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Real-Time Segmentation in SiteCatalyst

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Level 10

2/11/10

Currently, there is no way to do instant segmentation from within SiteCatalyst which is a real draw-back.  For example, if you want to make a segment of all Visits where a visitor purchased something or logged-in, the only way to do this is thourgh a DataWarehouse Request, an ASI slot or Discover since there will be Page Views already collected prior to when the visitor took the action (Purchase or Login).  This functionality is available in Google Analytics, but that is due to the fact that data is delayed by one day.  I would be ok with having the option to delay my data (i.e. 24 hours) to have this functionality.  Basically, there are many times when you want to wait until the entire Visit is dojne, before deciding which data set to send the data to.

 

Here is an example of why this is so critical.  Let's say you want to see all of your data by Purchasers vs. Non-Purchasers, but you only know if they are a Purchaser by seeing if at some point in the Visit they bought something. Currently, to do this, you have to use ASI or Discover to create separate data sets for each of these and if you have multiple geographies, you can have 10-50 ASI slots or Discover Segments to do this.  We need a way to build any segment on the fly in SiteCatalyst and see all historical data. A less elegant solution would be to give customers the option to delay processing (knowing they won’t get real-time data) and then allow them to apply a VISTA rule-like function to the data before it is processed.  The former is much better and seems to be the trend…I would much prefer building 40-50 segments that can be applied to all reports in SiteCatalyst than having to build 40-50 ASI slots.  Though this is available in Discover, not everyone has access to it and it is a hard tool to learn.  I  wouldn't need all of the functionality of Discover as part of this (i.e. infinite breakdowns)...

23 Comments

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Level 10

2/12/10

Good question...I am ok not having all that Discover does if I could have this one feature.  Even delaying data by 24 hours would be ok with me to be able to show my users sitecatalyst data for a segment.  I am afraid many of the replies from Omniture will be to "use Discover" but that is not feasible for nromal end-users who are already baffled by the SiteCatalyst interface...

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Level 2

2/12/10

Honestly, I think Omniture needs to strongly consider this... this could really affect their business.

 

A discover-like interface already exists on the web. It's called Google Analytics. Omniture should implement this just to keep up. My 2 cents.

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Level 1

2/12/10

On the fly segmentation request has for a long time been my #1 SiteCatalyst feature request. I realize Discover exists as a separate product that meets an array of advanced needs, but SiteCatalyst on its own needs to have real-time segmentation available as a feature in some form. It would be acceptable to even have the segmentation capabilities available after a 24 hour delay as well. Accomplishing this task using ASI slots and Datawarehouse is not efficient compared to working directly within SiteCatalyst.

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Level 10

2/14/10

This seems to speak to user segmentation rather than page segmentation. User segmentation has long been a need of ours. A known user on our site can have an element in three or four variables associated with them. There are so many permutations that using ASI is not practical (we tried and we broke it). We live in a very distributed analytics environment so Discover 2 pricing is prohibitive. We do correlations, but this is a user segmentation and the key metric, monthly uniques, is not available. Next day would be fine.

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Level 2

2/15/10

I liked how Hitbox handled Segments.  You have to wait 24 hours once you create it, but then you can come in at any time and browse the entire application, looking only at that segment. Seems Omni could make the differentiator with Discover as being real-time vs. 24 hour.

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Level 1

3/9/10

Every segment made in data warehouse should be available in site catalyst. the ASI-slot seems like a bad hack. There is a limit of 3 and you have to wait about 30-90 minutes when you change one. just add segmentation outright to site catalyst.