Advanced segmentation in Google Analytics

I frequently read or hear about the desire to filter out internal visitors from analytics reports, however, this is a very important group to measure if you are trying to build profile or engagement from the people within your organisation. This article gives you the steps on how to do it.

Covered in this article is:

• Setting up an advanced segment
• Specifying the dimensions
• Applying the segment to your report

• Reports which you can’t view with this segment

Setting up an advanced segment

Log into your Google Analytics Account. Once in, enter your dashboard and from the left hand panel, click the @ Advanced Segments link under the My Customisations box.

Choose the +Create new customised segment link at the top right.

Specifying the dimension
Now, we need to drag and drop the dimensions from the left hand box.
The important tag we want is the Service Provider dimension.

You will need to identify your organisation in this list. For smaller organisations this might be more difficult if you have a shared broadband connection, or doesn’t have a static ip address.

Find the Service Provider dimension (Under >Systems) and drag it to the dotted ‘dimension or metric’ box.

Now, you need to set the value. If your organisation has more than one entry (for example, I see 3 entries, Lloyds TSB, Lloyds TSB Plc and also Halifax Bank of Scotland), use the ‘Add “or” statement’, and drag another Service Provider dimension across.

Once you have set the value, you just need to name your segment. For me, I call mine ‘Lloyds Banking Group Visitors’.

Choose Save Segment.

Applying the segment
In the top right of your dashboard, click the ‘All visits’ and from the drop down screen, you will see your custom segments.
To view traffic from only your custom segment, un-tick the ‘All visits’ checkbox, and choose your new segment and press apply.

Your report will regenerate, and now your reports will show visitor behaviour from this segment only.

Reports you cannot view with this advanced segment
Currently, the following reports cannot be viewed when an advanced segment is applied

• Absolute unique visitors
• Keyword positions
• Goal and funnel reports

Google provides more detail in their Analytics help section.

Why measure internal engagement?
There are a number of great reasons to review and report on internal usage of your website.

• Quantitative measure of internal communications activities
• How employees accessing the site (i.e. via intranet and which pages, search, other websites?)
• What messages or content resonates with employees, and how does this compare to customers?
• How are they viewing content? What browser is it in, what device? This can help inform development to ensure your internal stakeholders see what you see.

Internal measures are an important metric to ensure you have internal support to keep momentum in your website strategy.