Last Updated: May 24, 2022

In this article, I will show you the different types of segments that are available in Google Analytics and the best segments that can be created to analyse data more efficiently.

Segments are the subsets of the data collected in your reports. By using segments, you can view a specific set of data. For example, traffic from a certain gender, location, device, etc

There are mainly two types of segments in Google Analytics.

1. Default or system segments
2. User-defined segments

Default or system segments

Let’s look at the different types of system segments that are available in Google Analytics.

There are around 22 system segments in Google Analytics, they have a predefined configuration and can be used easily. To view these segments, follow the below steps:

Step-1: Log in to your Google Analytics account.

Step-2: Select on the audience overview reports from left-hand menu.

Step-3: Click on ‘Add segment’ as shown below.

Step-4: You will now land on the segment builder. Select ‘System’ from the options to view the system segments.

Step-5:  You can select the grid view from the right-hand side, as shown below, to view all system segments together.

Step-6: You can now view all the systems segments in one place.

Step-7: You can select any segment and click on ‘Apply’. You can select up to four segments at once.

Step-8: Let’s say you would like to view the configuration of the system segment, in that case copy the segment by clicking on the down arrow next to the segment.

Step-9: When you click the down arrow, you will see the ‘copy’ option. This will lead you to the segment configuration panel.

Step-10: You can cancel the segment after viewing the configuration.

User-defined segments

Now, let’s look at user-defined segments and the different options available to create one in Google Analytics reports.

User-defined segments are segments that are created by users with the available options in Google Analytics. For example, a demographic report to view only traffic from the ‘United States’.

Below are the different types of user-defined segments in Google Analytics

• Demographic segments       
• Technology segments         
• Behaviour segments      
• Date of first session segments                 
• Traffic sources segments
• Enhanced ecommerce segments
• Advanced segments

Demographic segments

This segment is based on certain traits of users who are landing on your website, such as age, gender, language, location, etc.

Let’s see how to create demographic segments and the options available.

Log in to your analytics account and click on ‘Add segment’ from any report.

As shown above, demographic segments can be created based on age, gender, language, affinity category, in-market segment, other category and location. For example, a demographic segment based on Language. 

To create language-based segment, follow below steps:

Step-1: Log in to your Google Analytics.

Step-2: Click on ‘Add segment’ from any report.

Step-3: Click on ‘New Segment’.

Step-3: Click on ‘Demographics’ from the options.

Step-4: In the filter configuration, select language contains ‘en-us’, as shown below:

Step-5: When the segment is applied to the reports, results will look something like below:

Example Demographic Segment based on Location

Technology segments

Technology segments allow you to segment users by browser, operating system, browser version, device category, etc.

I expect by now you know how to navigate to the segment builder section from your Google Analytics account so let’s create the technology segment.

Steps to create a technology segment in Google Analytics.

Step-1: From the segment builder section, select the technology segment option.

Step-2:  Let’s create a technology segment based on the browser. Select the configuration as browser contains ‘Chrome’, as shown below.

Step-3: Save the segment and apply it to the reports and you will be able to see the number of users who use the Chrome browser to view your website.

Example technology-based segment based on device category

Behaviour segments

You can segment users by how often they visit your website and complete transactions. This segment helps you to understand whether the users are returning and how they are engaging with your website.

Steps to create behaviour segments in Google Analytics:

Step-1: From the segment builder section, select the behaviour segment.

Step-2:  Lets create a segment to find where the transactions are more than one by adding the below configuration to the segment.

Step-3: Once the segment is applied, you can see the number of users who have completed more than one transaction.

Example behaviour segment based on the session

Segment to understand the number of sessions initiated by the users in the given data range.

Note: User-based segments are defaulted by 93 days.

Date of first session segments

This segment is basically used to understand if the users are returning back to the site. You can find out the users whose first session was between certain days of the month, or between the duration of a date range.

Steps to create a date of first session segment in Google Analytics

Step-1: Log in to Google Analytics and select the segment builder section from any report.

Step-2: Select ‘Date of first session’ from the options.

Step-3: You have an option to select if the date range should be on a specific day of the month, between some date range, on or before, on or after, as shown below.

Example of a date of first session segment

Traffic sources segments

You can segment your users by how they found your website. For example, by campaign name, medium, source or keyword.

Traffic source segments can be created based on users or sessions.

Steps to create traffic source segment in Google Analytics

Step-1: Log in to your segment builder section and click on the traffic source segment.

Step-2: Let us create a source-based segment based on partners.

Step-3: Save the segment to view the users-based segment whose source contains partners.

Example of traffic source segment based on medium

Enhanced ecommerce segments

This will let you segment your users based on their shopping behaviour.

Enhanced ecommerce segments can be created based on three types:

• Performed any action
• Added to basket
• Purchased an item

Based on the option you select, the configuration options will be changed.

Steps to create enhanced ecommerce segment

Step-1: Log in to your segment builder section and select the enhanced ecommerce segment.

Step-2: Let us create a product-based ecommerce segment to check how much revenue your site is generating.

Note: Enhanced ecommerce segment should be used only when you have ecommerce data enabled in your reports.

Advanced segments

Apart from the segments that we have discussed so far, Google Analytics provides options to create advanced segments. This segment enables you to take one step further and lets you add or specify the series of steps taken by the user.

Steps to create advanced segments in Google Analytics

Step-1: Log in to Google Analytics and select the segment builder section from any report.

Step-2: Select advanced segment from the options and then select ‘Conditions’.

Step-3: In advanced segments you can create a segment based on users or sessions. Based on the type of segment that you wish to create you can select in the filter section as shown below.

Step-4: Additionally, you have an option to select any dimension from the drop down.

Step-5: Let’s say you would like to view all the traffic from Google that navigated to the add to cart page. You can create a configuration as below where source contains ‘Google’ and page contains ‘/basket.html’.

Step-6: The summary section on the right-hand side will show if the segment is working and results as well.

Step-7: Based on your requirements, you can add conditions like AND or OR, and add filters as well.

Similar to condition-based advanced segments we also have an option to create sequence-based segments.

Steps to create sequenced-based advanced segment

Step-1: Log in to Google Analytics and select the segment builder section from any report.

Step-2: Select the advanced segment from the option and, this time, select ‘Sequences’.

Step-3:  Even in sequence segments, you have an option to create segments based on users or sessions.

Step-4: Let’s create a sequential segment to see users who have come from a direct source, where the country is the United States, and then landed on the home page. This use case can be created by using the below configuration.

Step-5: You can view the summary section of the segment to see the number of users meeting these criteria. In our case, 19415 users have landed on the home page directly on a website from the United States.

Step-6: When you save and apply this segment to a report, you can get better insights. Out of 117,144 users for the website 19415 users meet our condition and new users are 17,583.

Are you excited to use segments now in Google Analytics? I hope this article was helpful in understanding the best segments that can be used to slice and dice your data.

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• Google Analytics Segments vs Filters