Common segments, their use cases and how to create them
Below you’ll find a selection of popular segments to help you get started. Each segment comes with instructions for defining them and also some examples of the types of questions they might be able to help you answer.
Segment: Customer
Segment Definition
Visit Ecommerce status at the end of the visit is ordered
OR
Visit Ecommerce status at the end of the visit is orderedThenAbandonedCart
Questions to ask…
What content was most helpful at driving your sales?
This could reveal effective pages or lead sources you should aim to drive extra traffic to, or high converting pages you may want to replicate for other sections.
Did your customers watch product videos before purchasing?
This can help you evaluate whether your product media is increasing conversions. You might be surprised by which media assets perform better than others with only small differences in production.
Are customers reading reviews?
Reviews can be an important factor when people are considering an online purchase. This segment could help you discover whether people are reading your reviews or not.
Segment: Returning Customers
Segment Definition
Visit Ecommerce status at the end of the visit Is ordered
AND
Number of Visits Greater than 1
Questions to ask…
Did returning customers find the product they initially searched for?
If this is something you offer, have they found it and made a purchase? Or is it something you don’t offer, but everyone is looking for? Perhaps it is something your business could consider adding to its product selection.
Do returning customers navigate your site differently to new users?
You might discover that a long-form sales approach works for new customers, but not returning customers. Or you may be pushing returning customers into repeating unnecessary onboarding steps.
Segment: Bounced Visits
Segment Definition
Number of Interactions Equals 1
Questions to ask…
What pages are these visitors landing on?
You could discover that almost everyone who lands on your homepage immediately leaves. This might suggest it is time to update your homepage with a new design. Or, if you’ve been linking campaigns to your homepage, there may be another higher converting page which is more beneficial to direct people to.
What keywords are they using?
This kind of data can be really useful for optimising your paid search campaigns. Two variations of the same key phrase may generate wildly different conversion rates. Discovering this can help you manage your paid campaign budget for those keywords to achieve the greatest efficiency.
Why do you think those pages didn’t answer their question?
When looking at this report you might notice that a certain paid traffic source leads to an unusually high number of bounced users. You can use this knowledge to negotiate a discount with the supplier or even drop it completely.
Segment: Mobile Visits
Segment Definition
Device type Is feature phone
OR
Device type Is smartphone
OR
Device type Is phablet
OR
Device type Is tablet
Questions to ask…
Are mobile visitors spending more or less time engaging with your content?
Often the mobile and desktop experience of a website can be very different even when using a simple responsive design. This can impact the appearance of your content, which in turn can impact how much engagement it gets. The mobile segment can also help flag content that might be hidden for some reason or another on small devices.
Do mobile visitors convert (either sales or leads) at the same level as your desktop users?
While your business objectives may not change, you may discover that mobile visitors convert some goals more than others. This could impact your funnel design and cross-platform strategy.
Segment: Visits from your geographic region
Segment Definition
Country Is XX
AND
Region Is XX
Note: You need to replace XX with your relevant country name and region code (full region code list).
Questions to ask…
What do local visitors do differently than your broader audience?
If you are a local service provider, then local visitors should be your most profitable ones. You will likely want to place more focus on the actions of these users, even if they make up a smaller proportion of your website traffic.
What proportion of your visitors are from your area?
Regional businesses might discover that some traffic sources deliver volume, but no local users. This might suggest you need to refocus your marketing efforts on referrers and sources that deliver local traffic.
Segment: Visits from Search Engines
Segment Definition
Channel Type Is search
Questions to ask…
What content is most popular from search?
Working with this segment can help you discover your most (and least) popular content from search. Armed with this information you might spend more time optimising your top search pages for conversion. You might also decide to spend more time on search engine optimisation for low performing pages.
Do people coming from search complete your marketing funnels in the same way, or are they missing crucial information?
Consider where search visitors enter your site, could they be missing vital steps of your sales funnels? Do you have content that is usually hidden behind landing pages, but is actually receiving visits directly from search?