How to calculate unique number of events, one event per user in Google Analytics?

Question

We have an event which fires every time user initiates a download. How is it possible to calculate number of downloads occurred let's say this month & calculate only 1 download per 1 user?

If to use #of events occurred: user can download multiple times, so it doesn't show what I want.

If to use #of unique events occurred: same user can download multiple times over different sessions and Google Analytics will count more than 1 download for the same user. So it doesn't work as well for me.

Solution

Another way of asking your question is: "How many users had at least one download during this time period?"

You can use "segments" to answer this question. Create a segment only for users that have a "download" event.

1. Select the "Audience Overview" report
2. Change the main metric dropdown from "Sessions" to "Users"
3. Click "+ Add Segment"
4. Click "+ New Segment" red button
5. Click on "Conditions" under "Advanced"
6. From the "Filter" dropdown, change it from "Sessions" to "Users"
7. Change the "Ad Content" drop down to "Event Category" and have it exactly match "download" (or whatever your your event is actually called)
8. Name your segment "Users with download"
9. Hit the blue "Save" button
10. Remove the "All Sessions" segment if it is still applied
11. Your answer is the total user count now that this segment is applied.

Comments

[NGix]

If I use dashboard instead of reports & make a filter by download event, will it work as well?

[Stephen Ostermiller]

Dashboards and reports can both be filtered by a segment.

[NGix]

Thanks for an answer. If you take a look on timeline chart in your screenshot, what does it show per day? Does it duplicate users?

[neoswf]

No idea if this answers the question, cause the OP asked to narrow results to 1 event only, and you have write: "at least one download ".

[Sth]

One important addition! In case of your events not being categorized, make sure to choose "Event Name" at step no. 7 instead of "Event Category", that's an easy to miss part of the process.