplies that normalized metric by your property’s active user count.

3. The result is an estimated benchmark for the absolute metric.

For example, to derive the benchmark for New Users:

• Peer group’s “new users per active user” × your property’s active user base = expected new users range.

To derive Total Revenue benchmark:

• Peer group’s “revenue per active user” × your active user base = expected revenue range. (Search Engine Land)

By doing this, Google lets you compare absolute scale, while still factoring in relative scale so that small and large properties can be judged fairly. (Search Engine Land)

Google presents these benchmark numbers as percentiles — so for New Users or Total Revenue you’ll see a 25th percentile lower bound, median line, and 75th percentile upper bound — letting you see whether your raw number is relatively low, mid, or top-tier. (Search Engine Land)

This extension is often referred to as “unnormalized benchmarking” in recent announcements. (DigitrendZ)

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Why This Matters: Benefits & Use Cases

Adding absolute metrics to benchmarking unlocks a richer strategic layer. Here are the key benefits and business use cases.

1. Contextualizing Business Scale

By benchmarking absolute metrics:

• You can see whether your volume metrics (users, revenue, purchases) are competitive or lagging.

• You move beyond “is my rate good?” to “is my scale good?” — which is critical for growth planning.

For example: If you see your Total Revenue is below the 25th percentile, it might signal you need to scale acquisition or monetization aggressively.

2. Prioritizing Focus Areas

Benchmarking can help you evaluate where to prioritize — acquisition, engagement, or monetization.

• If your New Users benchmark is weak, acquisition needs work.

• If your engagement metrics are strong but revenue is weak, monetization optimization is needed.

• Conversely, if your revenue is high but users are low, you may need to diversify or scale more.

3. Realistic Goal Setting

Rather than setting arbitrary numeric goals, you can set targets around percentile boundaries — e.g. moving from 25th → median → 75th. Those are grounded in real industry ranges, not guesses.

4. Competitive Diagnostics

If your revenue is far behind peers but your user acquisition is near median, then monetization is the weak link. The benchmarking view helps you triangulate which parts of your funnel or business model are underperforming relative to others in your industry.

5. Investor / Stakeholder Communication

Having benchmarks gives more credibility when you report, e.g., “We are already at median revenue for this industry, while still growing traffic” — it contextualizes metrics, making them more meaningful.

6. Tracking Progress Over Time

Because benchmarks are refreshed daily, you can track whether your gap to median is narrowing over time. Are initiatives working? Are you climbing percentiles? This helps evaluate strategy effectiveness.

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Limitations, Caveats & Things to Watch Out For

While powerful, this feature is not without caveats. Be aware of the following limitations:

1. Estimations, not exact comparisons
   The absolute benchmark for your metrics is an estimate, derived from normalized metrics and scaling. It assumes peer group behavior applies proportionally. In practice, differences in business models, revenue mix, traffic quality, etc., can mean deviations.
   The benchmarking model is just a guide, not a precise match. (DigitrendZ)

2. Peer group selection matters
   If the peer group you choose is too broad (or not aligned well), comparisons may not be meaningful. Careful selection of relevant sub-verticals helps. (wix.com)
   For instance, comparing a niche B2B SaaS site against broad “Tech & Internet” peers may distort expectations.

3. Scale bias & business model differences
   Two sites with similar traffic size might have radically different revenue models, monetization approaches, pricing, etc. That will affect absolute metrics, which benchmarking may not fully account for.

4. Thresholds & data availability
   If your site has low traffic or low revenue, you may not qualify for inclusion in peer groups. Also, benchmarks may not show if the date range includes today or is less than 60 days. (wix.com)
   Some sources mention that “metrics indicating overall scale — new users or total purchasers — aren’t available for benchmarking” depending on context. (wix.com)
   (However, with the new updates, Google claims these absolute metrics are now being included. (Search Engine Land))

5. Dependence on data cleanliness / tracking implementation
   If your GA4 setup under-tracks revenue or users, your data will be systematically low. Benchmarks will magnify issues in tagging or tracking.

6. Lag / updates / rollout
   Being a newer feature, availability may vary across accounts, and Google may refine how it computes benchmarks over time. Some users may not yet see unnormalized metrics. (wix.com)

7. Privacy & aggregation constraints
   Google aggregates and encrypts data to protect privacy. Sometimes, if peer group data is limited, benchmarks may not appear or might be less stable. (Google Help)

In short: the absolute benchmarking feature is powerful, but it should be used as a guide — not a rigid yardstick. Always combine benchmark insights with deeper analytics, domain knowledge, and your specific business context.

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How to Use the Benchmarking Feature in GA4 (Step by Step)

Here’s a practical walkthrough of how to enable and interpret benchmarking in Google Analytics 4.

1. Enable the Necessary Setting

• Go to Admin → Account Settings in your GA4 account.

