Filters and Segments
·
Custom Variables: Custom
variables can be used to define additional segments to apply to your visitors
other than the ones already provided by Analytics. It is a powerful technique
as it can be tailored to a website and its idiosyncrasies but, on the downside,
it depends on additional website coding.
·
Advanced Segments: Advanced segmentation
the other hand, allow you to apply and remove segments without removing data.
They are considered less effective for long term segmentation purposes.
·
Profile filters: In Google
Analytics, Filters are used by Views to segment the data into smaller groups.
Filters can be used to include only specific subset of traffic, exclude
unwanted data, or to search and replace certain pieces of information. Belong to a long-term segmentation strategy.
The data collected in a specific profile in the past cannot be changed or
removed, so please be careful when applying filters.
Filter types and
uses
•
Include and exclude filters
•
Search-and-replace filters
•
Advanced filters
•
Exclude internal traffic
•
Filter domain referrals
•
Filter on geography
• Custom filter fields &Social Network filters
i.
Include and exclude filters
Use Include and Exclude Filters to eliminate unwanted hits.
If you apply an Exclude Filter and the pattern matches, the hit is
thrown away and Analytics continues with the next hit. If the pattern does not
match, the next filter is applied to that hit. You can create either a single
Exclude Filter with multiple patterns separated by '|' or you can create
multiple Exclude Filters with a single pattern each.
ii.
How search-and-replace filters work
Search-and-replace filters use regular expressions to find a search string in a filter
field and replace it with a replacement string.
To create a search-and-replace filter:
1.
Follow the
instructions to create a new
filter for your view.
2.
Set the Filter Type to
Custom.
3.
Click the Select filter type drop-down menu and select
Search
and Replace.
4.
Use the Filter Field drop down menu to select the field
(dimension) you want search.
5.
Enter a regular
expression in the Search String field.
6.
Enter the Replace String. To
delete the search string entirely, leave this blank.
7.
Use the Case Sensitive checkbox if your regular expression is
case sensitive. Otherwise, the search will be case insensitive.
iii.
Advanced filters
The Advanced filter lets you construct Fields for reporting from
one or two existing Fields. Use expressions
and corresponding variables to capture all or parts of Fields and combine the result in any order
you wish. For general information on how filtering works, read About Filters.
iv.
Exclude internal traffic
Filter out traffic to your website from people
on your corporate network.
Most of the time, Google Analytics is used to track how external
customers and users interact with your website, since internal traffic patterns
are typically different from external traffic patterns. When your reporting
views contain hit data from both internal and external users of your website,
it might become difficult to determine how your customers are actually
interacting with your website.
v.
Filter domain referrals
Reduce spam traffic from your Google Analytics
data.
Referral traffic is the segment of traffic that arrives on your
website through another source, like through a link on another domain.
Analytics automatically recognizes where traffic was immediately before
arriving on your site, and displays the domain names of these sites as the
referral traffic sources in your reports.
vi.
Filter on geography
Instructions for creating filters are in Create/manage view filters.
Here are two ways to use filters on geo-fields to track data based
on geographical regions:
1. Consolidate countries into sales regions
2. Use Region-Specific Reporting
vii. Custom filter fields
It Includes,
·
Content and
traffic
·
Campaign or Ad
group
·
E commerce
·
Audience /users
·
Location
viii.
Social Network filters
If you create a custom filter that uses any of the Social
dimensions (Social Network, Social Action, Social Action
Target), keep in mind
that these dimensions apply only to Social interactions (social-hit data).
Create a filter at the account level
To create a filter at
the account level:
•
Sign in to your
Analytics account.
•
Select the Admin tab
and navigate to the account
in which you want to create the filter.
•
In the ACCOUNT column, click All Filters.
•
Click +
New Filter.
•
Select Create
new Filter.
•
Enter a name for the filter.
•
Select Predefined
filter to select from the predefined
filter types.
•
Select Custom
filter to construct
a custom filter from the options we provide. If you create
a custom filter, consult our definitions of the filter
fields.
•
From the Available views list, select
the views to which you want to apply the filter and then click add.
•
Click Save.
To
create a filter at the view level:
•
Sign in to your
Analytics account.
•
Select the Admin tab
and navigate to the view
in which you want to create the filter.
•
In the VIEW column, click Filters.
•
Click +
New Filter.
•
Select Create
new Filter.
•
Enter a name for the filter.
•
Select Predefined
filter to select from the predefined
filter types.
•
Select Custom
filter to construct
a custom filter from
the options we provide. If you create a custom filter, consult our definitions
of the filter fields.
•
From the Available views list, select
the views to which you want to apply the filter and then click add.
•
Click Save.
To change the filter order for a view
•
Sign in to your
Analytics account.
•
Select the Admin tab
and navigate to the view
in which you want to create the filter.
•
In the VIEW column, click Filters.
•
Click Assign
Filter Order, select the filter you want to move, then click Move up or Move down. Click save when you are finished.
•
If you want to remove a filter from the view,
click remove in the row
for that filter.
To add existing filters to or remove them from a
view
•
Sign in to your
Analytics account.
•
Select the Admin tab
and navigate to the view
in which you want to add or remove filters.
•
In the VIEW column, click Filters.
•
Click +
New Filter.
•
Select Apply
existing Filter.
•
Add or remove the filters as necessary.
•
Click Save.
Recommended
Views
Unfiltered
View: Always have a view called “Unfiltered
View – Do Not Delete” defined to keep your raw data intact. This view is there
to make sure if anything unexpected happens to the data at least you have a
backup saved somewhere. You should never add any filters to this view.
Main
View: This view would be the one you use
for reporting on a regular basis. Call it whatever you like, but make sure it’s
communicated to your team which view should be used for reporting.
Test
View: Apply your filters to this “Test View”
first. Since the effects of applying a filter cannot be undone, it is
recommended that you apply your new filters to a Test View first and let them
run for a couple of days, to have enough time to verify the credibility of the
results. If you have not already created and defined a “Test View”, it is a
good time to create one now; your Test View should use the same exact settings
as your “Main View” that you would normally use for your reporting purposes. If
everything looks good after a few days, then apply to your Main View.
Filter
Processing
Filters cannot be applied to your previous historical
data; they can only be applied to your data moving forward. Filters are
processed in order, so make sure you arrange the filters in the correct order.
Basic
Filters
In this blog, I am going to cover some of the basic (as
opposed to more customized) filters everyone can use to segment their data. We
use these filters to make sure our data is valid, to clean up the data, and to
find out where the data is coming from.
Data Collection
Exclude
Internal IP
Include Internal IP
Include Specific Hostname
Include Specific Subdomain
Exclude Dev Site Traffic
Include Internal IP
Include Specific Hostname
Include Specific Subdomain
Exclude Dev Site Traffic
Introduction
to segments
You can use any
segment as a filter for your reports. Once you apply a segment, it remains
active as you navigate throughout the reports until you remove it. You can
apply up to four segments at a time, and compare results from each segment side
by side in your reports.
The All
Sessions segment is applied to all reports by default. This segment
includes all data for every session in a date range, and lets you see
performance for your entire user population.
Apply
segments
To apply segments to a report:
•
Sign in to your
Analytics account.
•
Open the View that includes the reports you want to use.
•
Click the Reporting tab, then open the report you want. This example
uses the Audience Overview report.
•
At the top of your report, click + Add Segment...
No comments:
Post a Comment