Using the Active Users Dashboard for Cookie Consent

Using Cookie Consent, you can review visitor volume across your different platforms and domains with the Active users dashboard. These metrics exclude all bot sessions and reflect traffic from human site visitors.

How is the dashboard calculated?

The Active Users dashboard is calculated based on a session, which is a 24-hour period during which the stub was called on page load and then cached. When a call, load, or Content Delivery Network (CDN) request occurs, the Consent Management Platform (CMP) is loaded onto the page. A user does not need to physically see or interact with it; CDN requests are made for loading the banner. Daily Active Users (DAU) monitor CDN calls, which indicate how many calls are made to our CDN.

Example scenarios

Scenario

Number of impressions recorded

A user visits a website with two devices without logging in.

Two

A user visits a website with two devices while being logged in.

Two

A user visits the same website twice without accepting cookies (only strictly necessary).

One

To view the active users dashboard

  1. On the Cookie Consent menu, select Reporting > Active users. The Active users screen appears.

  2. View the dashboard. For more information, see Active Users Dashboard Reference.

Active Users Dashboard Reference



Field
Description
Average daily unique visitors

The average number of times your consent banner was loaded per day over the last 365 days. This number is used for renewal pricing and is not affected by the filters below.

Time Period

Click the Daily button to display daily banner loads for ranges up to 3 months in length. Select a time period from the date picker to filter the dashboard by a specific time range.

Click the Monthly button to display monthly total banner loads for ranges up to 3 years in length. Configure a time period using the selection menus to filter the dashboard metrics by a specific time range.

Property

Select a property type (websites, mobile apps, or CTV apps) from the selection menu to filter the dashboard for data related to a specific property type.

Select All to view metrics for all property types.

Total active users

The total consent banner loads across your properties for the selected period.

This number may differ from your analytics tool because it represents banner loads, not page visits.

Avg per day / Avg per month

The average number of active users per day/month within the selected period, based on your dashboard configuration.

Top property

The property with the most impressions in the selected period.

Properties with activity

Number of your properties that recorded at least one active user in the selected period.

Total traffic (column)

The total number of users for the corresponding property and time period.

Property name

The name of the property.

Property type

The type of property (website, mobile app, or CTV app).

Organization

The organization to which the property belongs.

To export dashboard data

Your export will contain data from all items and columns available, including ones not shown with your current view and filters.

  1. On the Active users screen, click the Export icon above the list of properties.
  2. Select Excel (.xlsx). An Export data modal appears.
  3. Click the Export data button. A notification appears on the Notifications icon in the app header .
  4. Click the Notifications icon. The Notifications popover appears.


  5. Click the export name. The Excel file downloads to your device.

FAQ

What events count toward daily unique visitors (DUV)?

The following count toward daily unique visitor metrics across web, mobile, CTV , SDK, and API implementations:

  • the CMP is loaded

  • a consent state check or consent validation occurs

  • the browser or application requests the CMP from the CDN, such as when startSDK() executes.

  • CMP-related consent infrastructure is invoked in supported implementations

How is the average daily unique visitors (ADUV) metric calculated?

Each day, OneTrust counts the number of unique daily visitors whose activity results in the CMP being loaded or a consent state being checked. A visitor is counted once per day, even if they visit multiple times that day. These daily counts are then aggregated and averaged across a rolling 365-day period. The resulting rolling average is displayed as ADUV.

What events do not count toward DUV metrics?

  • Accept all actions

  • Reject All actions

  • Saving preferences

  • Other banner button interactions or preference center choices

  • Whether a consent receipt is created

  • Banner impressions alone

A banner interaction may never occur, and the visitor can still contribute to DUV if the CMP loads or a consent validation call is performed.

How are return visitors handled?

A visitor is counted once per day. This means:

  • Multiple visits from the same browser or device on the same day are deduplicated.

  • A return visit on a different day is counted again as a new daily visitor.

  • The visitor does not need to see the banner again for that day's visit to count.

  • If the CMP still loads or consent validation still occurs, that day's visit contributes to usage.

Is the daily active user count a person, browser, device, cookie, or identifier metric?

DUV is not intended to represent unique individuals. It does not perform cross-device identity stitching or person-level deduplication. It measures CMP activity in a privacy-friendly way without attempting to identify or unify users across channels.

DUV is not

  • a known-person count;

  • an identity graph count; or

  • a cross-device unified user count.

Do CMP APIs change how licensing is calculated?

The introduction of CMP APIs changes where consent logic runs, but it does not change the fundamental licensing concept. Server-side and API-based implementations still generate consent validation activity and are measured from consent infrastructure activity rather than user interaction events. So moving to any of the following does not automatically convert the licensing model into a person-based model:

  • Server-side CMP APIs

  • Custom UI

  • Authenticated identities

  • Centralized consent storage

Why doesn't ADUV materially change when historical date ranges are selected?

ADUV is not tied to the selected reporting date range in the same way as a standard analytics metric. Instead, it is calculated as a rolling average over the past 365 days, or approximately 12 months.

Because of that:

  • ADUV reflects a long-term normalized traffic baseline.

  • ADUV is not meant to behave like a point-in-time daily or monthly historical traffic metric.

  • Older date selections can still show a similar ADUV value because the underlying licensing logic uses the rolling 12-month average.

Why can OneTrust show higher numbers than internal analytics or GA?

DAU is request-based, not engagement-based. It tracks CMP/banner load activity and CDN calls over a 24-hour cached session, not app opens or engaged users in the same way GA or internal analytics do. A user does not need to interact with the banner for activity to be recorded.

Do active user counts include bot traffic?

No. Bot management removes bots from all metrics. You can view the number of bot devices excluded from your metrics in each widget.

If the same user accesses a property multiple times within 24 hours, is this counted as one impression?

Yes, multiple visits from the same user within 24 hours are only recorded as one impression.