Segmenting data within web analytics is an enterprise level function. Even though Google has offered their Analytics tool for free, it is enterprise level in terms of functionality. Keep in mind that if you use tools from Google, they gain data about your company and operations as agreed to in their TOS. For some types of business this may not be desirable.

Advanced Segmentation is a process of sorting information to have a more clear understanding of what the different processes, events and visitors mean for your business. Part of defining a segmented report is the goal of understanding and comparing sections of your composite analytics data.

This can better help you understand and identify user behavior and make better decisions for your marketing practice.

Outline of components to segments:

• Dimensions: customer & campaign attributes
• Metrics: numbers and key performance indicators

You have the ability to create customized segment reports yourself. The segment report essentially zooms into a specific set of characteristics or events and shows the performance of those characteristics. In addition, you can compare your segment against the composite data for a given period of time.

All advanced segment templates are associated with visits data for example: All Visits, New Visitors, Paid Traffic, etc.

Example segment report:
Distinguishing between the traffic of two departments of a company:

1. First, look that the URLs of the different departments. Try to find a unique URL identifier that distinguishes them. For instance:  www.example.com/video/... vs. www.example.com/print/...
2. Create two advanced segments using the unique part of the URL ( one segment for each )
3. Apply these segments to the reports. This will allow you to compare the two departments.

Notes: This can work with less simple URLs. They don't need to be actual department names like the example above. If your department, product, category, etc uses a numerical identification like "CatID=1" and "CatID=2", then this could also work for the unique identifier.

Performance comparison using segments for competing marketing efforts
Another example that we could give for such types of useful comparisons could be to compare different types of referring traffic to understand the long term performance benefits of your business partnerships, advertising campaign and referring links. For example, you could compare visitor data from all your social marketing efforts in Facebook, Twitter, etc. against paid blog sponsorships or other forms of paid advertising. From these comparisons, you could determine what types of visitors are the most valuable and put more effort into the better performing campaigns.

Planning
Understanding segment reports can also be helpful in advance of building a website. Try to think ahead for the needs of the site and generating reports and data. Try to keep a useful URL for both analytics and for SEO to help with marketing efforts.