Google Analytics offers great information on audience segments however it requires a different way of looking at segments. You need to know where to look. As with traditional customer segmentation, Google Analytics segments group visitors that share joint characteristics. There are many characteristics of visitors which are collected – by default – by Google Analytics. These range from details regarding their browsers and screen sizes to the websites that they come from in addition to the kinds of pages that they view.
Ten recommended segments for Google Analytics
- Segmentation by Referrer/Traffic source
- Segmentation by Visitor Type
- Segmentation by Location/Geography
- Segmentation by Content Viewed
- Segmentation by Landing Page Type
- Segmentation by Action taken
- Segmentation by Value
- Segmentation by Demographics.
- Segmentation by Engagement
- Segmentation by Technology platform
Segmentation by Referrer or Traffic Source
For instance, if you have campaign tracking established, you can see how these kinds of visitors differ in their journeys through the website in addition to the value they generate:
Email campaigns and newsletters
- Social media sites (a custom sector of all social media platforms or, alternatively, an individual site such as Facebook)
- Affiliates
- Display
- Direct traffic
- Search engine marketing (SEM)
As search is such a major potential value contributor for most websites, it’s important to further break this down:
- Paid search (standard sector “Paid Search Traffic”)
- Natural (standard segment “Non-paid Search Traffic)
- Paid and natural brand and non-brand key phrases (necessitates custom segment including or excluding keywords which contain variations of the brand).
- Important high volume phrases or terms containing a significant keyword
Segmentation by Visitor Type (Customer Engagement with the Brand)
For instance, widespread visitor types to segment on are:
- New visitor versus returning visitor
- Non-registered versus registered visitor (necessitates use of custom variables)
- Non-customer versus customer (necessitates use of custom variables)
- Technology platform used, e.g. iPhone and Android browser
Segmentation by Location or Geography (Visitor Characteristics)
An organisation will want to see how its performance varies in its main markets such as:
- UK
- US