This documentation provides definitions of the segment types currently employed by Yahoo! Web Analytics. It also contains practical examples where various combinations illustrate the usage of the newly-introduced segment types.

Definitions

In Yahoo! Web Analytics a segment type is a general characteristic of all data points and shows how data points relate to each other. There are three different basic segment types:

• Tracked Events
• Visits
• Visitors

Tracked Events encompasses information that can be tracked multiple times within a visit. This includes information concerning pages viewed, actions completed, campaigns that brought visitors to the tracked website, products viewed and/or purchased, and downloaded files. All these different activities are tracked events because they occur within the visit and can have different values during the same visit.

For example, suppose a visitor had 1 visit and saw 3 different pages, Page A, Page B, and Page C. Using the segment Page Title = Page A with Tracked Events, the resulting report will show 1 page view.

The Visits type is a level higher than Tracked Events, because it enables the user to examine the visit as a string of tracked events. When segmenting by tracked events at Visits level, as long as the visit contains one instance of the tracked event, then the entire the entire page view history is included in report results. Groups with Visits type report information that is tracked at the visit level and for which there is only one value of the tracked data for the entire visit. For example, such groups can include demographics information, referral information, information about the Search Phrases or the Search Engines that brought visitors to a website, etc.

For example, suppose a visitor from the USA had 1 visit and saw 3 different pages, Page A, Page B, and Page C. Using the segment Visiting Country = USA with Visits type, the resulting report will show 3 page views.

The Visitors type is a level higher than Visits and encompasses all the visits that different visitors (people) made to a website and thus, their entire visit and page view history is included in report results. The benefit in using Visitors is that it allows you to string together all the visits of the visitor and to create segmenting conditions for them.

When applying a Visitors segment, individual visits are aggregated, and tracked events are aggregated across different visits of the same visitor. Metrics are summed up over the entire visitor history, which makes it possible for Yahoo! Web Analytics to calculate powerful metrics, such as Revenue per Visitor. When segmenting by groups at Visitors level, as long as at least one visit applies to the segment, then the visitor’s entire history is included in report results.

For example, suppose a visitor from the USA had 3 visits and for each visit he saw 3 different pages, Page A, Page B, and Page C. Using the segment Visiting Country = USA with Visitors type, the resulting report will show 9 page views.

Example of Applying the Three Segment types to the Same Scenario

Assume you want to gather data over the last week where a user viewed a trailer page for movie X. If Mary viewed the trailer page once in that time period, then selecting:

• Tracked Events: Only data specific to Mary's view of the Trailer page applies to the segment.
• Visits: Mary’s entire visit data in which the page view for the Trailer page occurred applies to the segment.
• Visitors: In addition to data around the qualifying event (Page Title = Trailer page), all of Mary's past visits and page views during that time period apply to the segment.

How to use Segment Types

With three types of segments, you are able to narrow and expand the focus of analysis constantly, because you can go from focusing on a single event to how that event is reflected at a visit level and a visitor level. Depending on what level of analysis you choose, Yahoo! Web Analytics will flexibly update report results to suit your focus.

The following is an example of applying the same segment – Page Title equals Home – to the Most Requested Pages report using the three segment types.

Example: Tracking Events

1. Select Reports > Most Requested Pages by Page Title.
2. Customize the report by adding the Visits metric.
3. Segment by: Page Title equals Home.
4. Select both the Global segment and the Segment Line item type to be Tracked Events.

The resulting report (Figure 1) will show only the page views made to the Page Title that was selected in the segment and allows the user to focus only on that specific page. Notice that the Visits metric shows the total number of Visits that included a view of the Home page.

Figure 1 Segmented Report with Segment Type = Tracked Events

Note: Buttons at bottom are hidden by default; click to expand.

Example: Visits

1. Select Reports > Most Requested Pages by Page Title.
2. Customize the report by adding the Visits metric.
3. Segment by: Page Title equals Home.
4. Select both the Global segment and the Segment Line item type to be Visits.

The resulting report (Figure 2) will show not only the page views made to the Setting page, but also the page views made to other pages that were visited during visits that included a view of the Home page. This segment allows the user to focus on those visits that included a view of the specific page (Page Title equals Home) and to take into account not only the page itself, but the visit history as well.

Notice that the Visits metric isn’t additive, i.e., if you add the Visits number for the Home page with the visits number for the Control+Center page, the result will not match the total number of Visits that included the Home page during the reporting period, which is 136. In this report, each Page Title shows the number of different visits they were part of. For example, if one visit contained 2 pages, for the report in Figure 2, both pages will count as 1 visit each.

Figure 2 Segmented Report with Segment Type = Visits

Note: Buttons at bottom are hidden by default; click to expand.

