Building Segments Correctly

[ziang_chen]

Hello SC nation.

I have had a lot of trouble building Segments correctly.

I want to figure out what segment traffic statistics is to be attributed to a channel, Search, Direct, Referral,Social.

I've set up segements using 

Hits, 
Referrer type = Search Engines and etc.

However I have also worked with clients and seen their set up of visits from Search Natural=

Visit 
Search Engine- Natural Exists

and Hits
Search Engine - Natural Exists.

However the last 2 I have not been able to get to equal up to total number of visits.

Using the Referrer Type reports and the first construction of the segments, I can get them to report the numbers to equal what the referrer type report is but the other set ups give really of numbers that are inflated. 

Does anyone have any experience finding Traffic/conversion statistics by channel?

Thanks in advance

[brian_au]

Hi Ziang,

One note is the 'Referrer Type=Search Engines' includes BOTH Paid and Natural Search. So 'Referrer Type=Search Engines' should therefore match the 'Referrer=Search Engines All' Report. Outside of that distinction it sounds like there may be some differences in the segmentation container types in play. I would review and make sure you are on equal footing with the construction of the container types (hit, visit) as well.

Best,

Brian

[ziang_chen]

Hi Brian,

Thanks for clarifying the Referrer Type report for Search Engines. 

I'm still a little unclear on the differences in segmentation contains. Can you explain to me the difference between hit and visit and visitor as it pertains to segments?

If you were tasked with setting up segments in order to get traffic metrics segmented by Social Networks, Referral, Search (Organic), and Typed/Bookmarked(Direct), What would you use container wise (Visitor?Visits?Hits?) Why? Then what would you use for the dimensions and stuff? Referral type = (Social Websites, etc)

There's very little documentation out there about this and thanks for being a resource!

Peter

[brian_au]

Hi Peter,

It depends on your analysis intent, but typically traffic metrics center around visits. Referrals can be tricky because within a given visit a visitor could increment several different referral instances. You might also want to check out the Marketing Channel reports in Adobe Analytics which allow for a holistic view of traffic once set up http://microsite.omniture.com/t2/help/en_US/mchannel/c_getting_started_mchannel.html. A good overall primer on segmentation/segment containers:

http://www.iloveadobesegmentation.com/

http://microsite.omniture.com/t2/help/en_US/analytics/segment/seg_container_overview.html

There are also several solid resources on the Adobe Help Microsite:

http://microsite.omniture.com/t2/help/en_US/analytics/segment/

http://microsite.omniture.com/t2/help/en_US/analytics/segment/seg_transition.html

http://microsite.omniture.com/t2/help/en_US/analytics/segment/seg_build.html

http://microsite.omniture.com/t2/help/en_US/analytics/segment/seg_overview.html

Best,

Brian

[ziang_chen]

Hi Brian,

Thanks for sending me these resources. Much appreciated.

I read these 2 definitions

The Hit container defines which page hits you would like to include or exclude from a segment. It is the most narrow of the containers available to let you identify specific clicks and page view where a condition is true, letting you view a single tracking code, or isolate behavior within a particular section of your site. You may also want to pinpoint a specific value when an action occurs, such as the marketing channel when an order was placed.
The Visit container lets you identify page interactions, campaigns, or conversions for a specific web session. The Visit container is the most commonly used container because it captures behaviors for the entire visit session once the rule is met and lets you define which visits you want to include or exclude in building and applying a segment. It can help you answer the question of how many visitors viewed the News and Sports section in the same visit? Or pages that attributed to a successful conversion to a sale?

I find that if I build my segments off of hit and the referrer type, I can then get the equivalent numbers as the referrers type report. When I build my segments off of Visit, the numbers are inflated. I think I understand that for the hit based segment it only counts the actual page that was the referrer. Because we are only tracking a small set of pages or often times just a single landing page as a drive to traffic page, the referrer types seems accurate. 

I don't seem to understand what using a visits container would do but raise the count. My thought is that this would count a single visitor as multiple visits and all the different channels they got to the landing page. Can you help me understand the difference that using Hit vs Visits in the container type while using dimensions as Referrer Type = Social, Direct, Referral etc. You said it was tricky in the previous post and I can definitely see it now.

Thanks,

Peter

[brian_au · Accepted solution]

Hi Peter,

The Referrer Type report defaults to instances and 'Visits' is not an available metric view in the stock R&A report. It makes total sense that hit matches instances in this case. If you are applying a Visit container with some type of Referrer Type construction then that would pull in all visits which it matched that Referrer Type value at least once over the course of a web session. Visits do not persist or tie at the Visitor level (across visits in other words) like the Visitor container does however. Like for like, Referrer Type visits should be less than Referrer Type instances.

I am not sure where the logic is off from the intent, but I would recommend reviewing your segment construction further in depth. It may help to triangulate using the unique visitors metric which is available in the stock Referrer Type report as a metric.

Best,

Brian