I know that many of you heard of the term "advanced segmentation" or "advanced segments". This is one of seven new features that Google released in their new version of Google Analytics. I was really excited then I first read reviews about this new feature. Google also enhanced their SaaS solution by refreshing its user interface, has integrated AdSense and AdWords with GA, added motion charts and custom reports features and also provide API for Google Analytics. If you are just a beginner, and haven't heard about Google Analytics Advanced Segments? - Here are some useful information to get you started. Don't skip the Avinash Kaushik's Advanced Segmentation article (link to the article can be found at the end of this short help guide).
We can clearly see that Google knows that their is a really tough competition, where more and more advanced web analytics software are popping our in the market. Its keep evolving and because it is a FRE web analytics solution, more and more web site owners, will choose ther product now, instead of pricey Enterprise solutions.
Advanced segments are one of my favorite new features. In order to gain better understanding visitor's behavior, and find actionable insights, you must segment you traffic data. It will give you a clear and more detailed (micro) view of visitor's behavior and browsing habits.
In Google Analytics you have 5 advanced segments for Ecommerce Analysis:
- Visits with transactions
- Testing landing pages for Revenue
- Product Correlation
- Filter data based on the volume of the transaction
- Track returning transactions/customers
Any Ecommerce site can benefit from taking advantage of the new advanced segmentation feautres found in Google Analytics. You will create you own advanced segments and you can even share your advanced segments (not the custom reports) with other people by using just a simple link. When another user clicks that link, the advanced segments will be imported into its Analytics account straight away, without any complicated import functions.
To access advanced segments in Google Analytics, just look at the right side where it says "Settings", underneath it you will find a link to the "Advanced Segments" section. Than, you can create a new custom segment and see the list of your previously created segments.
The Interface itself is straight forward and easy to use. On the left side you can see the Dimensions and Metrics. You can just drag & drop them onto the right interface for creating advanced segments, using "OR" and "AND" conditional statements to further more specific and accurate segment.
Google helps you build advanced segments by presenting you fill-in data that appears in your statistics. For example, if you want to create a segment that uses the "Keywords" dimension attribute, you can choose it and when you start writing in the "Value" field, Google will automatically start a look up in your website statistics database, and present you keywords to choose from.
You can also test the segment against current website statistics data and see how many Visit correspond to that segment that you have just created. If you are satisfied, you can save the segment with a unique name to identify it later on and use it in your custom reports or modifying it quickly if necessary.
You use conditions like "Matches exactly", "Matches regular expression", "Contains"," Ends with", "Less than or equal to", in order to build a segment that satisfied the metrics attribution values.
After you saved you segment, you can compare the segment against "global" statistics data in any Google Analytics reporting charts. For example, you can compare "keywords" related segment against Keywords visits data, and both will be shown on the line chart (with different colors, so you can identify each one and easily compare between the two).
For more detailed information about Advanced segments and how to use them, visit Avinash Kaushik's Advanced Segmentation article. That article really helped me understand how advanced segments is done in Google Analytics - A must read article!