Cohort Analysis with Google Analytics

Cohorts are groups of people that share a common trait within a certain time.

You might have heard of Cohort Analysis – it’s a time-tested segmentaiton technique used to understand user behavior. Cohort analysis has never been a core part of Google Analytics – it’s always been a bit of a hack. I wanted to discuss how to do cohort analysis with Google Analytics today and what it might [...]

Google Analytics Custom Variables for Publishers

Measuring Members with Google Analytics

In the past I wrote about 5 Google Analytics custom segments for ecommerce, so it only makes sense that I return the favor for publishers! Publishing is changing drastically. It’s all about creating a dedicated audience and providing them with good, consistent content. If you can achieve this then you’ll have a loyal, attentive audience [...]

Segmentation Options in Google Analytics

Google Analytics Browsers Report

As web analysts we live and die by segmentation. Without the ability to segment traffic we can not isolate which segments are producing and which need improvement. Google Analytics offers many different ways to segment data. Each has pros and cons but there is always a way to get the data you need…. well, almost [...]

Segmenting Members from Non-Members

Segmented Metrics

Do you run a subscription based website? You know the type of site: customers pay you a monthly fee and you give them access to valuable content. I’ve worked with a number of clients with this business model and have noticed that many make a consistent mistake when setting up their analytics package: they fail [...]

Google Analytics Cross Segmentation: Something You Should Know

Campaign Name Filter

Google Analytics has a great feature called Cross Segmentation. Using this feature you can ‘drill down’ into your data to gain more insight. However, there is one thing that all GA users should know. Sometimes cross segmenting data does not produce the desired result. Example I’m a big fan of bounce rate. I think it’s [...]

Custom Segmentation with Google Analytics

User-Defined Report

Last week wrote a piece about using custom segments to exclude yourself from Google Analytics tracking. I didn’t stop to think that some folks may not know what custom segmentation is and how it is implemented with Google Analytics. So today I’ll cover how to setup and use custom segmentation with Google Analytics. Segmentation of [...]