“You create a very custom segment, you request the data sliced and diced in a whole new sort of ad-hoc way, and within a few seconds, you have your data coming back fitting the exact query that you’ve made. “
What is segmentation?
Segmentation is the idea that beneath the aggregate totals, there may be interesting insights which can only be obtained by drilling down into the data. Information like bounce rate, time on site, and pages visited is interesting only if it is possible to create a context for them.
Why is segmentation important?
Avinash Kaushik, author of the Occam’s Razor blog, describes the most important test in analytics, the “so what?” test. That is, any report is only valuable when it can be used to understand and change results. There should be not just one answer to the question, but THREE answers each time. Most analytics reports do not pass this test. Most can only answer the question once at best.
What are some useful reports that Google Analytics provides automatically?
- Overview
- Organic search versus paid search
- Similar time periods (month over month or week over week)
One example he sites is a website which had no special mobile-enabled site. When they looked at sales analytics for the site, it was determined that not one sale had been made to mobile users when there were tens of thousands of sales and mobile users reflected a significant percentage of users. As an actionable item, it’s clear that the mobile site needs to be adjusted.
Learn more about Google Analytics Advanced Segments
Nick Iyengar – Senior Consultant, Cardinal Path
Nick Iyengar is a senior consultant at Cardinal Path, as well as a veteran instructor and regular speaker at analytics industry events. As a consultant, Nick has worked with organizations ranging from Fortune 500s to non-profits to design and implement customized web analytics solutions, launch and analyze website experiments, and leverage data to optimize online marketing performance.
Nick has provided in-depth guidance to hundreds of North American businesses and organizations as an instructor for Google AdWords, Google Analytics, and Google Website Optimizer seminars, and as a speaker at Google’s “Get Your Business Online” series and analytics industry events like GAUGE.
He began his career in the online marketing industry in the mid-2000’s, when he joined Google’s AdWords team in the Mountain View, CA headquarters. There, he spent more than three years managing tens of millions of dollars in ad spend for top-tier Tech B2C clients. He also mananged Google’s “Analytics Guru” team, applying Google Analytics data to improve campaign performance for top AdWords advertisers. Nick holds a B.A. in Government from Connecticut College.