• Enable Modeling Contributions & Business Insights. This is required to allow benchmarking. (Google Help)

Without this enabled, benchmarking data won’t show.

2. Opt-in / Turn On Benchmarking for a Metric

• Navigate to the Home page (or the report where you want to see benchmarking).

• Each metric card (e.g. Sessions, Users, Revenue) has a “metric selector.” Click on the metric name to open a drop-down.

• From that drop-down, there will be a “Benchmarking” section showing metrics eligible for benchmarking.

• Enable benchmarking (click the medal icon / toggle). (Google Help)

Once enabled, the chart will update to show:

• Your property’s trendline (solid line).

• A dotted line representing the peer group median.

• The shaded area showing 25th–75th percentile range. (Google Help)

You can hover over points to see specific values for your metric, median, 25th and 75th. (wix.com)

Be aware: benchmarking data is not available for date ranges that include today. Also, if your selected time window is too short (< 60 days), benchmarking may not show. (wix.com)

3. Adjust Peer Group (if appropriate)

• Under the benchmarking panel, you can see your current peer group.

• You can switch to a different peer group (broad category or a more specific vertical) to see how your performance stacks up in different slices. (Google Help)

• Choose as specific a peer group as you reasonably can (e.g. from “Shopping > Apparel > Sportswear” rather than just “Shopping”). This helps with relevance. (wix.com)

4. Interpret Benchmarking Values

Once benchmarking is active, here’s how to read what you see:

• If your line is below the shaded area → you’re underperforming relative to peers.

• If your line is within the shaded band → your performance is in the middle (between 25th–75th percentile).

• If your line is above the top of the shading → you are among the leaders in that metric.

• The dotted median line is the 50th percentile (peer median) — a useful reference point.

For absolute metrics like New Users or Total Revenue, you'll see your raw number trend vs. the benchmark ranges computed by Google’s estimation.

Hovering on a date will show:

• Your metric on that date (e.g. Total Revenue = ₹10 lakhs)

• Benchmark 25th, median, 75th (e.g. ₹8 lakhs, ₹12 lakhs, ₹16 lakhs)

5. Combine with Other Metrics & Deep Dive

Benchmarking is powerful on its own, but its value grows when combined with deeper analysis:

• Check normalized metrics (e.g. revenue per user, engagement) to see if high absolute performance is driven by scale or efficiency.

• Segment your traffic (by country, device, channel) and see how those sub-segments compare to peers.

• Monitor trends over time: is your gap narrowing? Are you climbing from below-median to median or further?

6. Use Benchmarking for Goal-Setting and Action Plans

Use benchmark percentiles to set milestones:

• “We aim to push revenue from our current level to reach the peer median in 6 months.”

• “If user acquisition remains below 25th percentile, we’ll invest more in paid ads or SEO to close that gap.”

Then monitor whether your percentile position is improving.

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Example Scenario: How a Business Might Use It

Here’s a hypothetical but realistic scenario to illustrate how a company might use these benchmarks:

Company A is a mid-size e-commerce business in the “Home & Garden / Furniture” vertical. They have GA4 set up, and they enable benchmarking.

They select Total Revenue and New Users (absolute metrics) and also Engagement Rate and Average Purchase Revenue per User (normalized metrics).

Suppose the benchmarking chart shows:

• Their Total Revenue is below the 25th percentile of peers.

• Their New Users count is around the peer median.

• Their Engagement Rate is well within the top 25%.

• Their Average Purchase Revenue per User (ARPU) is slightly below the peer median.

From this, they infer:

• Their acquisition is reasonable (they attract a comparable number of users).

• Their engagement is strong (users are interacting well).

• But their monetization (revenue per user) is weak — that’s dragging their raw revenue below peers.

Based on this, they decide to:

1. Review pricing, discounts, bundling, upsells, cross-sells.

2. Introduce loyalty or subscription programs to increase repeat purchases.

3. Experiment with monetization funnels (e.g. better checkout flows, post-purchase upsell).

Over the next months, they monitor whether their Total Revenue benchmark line is moving upward (getting closer to 75th percentile) and whether their ARPU is improving compared to the median.

Simultaneously, they might also monitor peer group shifts — e.g. competition, seasonal effects.

This triangulation between absolute scale and efficiency metrics is exactly what the new benchmarking feature enables.

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Tips & Best Practices for Getting the Most Out of Benchmarking

To make benchmarking truly effective, here are some recommended practices:

1. Pick the right peer group
   The more specific and relevant, the better. If your site crosses multiple verticals, test different peer groups and see which yields more meaningful insights. Avoid overly broad groups.

2. Use a mix of metrics
   Don’t rely solely on absolute or normalized metrics. Use both — revenue scale and per-user efficiency — to understand what’s driving your performance.

