Active users is a measurement metric that is commonly used to measure the level of engagement for a particular product or object, by quantifying the number of active interactions from visitors within a relevant range of time (daily, weekly and monthly). The metric has many uses in both

commerce Commerce is the large-scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions directly and indirectly related to the exchange (buying and selling) of goods and services among two or more parties within local, regional, nation ...

and academia, such as on social networking services, online games, or mobile apps. Although having extensive uses in digital behavioural learning, prediction and reporting, it also has impacts on the privacy and

security Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercive change) caused by others, by restraining the freedom of others to act. Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be of persons and social ...

, and ethical factors should be considered thoroughly. Like any metric, active users may have limitations and criticisms. The term is relatively neologistic in nature, becoming important with the rise of the commercialised internet, with uses in communication and

social-networking A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...

. It measures how many users visit or interact with the product or service over a given interval or period. This metric is commonly assessed per month as monthly active users (MAU), per week as weekly active users (WAU), per day as daily active users (DAU) or peak concurrent users (PCU).

Commercial usage

Predictors of success engagement measurement (KPI) and advertisement

Active users on any time scale offers a rough overview of the amount of returning customers a product maintains, and comparing the changes in this number can be used to predict growth or decline in consumer numbers. In a commercial context, the success of a social-networking-site is generally associated with a growing network of active users (greater volume of site visits), social relationships amongst those users and generated contents. Active Users is can be used as a performance indicator, managing and

predicting A prediction (Latin ''præ-'', "before," and ''dicere'', "to say"), or forecast, is a statement about a future event or data. They are often, but not always, based upon experience or knowledge. There is no universal agreement about the exact ...

future success, in measuring the growth and current volume of users visiting and consuming the site. The ratio of DAU and MAU offers a rudimentary method to estimate

customer engagement Customer engagement is an interaction between an external consumer/customer (either B2C or B2B) and an organization (company or brand) through various online or offline channels. According to Hollebeek, Srivastava and Chen's (2019, p. 166) S-D lo ...

and retention rate over time. A higher ratio represents a larger retention probability, which often indicates success of a product. Ratios of 0.15 and above are believed to be a tipping point for growth while sustained ratios of 0.2 and above mark lasting success. Chen, Lu, Chau, and Gupta (2014) argues that greater numbers of users ( early adopters) will lead to greater

user-generated content User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media, discussion f ...

, such as posts of photos and videos, that "promotes and propagates" social media acceptance, contributing to social-networking-site growth. The growth of social media use, characterised as increase of active users in a pre-determined timeframe, may increase an individual's social presence. Social presence can be defined as the degree to which a social-networking communications medium allows an individual to feel present with others, Moon and Kim's (2001) research results found that individual's

enjoyment Happiness, in the context of mental or emotional states, is positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Other forms include life satisfaction, well-being, subjective well-being, flourishing and eudaimonia. Sinc ...

of web systems have positive impacts on their

perceptions Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...

on the system, and thus would form "high behaviour intention to use it". Munnukka (2007) have found strong correlations between positive previous experience of related types of

communications Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...

and

adoption Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...

of new mobile site communication services. However, there are also cases where active users and revenue seemed to have a negative

correlation In statistics, correlation or dependence is any statistical relationship, whether causal or not, between two random variables or bivariate data. Although in the broadest sense, "correlation" may indicate any type of association, in statistics ...

. For instance, Snap Inc.'s gains in daily active users (DAU) have stabilised or decreased during the

COVID-19 Pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, revenue still exceeded estimates, with strong similar strong trends in the current period. New articles+active users on Swedish Wikipedia

Greater number active users boost the number of visits on particular sites. With more traffic, more

advertisers Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

will be attracted, contributing to revenue generation. In 2014, 88% of

corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...

's purpose of social media usage is

advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

. Active Users increase allows

social-networking sites A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...

to build and follow more customer profiles, that is based on customer's needs and consumption patterns. Active user data can be used to determine high traffic periods and create behavior models of users to be used for targeted advertising. The increase of customer profiles, due to increase of active users, ensures a more relevant personalised and customised advertisements. Bleier and Eisenbeiss (2015) found that more

personalised {{Short pages monitor