Understanding of segment container

Question

Hey guys, i have read so much about hit, visit and visitor segments, but we do not get this problem:

How Analytics is tracking in this case? We had a campaign, where Adobe View Tracking was activated for a campaign (therefore we have created the Segment "iq 346600", just to track this campaign). The campaign runs from august to october. but if i am changing the date range from january to october, the number of our Segment "wirtschaft" is increasing, but why? Where does this additional unique user come from, because in the month before august that campaign did not run, so for me the number of unique Visitors should be the same in both parts. Or is it possible, that someone qualified himself for a Segment in for example April, but if the date range in Analytics starts after April, he will not be counted? we do not get it, why the number changes.

fyi: If I only consider the period in which the campaign did not run (beginning of the year until July), the number of unique visitors in the segment is correctly 0, because there was no tracking. so this is correct .but if i am changing the date range and include the three months, where the Campaign was tracked, with additional the beginning of the year (so from january to octobre), the number of the unique Visitor is not the same compared to the date range from August to octobre.

Pablo_Childe · Accepted Answer

Unique Visitors will de duplicate or capture users based on time frame.

If a users visits your site before the campaign start, then after the campaign start they are tagged. This will show your discrepancy.

I recommend across monthly time frames. Use Monthly UVs (or else UVs will be factored of duration of dates of report pull).

Hope this clarifies things.

Urs_Boller · Answer

I'm not sure if I have the solution, but I'll give it a try. my theory: the segment "Wirtschaft" has a longer timespan to catch unique visitors and is independent from the other segment. that means, there are users before august that qualified for "wirtschaft", before the campaign started.

in short: the difference of the two numbers are those unique visitors that matched "wirtschaft" ONLY before they qualified for the campaign. the others qualified for both segments after august.

explanation in an example: as you said, the campaign segment (column) did start in August. that means, each matching unique visitor mist have arrived (and qualified) in this timeframe.

the other segment has a much longer timeframe (my assumption), so a user that came in july might have qualified for that segment "wirtschaft".

now assume a user came in july, qualifying for "wirtschaft", returning in september and only qualifying for you campaign. if you run a report for august to now, this user will not appear, since he had no match with "wirtschaft" in the selected timeframe (either the criteria expired or was overwritten).

but looking at a longer timeframe, the user would be included, because the match is now "visible".

possible explanation on a technical side: even if you select the "visitor container", analytics segments are only looking at the date range of the report to fetch users. that means, when you run a report for a short date range, analytics will not match unique visitors with matching criteria before (outside date range).

two remarks for advanced users:

1) in fact there is a hidden "reporting date range" if you don't use full month date ranges. for segment selectiong/matching analytics will always expand to full monthes

2) the explanation above is not true, if you use date ranges within segments. using date ranges within segments will change segment behaviour completely (in fact overriding the report date range).

hope that helps

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