I am trying to set up a Looker Studio Report for a Google Analytics 4 implementation on my site. Specifically, I am trying to create a pie chart of new versus returning users. I know that GA4 surfaces that information in their Retention page, but I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to access it in Looker Studio. Does the Returning Users metric exist in GA4, or is there some other approach I should be taking?

I have figured out how to approximate returning users in a rough table breakdown, simply subtracting the New Users from Total Users. That is simple enough, but it is odd to me that there is not a Returning Users metric I can access. I also know you can also display a pie chart of event types, and simply filter out all but pageviews and first visit events. These approaches get me closer, but I am looking for something a little bit clearer, visually.

Am I missing something, or is this metric not present in GA4?

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1 Answer

There is not a GA4 dimension that you can use to create a new vs. returning users pie chart in Looker Studio, but you can create your own dimension by way of a blend. Per Nimantha's comment, I can't address your situation specifically without specific data to work with, but one side of the blend will have just new users and the other side will have just returning users (total users - new users). The join field is a calculated field with a static value of "new" on the left and "returning" on the right. A full outer join will return both datasets.

Then your pie chart will use the blend as the data source and have a calculated field as the dimension, which is a coalesce of the User type fields from the left and right:

COALESCE(User type (Table 1),User type (Table 2))

And the metric is a coalesce of the new and returning users metrics:

COALESCE(New users,Returning users)

Video walk through of the process:

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