Dimensions vs. Metrics

A metric is a number — sessions, clicks, revenue, engagement rate. A dimension is a way of grouping or describing that number — by page, by device, by traffic source, by date. Almost every report you'll see is a metric broken out by one or more dimensions, like "sessions (metric) by landing page (dimension)."

Most confusion in analytics tools comes from mixing dimensions that don't apply to the same rows, which produces reports with blank or misleading totals. Understanding the split makes it much easier to ask for exactly the report you want, whether you're clicking through a dashboard or just describing what you're after in plain language.

I want to see my traffic broken down by source and by device — is that possible?

Yes — just describe the breakdown you want in plain English, like "sessions by source and device," and datanephew builds the right report using the correct metric and dimension pairing.

Why did a report come back with a weird "(not set)" value?

That usually means the dimension you asked for didn't apply cleanly to those rows — ask datanephew to explain what's behind that specific report and it can walk through why.