3. Watch trends, not just static points
   Focus on how your percentile position changes over time. Even small upward moves can indicate progress.

4. Validate your tracking and data quality
   Under-reporting users, mis-tagged events, or revenue gaps in tracking will drag your benchmarks downward. Benchmarking is only as good as your data.

5. Set outcome-driven targets
   Instead of arbitrary numbers, aim to move from your current percentile to a higher one (e.g. from 30th → median → 75th). Use that as a roadmap for your strategy.

6. Segment where possible
   Benchmark your performance across segments (geography, device, channel). Perhaps your “India traffic” is doing well while “international” lags.

7. Be mindful of seasonality
   Especially for retail, benchmarks may shift during holidays, seasonal peaks, or macroeconomic changes. Don’t over-interpret short-term gaps.

8. Combine with external benchmarking & market research
   Use industry surveys, competitor public metrics, third-party tools to validate what you see in GA4.

9. Use benchmarks as guides, not rigid targets
   Business context matters. Some models (freemium, subscription, niche B2B) may deviate from median behaviors, and that’s okay. Use benchmarks as guardrails, not jailers.

10. Monitor Google’s evolution
    This is a relatively new data product expansion. Google may refine how absolute benchmarks are computed or which metrics are included. Stay updated via GA4 release notes.

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Potential Use Cases Across Industry Types

Here are some ways different business types can leverage the new benchmarking:

• E-commerce / Retail
  Benchmark Total Revenue, Purchases, ARPU, first-time purchaser rate to see how your e-commerce ROI stacks up.

• SaaS / Subscription
  Benchmark Total Users, New Users, Conversion to paid, revenue metrics, churn rates.

• Publishing / Content
  Benchmark traffic new users, engaged sessions, ad revenue, subscription conversions.

• Local Businesses / Brick & Mortar + Web presence
  Benchmark new leads, form submissions, revenue from online bookings.

• Mobile apps / Gaming
  Benchmark new installs, in-app purchases, ARPU, retention metrics.

In each case, you combine absolute scale metrics (users, revenue) with normalized metrics (e.g. revenue per user, retention rates).

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What the Rollout Means: Strategic Implications

The move to allow benchmarking of absolute metrics signals several broader shifts:

• Google recognizes that absolute scale matters for businesses, not just efficiency.

• Benchmarking becomes more comprehensive — you can assess both growth and performance.

• It encourages businesses to think in terms of percentile position, not just raw numbers — fostering more strategic, comparative thinking.

• As benchmarking becomes more granular and robust, businesses with good data practices can leverage it as a competitive advantage.

However, because this is new, early adopters might get an informational edge. But over time, as more businesses leverage it, the range of peer group data will improve, making benchmarks more stable and meaningful.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: Is benchmarking available for all metrics now?
A: No. Only certain metrics qualify for benchmarking — primarily metrics that are normalized (per user, per session) and now a set of unnormalized ones like New Users and Total Revenue. But not everything can be benchmarked (e.g., some custom metrics). (Google Help)

Q: Why can’t I see absolute metrics like New Users in benchmarking yet?
A: It might be because your account hasn’t yet been rolled into the update, or your property doesn’t meet the minimum data thresholds, or modeling contributions isn’t enabled. Also, Google may limit availability by region or property type initially. (360om.agency)

Q: Can benchmarking data be edited or influenced by me?
A: No — benchmark data is aggregated, anonymized, and computed by Google from qualifying properties. You can’t directly influence or override it.

Q: How often is benchmark data updated?
A: Every 24 hours (daily refresh). (360om.agency)

Q: Does including my site in benchmarking risk my data privacy?
A: No. Benchmarking uses encrypted, aggregated data, and thresholds ensure no individual site’s data is exposed. (Google Help)

Q: Should I discard industry reports or other benchmarks now?
A: No — external reports, surveys, and third-party benchmarks remain valuable. GA4 benchmarking is an additional, dynamic tool to complement them.

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Summary & Key Takeaways

• Benchmarking in GA4 allows you to compare your performance to industry peers using reference metrics. (Google Help)

• Normalized metrics (ratios, per-user averages) have long been benchmarkable; Google now also supports absolute metrics like New Users and Total Revenue. (Search Engine Land)

• Google estimates absolute benchmarks by scaling peer group normalized metrics by your active user count. (Search Engine Land)

• The feature gives you a clearer view of scale, not just efficiency, enabling more holistic analysis.

• It’s invaluable for goal setting, diagnostic comparisons, strategic planning, and investor reporting — but should be used with caution, understanding the assumptions behind the estimations.

• Choose your peer group carefully, validate your data, and use the benchmarks in conjunction with your internal analytics and knowledge.

• As the feature matures, it could become a central pillar in data-driven strategy and competitive intelligence.