How does Google Analytics measure distinct user interactions on a mobile app versus a website?

In Google Analytics 4 (GA4), distinct user interactions are primarily measured as events. This measurement is fundamental to how GA4 operates, as it provides a more granular view of user engagement across different platforms, including mobile apps and websites. Each interaction that users have with the app or website—such as clicks, form submissions, or other user actions—is tracked as an event. This allows for detailed analysis of user behavior, as you can gather insights about how users interact with specific features and content.

Events have several advantages, such as the ability to include additional parameters to capture context about the interaction, enabling deeper analysis. In contrast to traditional metrics like sessions or page views, events provide a versatile framework that accommodates the variety of interactions users have, especially given the diverse nature of mobile apps and websites.

Sessions, while also a part of the data collected, are not the primary way interactions are quantified in GA4, and they aggregate multiple interactions over a defined period rather than focusing on individual events. Page views specifically pertain to the tracking of how many times a page is viewed, which is more relevant to websites than to mobile apps. Metrics are simply numerical values derived from data and do not specifically represent user interactions or how those interactions are tracked.