Monthly Active User (MAU)
Candlefocus EditorBy tracking MAU, online companies can gain insight into user engagement – how often visitors come back and how often they interact with the site or platform. MAU is used to measure how well a company’s products is being adopted, used, and retained.
Tracking MAU can also provide useful information about user retention; companies would want to know whether users who started with their products continue to use them. For example, when Facebook started tracking MAU, they found that around 40% of active users return every month, while only around 30% of users return on a daily basis.
Unfortunately, there is no single definition of “user” or “active”, and different companies may use different parameters when calculating MAU. For example, some may consider a “user” to be a person who has an account on a platform, while others may think of a user as a person who has interacted with the platform at some point in the month. Similarly, a “active” user could be someone who has interacted in some way with the platform at least once, or it could be someone who has visited once or multiple times in the month.
In order to accurately measure and compare monthly active users, companies should define the key terms they use and make sure they are using the same parameters to measure MAU. Companies should also track MAU over time, so they can effectively measure user engagement and retention.
Overall, monthly active user measurements are essential for measuring the success, performance, and growth of online sites and online platforms. By accurately tracking MAU and defining the key terms they use, companies can better understand how their products are being adopted, used, and retained over time.