Web Analytics

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If your analytics program lumps all your visitors together, you can't learn that much. But when you segment your visitors -- that is, put visitors into separate groups to compare their behavior -- you can learn a great deal. For example, you could analyze visitors that meet all of these criteria:

• Made a purchase, and
• Came through Yahoo organic search

then sort by

• Search words used to get to your site, or
• Sales total

Google Analytics Advanced Segmentation

Until now, it has been difficult to create helpful segments in Google Analytics. True, you were always able to segment traffic in some reports, such as keyword A vs. keyword B. But to get really powerful segmentation -- for example, to segment your ecommerce reporting -- you had to do some heavy lifting. It required creating a separate profile with filters to include only the traffic you wanted to examine. Because of the way profiles work, you could only look at future data. You couldn't apply segmentation to the data you had already collected.

With the recent announcement of Advanced Segmentation for Google Analytics, you can easily create segments for yourself. Best of all, it's retroactive, so you'll be able to learn from the past, too.

Graph shows the performance of each segment (colored lines)

How to Set up Advanced Segmentation

The Advanced Segmentation capability is located above the calendar at the top right of your reports. Google Analytics has some great ready-to-use segments -- Search Traffic, Referral Traffic, New Visitors, Visits with Transactions, and others.

You can also create the unique segments needed to understand what's happing on your own organization's website. For example, you might want to segment by customers who have a preference for German, land on your home page, and stay on your site for more than 30 seconds.

Google Analytics interface to set up Advance Segments with Dimensions and Metrics

Dimensions and Metrics

There's an easy drag-and-drop interface. You can choose to segment by many different variables. Variables are split into two groups:

1. Dimensions are the kinds of labels you would see as rows in your reports, such as keyword, landing page, or campaign; and
2. Metrics are the columns, such as bounce rate, conversions, or time on site. Google Analytics allows you to browse through the list of variables by category or search for something you're looking for.

Among the more interesting analyses possible with Advanced Segments are metric-based segments, such as "Visitors who viewed 3 or more pages" or "Visitors who spent more than one minute on the site" -- analyses that just weren't possible with just the profiles and filters available prior to Advanced Segments.

Give It a Try

Advanced Segments are easy to create and try out, so give them a whirl. Imagine different groups of visitors you might want analyze for your online business. Then create segments, take a look at the data, and refine as necessary. You're sure to find groups of visitors who performed particularly well, as well as others that did poorly. Use that information to do more of what is working and explore how to turn around the things that aren't working as well.

Jonathan Weber is a web analyst at LunaMetrics, a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant. You can hear him speak at the Google Analytics Training Day that LunaMetrics in New York City, December 9, 2008.