Example: Visitors

1. Select Reports > Most Requested Pages by Page Title.
2. Customize the report by adding the Visits metric.
3. Segment by: Page Title equals Home.
4. Select both the Global segment and the Segment Line item type = Visitors.

The resulting report (Figure 3) will show the visits of all visitors who visited at least once during the reporting period the Home page. Notice that in comparison with the previous report (Figure 2), both the number of Page Views and the number of Visits have increased. This means that we’re looking at the entire visitor history of those visitors that viewed the Home page and that some of their visits did not include a visit to the Home page.

The higher level of the Visitors segment (versus the Visits segment or the Tracked Events segnebt) typically means higher numbers of Page Views and Visits, but it also means that you look at recurring patterns of activity for individual visitors and you can examine their overall behavior. Just like in the previous report (Figure 2), the Visits metric isn’t additive in this report either.

Figure 3 Segmented Report with Segment Type = Visitors

Note: Buttons at bottom are hidden by default; click to expand.

Precedence Rules for Segment Types

Yahoo! Web Analytics has a built-in hierarchy for the three segment types in the Segmentation Builder: Visitors takes precedence over Visits and Visits takes precedence over Tracked Events: Visitors > Visits > Tracked Events. Precedence rules inform the way segments are created and affect report results. For details on this topic, see the following section.

Global and Segment Line Item Types

The Yahoo! Web Analytics Segmentation Builder enables you to set the type for both the global segment and for individual segment line items. When selecting different combinations of segments, you need to pay attention to the way the global segment type interacts with the individual types specified for the segment line items.

The global segment type is set by accessing the Segmentation Builder and using the drop-down at the top of the window (Figure 4).

Figure 4 Set the Global Segment Type

The segment line item type is set by accessing the Segmentation Builder, then dragging-and-dropping a dimension or a metric and using the drop-down for each individual item (Figure 5).

Figure 5 Set the Segment Line Item Type

The general rule of interaction between the global segment type and the segment line item types is that the global segment type will dictate the type of the segment and the types of individual segment line items will be raised to match the type of the global segment.

A segment definition that has Visitors type as global will maintain that type even if the types of the segment line items might be set to Tracked Events or Visits.

Use Case 1: How many times did people look at my product pages?

• Segment type: Tracked Events
• Document Group equals Product (match Tracked Events)

Apply to the following reports:

• Most Requested Pages by Title
• Document Groups
• Page Views

Use Case 2: What content did people look at during the visit when they registered?

• Segment type: Visits
• Page Title equals Registration (match Visits)

Apply to the following reports:

• Most Requested Pages by Title

Use Case 3: What cars did people look at during visits when they also looked at the Toyota Camry and the Mercedes C Class pages?

• Segment type: Tracked Events
• Match all of the following:
  • Page Title equals Toyota Camry (match Visits)
  • Page Title equals Mercedes C Class (match Visits)
  • Document Group equals Cars (match Tracked Events)

Use Case 4: What cars did people look at who visited the Toyota Camry and the Mercedes C Class pages during any of their visits?

Visitors may not have visited Toyota Camry and the Mercedes C Class during the same visit.

• Segment type: Tracked Events
• Match All of the following
• Page Title equals Toyota Camry (match Visitor)
• Page Title equals Mercedes C Class (match Visitor)
• Document Group equals Cars (match Tracked Events)

Use Case 5: What content did people look at during any of their visits who visited the Toyota Camry page and ordered a catalog during the same visit?

The Toyota Camry view and the catalog order needed to happen during the same visit, but the car views may have been in different visits.

• Segment type: Visitor Segment
• Match all of the following:
  • Page Title equals Toyota Camry (match Visit)
  • Page Title equals Catalog Order Page (match Visit)

Apply to the following reports:

• Most Requested Pages by Title

Use Case 6: What content did people look at during any of their visits who visited the Toyota Camry page and ordered a catalog during the same visit?

The Toyota Camry view and the catalog order needed to happen during the same visit, but the car views may have been in different visits. This use case demonstrates the necessity of the tracked event segment type; in Use Case 5, a catalog request for any car maker would have qualified.

• Segment type: Visitor Segment
• Match all of the following:
  • Page Title equals Toyota Camry (match Visit)
  • Page Title equals Catalog Order Page (match Tracked Event)
  • Custom Field Catalog Type equals Toyota (match Tracked Event)

Apply to the following reports:

• Most Requested Pages by Title

Use Case 7: What content did people look at during any of their visits who visited the Toyota Camry page and ordered a catalog during any of their visits?

The Toyota Camry view and the catalog order needed to happen during the same visit, however, the car views may have been in different visits.

• Segment type: Visitor Segment
• Match all of the following:
  • Page Title equals Toyota Camry (match Visitor) AND Page Title equals Catalog Order Page (match Tracked Event)
  • Custom Field Catalog Type equals Toyota (match Tracked Event)