Guide 67 · Reports · GA4 + Tag Manager
Build a user lifetime exploration: revenue and engagement per user, over their whole life
A user lifetime exploration totals revenue, sessions, and engagement per user from their first visit. Use it to compare which acquisition channels bring users worth the most.
After step 5, the table shows lifetime revenue per user by first channel, so the channel that brings the most valuable users can be named.
Download the report reference: the User lifetime reference (JSON) (1227 bytes, MD5 834b6e6c3733225d7eb02c74c894a776). It holds the report or exploration definition and the worked example with the recomputed figures shown on this page.
What you need
- Viewer access or above on the property to build.
- The entry point: Explore in the left navigation, then the user lifetime template.
- Purchase events carrying value and currency. Lifetime revenue is zero for every user if purchase events arrive without their value parameter.
The trace
- Open Explore and pick the user lifetime template. Click Explore in the left navigation, then create a blank exploration and change the technique to User lifetime, or pick the template. The canvas shows a lifetime table.
- Set the date range to cover a real lifetime. User lifetime totals each user's whole history in the range, so a 7-day range shows seven days of value, not a lifetime. Use at least 90 days where the data exists.
- Break the table down by first-user channel. In Tab Settings, set the breakdown dimension to First user default channel group. That groups each user's lifetime value under the channel that first brought them in, which is the comparison that decides where acquisition spend pays.
- Add lifetime metrics. In Variables, import the metrics that describe a lifetime — total revenue, sessions, engagement rate, and average engagement time. Drag them to Values. Revenue per user is the headline: total revenue divided by users in that row.
- Save it and read it beside the acquisition reports. Save the exploration with a name such as Lifetime value by first channel. Then open the User acquisition report and compare: a channel that brings many new users but little lifetime revenue is a volume channel, not a value channel.
Dead ends
DEAD END — READING A 7-DAY USER LIFETIME. A lifetime measured over seven days is a week, not a lifetime. The range must cover the period users actually take to buy.
DEAD END — READING LIFETIME REVENUE WITHOUT PURCHASE VALUES. If purchase events arrive without value, every user's lifetime revenue is zero and the table cannot rank channels. The fix is in the purchase tag, not in the exploration.
DEAD END — RANKING CHANNELS ON USER COUNT IN THIS TABLE. This table's question is value per user, not volume. The channel with the most users can hold the lowest revenue per user, and that is exactly what the table is built to reveal.
End state
A user lifetime exploration answers which channels bring users who are worth the most over time. The worked example below recomputes revenue per user for three first-user channels, so the ranking can be checked against its own division.
Worked example — stated inputs, recomputed results. The user and revenue figures below are stated inputs for the example. Revenue per user is revenue divided by users.
| Row | Users | Total revenue | Value per user |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organic Search | 1,280 | $18,420.50 | $14.39 |
| Paid Search | 640 | $12,160.00 | $19.00 |
| 410 | $9,230.75 | $22.51 | |
| Total | 2,330 | $39,811.25 | $17.09 |
Sources
- Analytics Help — Get started with Explorations — user lifetime explores user behaviour and value over their lifetime as a customer
- Analytics Help — Confirm that you are collecting data — many reports and explorations can take 24 to 48 hours to process data
Checked 11 November 2026. The click paths above are the ones in Google's help pages, opened or read 11 November 2026 (the Explorations and detail-report pages were opened in full; the report, library, navigation and thresholds pages were read from Google's help results the same day, after the browser hit a rate limit). No step in this guide was run inside a live Analytics property, because that needs a Google sign-in and this site does not sign in as anyone. The worked-example figures on this page were recomputed in Python with decimal arithmetic, and the downloadable JSON file carries the same recomputed figures. Google moves menu items without warning; if a path on this page no longer matches, the linked help page is the current map.