The Concept of Segments Tree
To create a Segment you have to define a Filter returning visits of certain characteristics, for example:
- visits in which users went to a registration page,
- visits in which users didn’t click a button to submit the registration form,
- visits in which the basket value exceeded 100.
- visits from a mobile device.
Each defined filter, sometimes consisting of multiple conditions, is added to the segments tree as a branch. You can nest filters one in another to combine them because nested filters inherit criteria defined in their parents, grandparents and so on up to the “All Visits” segment which is at the top of the tree.
When you select (1) a branch on a tree, you select a segment of visits which meet criteria defined on that branch but also criteria of all the (2) ancestor branches. Criteria on (3) nonancestral branches (“uncles”, “brothers”, “children”) are ignored.
Therefore, the same filter, placed differently in the tree, may return different segment of visits.
Single Filter
The example below shows a Segments Tree containing just a single filter which returns a segment of visits in which users went to a registration page:
Multiple Filters
You can add multiple filters to your tree. If filters are added on the same level, they are independent of each other:
Nested Filters
You can nest filters to combine their criteria. On the example below, the filter “Visited Login Page”:
would return only segment of visits in which users, in any order: went to login page AND went to registration page.
Such segment, which is a result of a applying a filter to another segment, can be referred to as a subsegment, as in: “the subsegment of visits in which users went to registration has 50 seconds longer average visit duration than the segment of visits in which users went to the login page”.
The parent branch “Visited Registration Page” would still return all visits in which users visited the registration page, regardless of whether they visited the login page or not.
Order of Filters in the Segments Tree
The filters will return the same results regardless of the order in which they are placed on the tree. Selecting “Visited Registration Page” on the example below would return the same visits as selecting “Visited Login Page” on the tree above:
However, the order in which filters are arranged in a tree, changes how segments returned by those filters relate to each other.
The example below features the data from Segments Reports for two different arrangements of the same two filters:
- (1) The report on the left shows how many visits there were with “Visited Login Page” (192) and in what percentage of those visits users also “Visited Registration Page” (88.0%).
- (2) The report on the right has reversed order of filters and shows how many visits there were with “Visited Registration Page” (222) and in what percentage of those visits users also went to “Visited Login Page” (76.1%)
- (3, 4) Even though the total number of visits in the subsegment of visits in which users visited both Registration and Login Page is the same in both reports (169), the share of that subsegment in the parent segment is different.
Therefore, they way you arrange the tree should be based on a question you have. If you would like to know what the conversion rate was for visits from Google you would nest the filter returning visits with a conversion inside a filter returning visits from Google. If you reversed the order you would find out instead what percentage of all visits with conversion was from Google.
Rearranging the Segments Tree
The fastest way to rearrange the tree is to click a branch and drag it over another branch to which you want to move it:
Alternatively, you can click the edit icon on a branch and select the new placement from the dropdown labelled AND PLACE IT UNDER:.
Copying Branches
You can duplicate an entire branch, including its children, by pressing the SHIFT key and clicking the branch you want to copy.
If you want to copy just a single branch, without its children, click the duplicate icon on a branch and select the new placement.