With the introduction of Advanced Segments in Google Analytics, bloggers can now fine-tune the data mining filters to churn out the exact information they want. Combined with the power of Custom Reporting, it delivers the required information with ease. Let's see how to unleash the power of this beast to take out the relevant information that matters.
Segment and Conquer
Advanced Segments feature was enabled in my Analytics account about 24 hours back, and since then I am glued to it, experimenting and defining countless number of segments giving me extremely important information which was beyond my imagination prior to introduction of this new feature. The sheer power of this new feature can be imagined as Analytics giving you the ability to find a pin in a haystack, and that too, instantly. Let's create some segments and get a taste of it.
Note: For testing purposes I have randomly taken data of 3 successive days
Case #1: Highly engaged visitors of US coming from Google SE
In first example, I want to know the number of visitors from United States coming via Google services (search engine or referral link via any of the Google services) and have visited at least 3 or more pages in a single visit. So our equation becomes:
Result ~ Visitors (US) "AND" Via Google "AND" Page Depth >= 3
To get this information you can create a new segment as shown below in the picture. It's a simple drag and drop methodology with selecting values from drop down lists. I have chosen 'Country/Territory' as 'United States'. The next condition is visits via Google. To retrieve those visits I have taken dimension 'Traffic Sources' as 'Source' with value 'google'. Notice the 'Condition' value 'Contains'. This ensures that the referring URL must contain the string google at any place.
This is a bit loose filtering condition, because google can come in both these two URL's.
images.google.com/......
or
somedomain.com/categories/google-hacks.....
To further refine the search, we must set 'Condition' as 'Matches Exactly' while giving the 'Value' as 'google'.
Now the last condition was to get information about those visitors who are highly engaged during their visit. How do we quantify this condition? Well, it depends on how much activity you consider as engaging. I personally consider page views of 3 and more in a session as highly engaged visit. To retrieve this information, I must set the dimension 'Page Depth' with 'Condition' as 'Grater than or equal to' and of course 'Value' field set as '3'. To get the required information, all these 3 conditions must be met simultaneously, therefore I have used the 'AND' clause while joining these 3 conditions.
And here is the result. Out of total 3,307 visits:
1. 1,680 visits from United States
2. 761 visits from referral URL's containing 'google' string
3. 394 visits with page views >= 3
4. 41 visits, which fulfill all the above conditions collectively <- Result
You can also apply this segment on traffic graph as shown above to further refine the search on the basis of days and time duration.
Case #2: Behavior of visitors from US on specific blog post
In second example, I want to know the number of visitors coming from US, who have visited 220+ Best Social Media Resources and have spent at least 3 minutes on the post page.
Again I have chosen 'Country/Territory' as 'United States'. To retrieve the visitor count who have landed on 220+ Best Social Media Resources, I have taken the dimension 'Page Title' with value '220+ Best Social Media Resources'. Note, in 'Condition', I have chosen 'Matching exactly'. Now the last condition is to filter out those visitors who have spent at least 3 minutes or more on the post. To filter out this data, I have taken the metric 'Time on Page' with 'Condition' -> 'Greater than or equal to' and lastly 'Value' as ''3'.
And here is the result. Out of total 3,307 visits:
1. 1,680 visits from United States
2. 1,070 visitors landed on 220+ Best Social Media Resources
3. 1,419 visitors spent >= 3 minutes on a post (Note: On any post)
4. 366 visits, which fulfill all the above conditions collectively <- Result
Where To Go From Here?
With these 2 examples, you've got a glimpse of this new feature in Google Analytics. This is just a tip of the iceberg. You can also filter out the data on the basis of specific time (hours in a day), landing pages, exit pages. For example, you can create a segment that shows you the number of visitors coming from US between 3:00 PM to 8:00 PM on a specific post and spending at least 3 minutes on it, and then viewing at least 3 pages, and then clicking an Adsense ad with slot ID xxxxx, and then exiting via so and so post, and then.....
Do I need to say anything more?
Series Posts
1. Blog Traffic Analysis Demystified: Part - 1 (Hit Rate)
2. Blog Traffic Analysis Demystified: Part - 2 (Sessions)
Want to make sure you always get the latest updates on MintBlogger.com? It's totally free! Sign up, and we'll send the articles straight to your inbox. No spam, ever. Period.
Free Updates by Email Free updates by RSS (What is RSS?)
Free Updates by Email Free updates by RSS (What is RSS?)
The Ultimate Premium Wordpress Theme
Building a website was never the same with new Thesis 1.6. The Thesis Theme for WordPress is a high-quality template system that you can use to improve your site immediately.- Strong SEO - Expertly-coded HTML + CSS + PHP framework makes Thesis the strongest engine to power on-site SEO. The core SEO settings are activated automatically, the moment you install thesis on your website. Just set it and forget it. Check out Thesis SEO features now!
- Flexible Design Options - With Thesis in your hand, you don't need to hire a web-developer to design your website or blog. Thesis killer design options gives you complete control over every aspect of appearance, layout, color and typography. See Thesis Design Options now!
- Strongest Support Community - Thesis is supported by thousands of talented users ready to help you in forums. Stack of excellent video tutorials makes it easy to understand every concept in no time. Grab Thesis 1.6 Now!
