New user and sequence based segments in the Core Reporting API

Segmentation is one of the most powerful analysis techniques in Google Analytics. It's core to understanding your users, and allows you to make better marketing decisions. Using segmentation, you can uncover new insights such as:

Last year, we announced a new version of segments that included a number of new features.

Today, we've added this powerful functionality to the Google Analytics Core Reporting API. Here's an overview of the new capabilities we added:

User Segmentation

Previously, advanced segments were solely based on sessions. With the new functionality in the API, you can now define user-based segments to answer questions like "How many users had more than $1,000 in revenue across all transactions in the date range?"

Try it in the Query Explorer.

Sequence-based Segments

Sequence-based segments provide an easy way to segment users based on a series of interactions. With the API, you can now define segments to answer questions like "How many users started at page 1, then later, in a different session, made a transaction?"

New Operators

To simplify building segments, we added a bunch of new operators to simplify filtering on dimensions whose values are numbers, and limiting metric values within ranges. Additionally, we updated segment definitions in the Management API segments collection.

Partner Solutions

Padicode, one of our Google Analytics Technology Partners, used the new sequence-based segments API feature in their funnel analysis product they call PadiTrack.

PadiTrack allows Google Analytics customers to create ad-hoc funnels to identify user flow bottlenecks. By fixing these bottlenecks, customers can improve performance, and increase overall conversion rate.

The tool is easy to use and allows customers to define an ad-hoc sequence of steps. The tool uses the Google Analytics API to report how many users completed, or abandoned, each step.

According to Claudiu Murariu, founder of Padicode, "For us, the new API has opened the gates for advanced reporting outside the Google Analytics interface. The ability to be able to do a quick query and find out how many people added a product to the shopping cart and at a later time purchased the products, allows managers, analysts and marketers to easily understand completion and abandonment rates. Now, analysis is about people and not abstract terms such as visits."

The PadiTrack conversion funnel analysis tool is free to use. Learn more about PadiTrack on their website.

Resources

• Read the segmentation conceptual guide to learn how these new segments work.
• Get started with the segments developer guide.
• Understand the richness of the segments language in the reference guide.

We're looking forward to seeing what people build using this powerful new functionality.