New and returning visitors

Parse.ly categorizes visitors into two distinct groups for a clearer picture of your site’s engagement: new and returning.

New visitors came to your site once within a 30-day window on the same device and didn’t return.

Returning visitors came to your site and returned within a 30-day window on the same device, assuming they accepted and kept a cookie from their last visit.

Example visitor behavior

When selecting a time period in a Parse.ly Dashboard tab, you may interrupt some visitors’ 30-day window, used to determine whether they’re new or returning.

Consider the chart below, which demonstrates 3 visitors’ behavior on a site across 30 days:

Day	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
Visitor 1	N	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R
Visitor 2										N	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R
Visitor 3																					N	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R

Days 1-10

• Visitor 1 is logged as a returning visitor.
  It may appear that Visitor 1 is both a new and returning visitor in this time period, but that would result in the sum of new visitors and returning visitors being greater than the total visitor count.
• Visitor 2 is logged as a new visitor.

Days 11-20

• Visitors 1 and 2 are logged as returning visitors.

Days 21-30

• Visitors 1, 2, and 3 are logged as returning visitors.