Why You Need Advanced Segments in Google Analytics and 9 Examples to Prove It

Google Analytics users are familiar with the standard, prepackaged reports that come with it. But how often do you find yourself drilling down endlessly in an effort to find the exact data you're looking for? Have you ever pulled a pencil to jot down and add numbers from a table because you only wanted to include certain keywords, landing pages or conversion goals? Have you repeatedly set up the same advanced filter only to set it up again the next time?

Well, custom advanced segments are just what you need to make your website analytics life simpler, easier, and more effective. Not only will it help you better analyze your company's website in less time, it will also provide much more targeted and informative reporting to present at your next marketing meeting.

Google Analytics advanced segments allow you to segment very specific types of traffic for analysis. Google includes a dozen or so predetermined advanced segments including all traffic (the default), referral traffic, direct traffic, paid search, and non-paid search. However, there are dozens of other metrics and parameters that can help you segment and analyze the exact demographic you're looking for.

You can find the Advanced Segments menu on the Standard Reporting tab of Google Analytics.

Clicking on it will expand an area that includes the predefined advanced segments, plus an area to create custom ones.

When you create a new segment, a familiar system of defining statements appears, which allows you to create very specific and useful advanced segments. You'll choose the elements you need to define the segment, such as an include/exclude, dimension/metric, operators, and text match. You may also combine statements by using and/or statements. A sample screenshot follows.

Once you've defined your segment, you should name, test and save your segment.

Now that you know the general procedure for setting up custom advanced segments, let's brainstorm a bit about their potential uses.

1. Non-branded vs. branded keywords.  No more fiddling with advanced filters on the keyword page. Create separate segments for branded and non-branded keywords to easily view search results. Use the Keyword metric to accomplish this when setting up your custom segment.
2. Geographical segments. Do you wonder how many people visited your site from North America? Create an advanced segment showing visitors from the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. Or, exclude U.S visits to summarize and target all international visitors. Use the Territory/Country metric to accomplish this. You can even set one up for cities too!
3. Connection speed. Worried a page might load too slowly for your target visitors? Google Analytics records connection speed, and your segments can reflect this.
4. Custom social media segments. Using regular expressions you can create segments that match the social media visits of your choice. For instance, include Facebook and Twitter, but exclude LinkedIn. This is easy to do with custom advanced segments.
5. Combine similar landing pages. Want to see how many visitors visited all pages in your product description section?  Go directly to this information from the standard reporting page using your custom segment.
6. Blog pages. It's easy to see how many people visited your main blog page, but what about pages buried deeper in your blog? Combine all visits for all page in your blog section into one custom segment. You can do this by including any pages with /blog in its URL. You could also set up segments for each of your bloggers.
7. Visitors who convert. Use custom segments to analyze activity and behavior of all visitors who converted on your site. After all, isn't conversions what it's all about? Tie visitors to the conversion goal or goals of your choice.
8. Mobile visitors. With the rise of smart phones, the importance of mobile visitors is on the rise. Create a segment for mobile visitors only to conveniently analyze their data.
9. Visitors by OS. Is your product a PC-only product? Set up a segment that excludes Macintosh and Linux users only.

Advanced segments can not only be used as part of the standard, predefined reports in Google Analytics, but they can also be included in modules on your dashboard as well as custom reports. You can also have Google Analytics plot multiple segments in one chart to look for trends.

If you'd like to post some cool advanced custom segment ideas of your own, we'd love to hear them!

photo credit: www.out-smarts.com