For product managers building web and mobile apps, Daily Active Users (DAU) is one of the most actionable metrics to monitor. DAU provides real-time insights into how users interact with your app daily, making it a key measure of stickiness and engagement. A spike or low or stagnant DAU - everything requires your attention.

This blog will focus on what DAU is, how to track and explore strategies for turning DAU insights into decisions that drive long-term growth.

What are Daily Active Users (DAU)?

DAU refers to the unique number of users who interact with your app in a single day or in 24 hours. The definition of “active” depends on your product’s core functionality but in general it is best if it is kept to people who are active on the app for a particular time. For instance:

A video app’s active users can be users who use the app for 5 minutes. And you can consider users “fully active” who are active and also do some sort of action’ let’s say skip a video or swipe for the next video.

DAU tracks the following:

• Daily relevance: A high DAU shows that your product is a part of your users’ daily lives.

• Engagement trends: Spikes or dips in DAU can highlight high-level success or failure of new features, campaigns, or updates.

• Stickiness: The DAU/MAU ratio (also called stickiness) reveals how often users return to your app, providing a deeper insight into engagement.

  Product managers use DAU to run A/B tests on and track changes to measure the results of A/B tests.

How to Measure DAU for Web and Mobile Apps

Here’s how you can measure DAU typically:

1. Set up the right tools

Product managers should rely on analytics platforms like Google Analytics 4, Firebase Analytics, Mixpanel, Amplitude, etc. Once you choose and buy the best tool for you, you need to set it up. It means for each behaviour, you need to create an event and track the event.

For instance, in a video app, you want to track users clicking skip. So you create an event for clicking skip, label it properly (because there can be ‘skip’ option in multiple places/pages. So when you label it properly you can track it specifically), and code it into your product. Now, when someone clicks on the event, it will get recorded.

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2. Define active behavior and track

Define what qualifies as "active" based on the value proposition of your app. Examples include:

• Logging in 

• Do an action (e.g., swipe for a video, uploading a file).

• Spending a minimum time threshold (e.g., 5+ minutes in the app).

Use unique user IDs or device IDs to prevent duplicate counting. It comes handy when you want to check for users accessing your app on different devices.

3. Monitor DAU trends

Set up dashboards to visualize DAU over time. Look for patterns like:

• Day-of-week variations (e.g., lower engagement on weekends).

• Seasonality or spikes during campaigns or feature launches.

Improving DAU: Practical Strategies for PMs

1. Enhance onboarding

Poor onboarding often leads to low engagement. Make the first interaction seamless:

2. Gamify engagement

Gamification elements encourage daily interaction:

3. Leverage push notifications

Use analytics to segment users and send relevant push notifications.

4. Regularly refresh content

Product managers can add dynamic content sections and automate updates using APIs or integrations.

Are you measuring DAU wrong? How can it be misleading?

Here are few things you need to be aware of while looking at DAU:

1. Lack of specificity

DAU aggregates all active users and doesn’t show underlying patterns. For example, a product might have a stable or growing DAU while experiencing a decline in engagement among specific user segments, such as premium subscribers or new users. So it is important to ensure you see DAU in a granular manner.

2. Quality vs. Quantity

Users might log in briefly without performing valuable actions, such as completing purchases, consuming content, or engaging with core features. This means DAU cannot be completely meaningful.

3. Overemphasis on Vanity Metrics

Treating DAU cannot be a standalone success indicator overlooking other metrics, such as Monthly Active Users (MAU), retention rates, user acquisition costs, or customer lifetime value (CLV). Actually most of the above-mentioned metrics are vanity metrics if you look at them alone.

How to Use DAU Effectively for Insights

Here are some tips:

1. Segment the user base

Break down DAU by demographics, user behaviors, or subscription tiers. Insights from such segmentation can show a pattern that might require your attention. 

2. Focus on actionable engagement

Go beyond mere activity. Track how DAU corresponds to meaningful actions, such as purchases, content consumption, or referrals. Correlate DAU trends with product updates, marketing campaigns, or market shifts. 

3. Compare DAU to MAU (Stickiness Ratio)

Calculate the stickiness ratio (DAU/MAU) to assess the frequency of user engagement. A high stickiness ratio indicates consistent daily use, whereas a low ratio might suggest sporadic engagement despite a high DAU.

4. Integrate DAU with Revenue Metrics

Relate DAU to monetization metrics, such as average revenue per user (ARPU) or conversion rates. This tells you how much of user activity translates into business outcomes.