How to find your mobile traffic with Google Analytics

We've all been told that mobile traffic is growing and is due to overtake visits from desktop users. Today I'm going to show you how to uncover that data in your Google Analytics account.

We've all be told the mobile traffic is growing and is due to overtake visits from desktop users. Today I'm going to show you how to uncover that data in your Google Analytics account.

  1. Login to your Google Analytics account and look for Audience > Mobile > Overview on the left menu. You'll be presented with a dashboard showing your combined traffic from desktop, mobile and tablet. Lets refine this a bit...
  2. On the top right of the screen, adjust the date range from present day to around June 29 2007 (i'll explain why further down).
  3. Select the Week or Month button (top right). You should be seeing something similar to the screenshot below. 

Your own traffic will obviously differ. What's important to note is you're probably looking at the total number of sessions across mobile, desktop and tablet for the period you specified. The trick here is to check the boxes beside mobile, desktop and tablet under the Device Category Heading (top left of the table). Once you've done that, you'll be presented with a color-coded chart for each device. Better still, you can toggle on and off platform visibility to further clarify traffic for mobile devices.

The key data you're looking for here is:

  • The general rise of mobile traffic from 2007-ish to present day. 
    Apple launched the iPhone 1 in 2007 and it kick started the rise of mobile traffic to websites.
  • The specific rise in traffic to your site from users with mobile phones and tablets.
  • The % of new sessions from mobile and tablet users.
  • The % of new users to your site using mobile and tablets compared to desktop users.
    You may be surprised to find mobile traffic increasing and a general fall in desktop users.

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