Forum Discussion
Post ProdigyGoogle Analytics New vs Returning
Hi lherbert501
Issue isn’t with Power BI— it’s with Google Analytics itself.
When Power BI’s Google Analytics connector queries data, it uses GA’s API. That API does not include a pre‑calculated “Returning Users” metric— it only returns “New Users” and “Total Users.”
GA4 does expose a dimension (New/Returning), but no direct count for “Returning Users” through the API. Some tools approximate it asTotal – New, but this isn’t always accurate (due to cookie behaviour, thresholds, sampling, etc.).
To get a reliable Returning Users metric in Power BI, you’ll need to either use a third‑party connector that calculates it for you (e.g. Coupler.io, Windsor.ai), or pull GA4 data into BigQuery and compute it yourself.
This isn’t a bug in Power BI—it’s simply a limitation of the data source.If this post helps, then please consider Accepting it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly
Super UserHi lherbert501
Issue isn’t with Power BI— it’s with Google Analytics itself.
When Power BI’s Google Analytics connector queries data, it uses GA’s API. That API does not include a pre‑calculated “Returning Users” metric— it only returns “New Users” and “Total Users.”
GA4 does expose a dimension (New/Returning), but no direct count for “Returning Users” through the API. Some tools approximate it as Total – New, but this isn’t always accurate (due to cookie behaviour, thresholds, sampling, etc.).
To get a reliable Returning Users metric in Power BI, you’ll need to either use a third‑party connector that calculates it for you (e.g. Coupler.io, Windsor.ai), or pull GA4 data into BigQuery and compute it yourself.
This isn’t a bug in Power BI—it’s simply a limitation of the data source.
If this post helps, then please consider Accepting it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly
Post ProdigyThankyou Ritaf1983 for your reply 🙂
- Ritaf1983
Happy to help 🩷