wheresitworking?

How to Create a Custom Advanced Segment in Google Analytics

I put this together for a SwellPath client the other day, so I thought I would share it here, since it is a bit too 101 for the SwellPath blog.

Overview of Advanced Segments in GA

By default Google provides several advanced segments that you can use out-of-the-box. If you look into the upper right corner when you are viewing reports, you’ll see the Advanced Segments link and dropdown option. If you open it, you’ll see the option to check a variety of segments in the Default Segments section, ranging form Paid Search Traffic, to visits from iPhones. You can check up to 3 at a time, to evaluate next to the All Visits segment. If you want to compare 2 or more segments, All Visits can’t be unchecked. If you just want to view a single segment in isolation, you can uncheck the All Visits option. Play around with these a bit, and navigate the reporting with various segments checked. It will give you an idea of how this works, and some insight into how the data can be much different for certain segments.

Creating a Custom Segment

Once you’ve had some time to get accustomed to using advanced segments, you should walk through creating one. An easy “beginner” segment is one created to view only visitor in a specific geographic area. Let’s say North America. Here are the steps to create it.

1. Click the Advanced Segments dropdown, and look for the link on the left side that says “Create a new advanced segment”.

2. The creation interface is drag-n-drop. You have the ability to choose between dimensions and metrics for segmentation. For this segment, you’ll go into Dimensions > Visitor and choose Sub-Continent Region, and drag it over to the creation interface. Choose “Matches exactly” for the condition, and then chose Northern America for the value.

3. Name your segment something appropriate like “North American Visitors” and click the Create Segment button. You should be taken back into the reporting.

4. Dropdown the Advanced Segments, check your new segment, it will be in the Custom Segments section. Then peruse your reporting and look at them metrics of your North American visitors compared to your visitors as a whole.

Viewing Custom Advanced Segment Data

Now viewing these segments might not be that meaningful to you; you might want to go create a segment for your European visitors and compare that to your North American visitors. But just follow these steps. As far as I know there isn’t a limit to the number of custom segments you can have, at least I haven’t hit that limit. Custom segments are now organized at the profile and user level, so you will only see your own segments in your account, and those segments will be profile specific. You can hide certain segments from profiles. You can share segments with other users by sending them a link; it is accessible from the custom segment management interface.

Tags: custom segments, Google Analytics, segmentation, web analytics

Web Analytics Wednesday at eROI

Just a quick post to promote the first Web Analtyics Wednesday of 2010 in Portland. It’s this upcoming Wednesday, January 27th, at eROI.  I’ll be giving a short presentation on real-time web analytics reporting; an overview tools available for tracking and reporting, some simple use examples, and considerations for those looking to implement real-time tracking and analyze the data. Please come by if you’re in Portland. Oh, did I mention the free beer and food (pizza probably)? Hope to see you there.

Tags: real-time web analtyics, Web Analytics Wednesday

Happy Holidays: from Google, but for Facebook

Happy Holidays everyone. I just wanted to extend a quick holiday greeting.  I’m going to borrow the holiday greeting image from Google Analytics, because I like it so much. It is from Google Analytics’ Happy Holidays post to everyone.

Biggest takeaway from the 2009 holiday season? For me it is the fact that according to Hitwise, Facebook was the number one most visited site on the web on Christmas day. Phenomenal when you take into account the incident in Detroit, which presumably drove loads of traffic to Google and the major news sites.

What does Facebook’s dominance mean? Well, nothing that we didn’t know already, but perhaps a slap in the face for some media providers, that rather than focusing on your own sites, maybe looking for creative ways to integrate into your audience member’s Facebook visits is where the focus should be.

Just some food for thought; I’d gladly write a longer post but we’re scrambling to finish up year-end activities at SwellPath before the first monthly reporting session of the new year hits. Enjoy the rest of 2009 everyone and best wishes for a wonderfully successful 2010.

Tags: Christmas web traffic, Facebook, Google Analytics

Real-Time Web Analytics Solutions

I wrote a post yesterday for the SwellPath Blog on 3 real-time web analytics solutions that are, if nothing else, very fun to use and tinker with. Woopra, Clicky, and chartbeat are the three I talked about. If you have any others you use that you’d recommend, I’d love to hear about them.

Tags: chartbeat, Clicky, Woopra

Thanksgiving is the New Black Friday

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! How many marketing emails have you received today? Not many? Me neither. Makes me wonder: why don’t online retailers take advantage of Thanksgiving as a jump start on the holiday shopping season?

The season essentially starts in early November these days, as most retailers start to ramp up  promotions and marketing. But Black Friday is the first day of heavy marketing. Remember when it was Cyber Monday? That’s no longer the case because most internet shoppers now spend time online at home every day, making the Friday after Thanksgiving more of a play than waiting until for everyone to get back to work on Mondays.

So, why not Thanksgiving itself? I was online for a while this morning – and I bet you were too. A quick scan of the analytics data for the various retailers who are clients at SwellPath shows that traffic isn’t down too much – maybe 25% to 50%. I bet it would be a little more solid if emails had gone out pre-dawn.

I’m going to make a forecast here and now: in the next couple of years, Black Friday will be begin on Thanksgiving morning. Shoppers will start looking for marketing promotions and special deals early Thursday; and they’ll start getting a little shopping in before NFL, turkeys, and pumpkin pie.  But make sure to get those emails (or Tweets, Facebook updates, etc.) out early, because as the folks at Clicky have pointed out, traffic drops off when it’s time to eat.