If you have your own website or blog, you are probably using Google Analytics to analyse your traffic statistics, perhaps because it’s free, easy to use and very reliable. Google recently launched the “Advanced Segment” feature which allows you to create subcategories of users. If you’re asking yourself “Why would I do that?”, I might have an answer…
Different segment of users have different habits, look for different content, or are using different features. For example, Seth Godin found on his blog that while only 25% of his readers were using Firefox, they produced twice as much content as Internet Explorer users. In this case, it would make sense, for example, to focus on Firefox optimisation when working on new features to add content.
Another example: you are running an Adwords campaign and want to optimize your landing page for a specific targeted group of visitors. Just create a segment for the traffic coming from Adwords and watch what actions they take. Do they all click on a specific image, link? On what page do they exit? Then modify your content accordingly, wait for new data to accumulate in Analytics, and finally rinse and repeat until you have reached your goals.
Here is how to do it. In Analytics, on the left menu, go to Advanced Segment. Create a new segment and just drag and drop your criteria. Save it and go back to Analytics.
Now, when viewing a specific page, you can specify the segment you want to isolate and use all the regular Analytics features, while comparing your different segments.
eMaketing Strategist
Tags: actionable web analytics, advanced segmentation, analyzing website outcomes, brand segmentation, Google Analytics, market segmentation, web metrics analysis
