What is DAU/MAU useful for and what are its limitations?

DAU (Daily Active Users) and MAU (Monthly Active Users) are key metrics for assessing user engagement with a product.

Benefits:

• Show how many unique users actively use the product daily or monthly.
• Help track growth or decline in the audience.
• Used to calculate retention and engagement rates (e.g., DAU/MAU).

Limitations:

• Do not reflect the depth of interaction or quality of usage.
• Can be distorted by bots or casual users.
• Do not account for different types of activity (e.g., page views vs. purchases).

Thus, DAU/MAU are useful for a general understanding of activity but need to be supplemented with other metrics for a complete analysis of user behavior.