As with many online tools, Google Analytics can easily benefit from a little customisation to make sure that you are getting the best out of what it has to offer.

Custom reports, dashboards and segments can be created to make it easier to analyse data in different ways. Custom segments, in particular, can give useful insights into audience behaviour.

Examples

Google Analytics segments can be used to break down various pieces of data that you might find useful, including whether visitors arrived at your site using a mobile device, what country they were in, if the visit led to a conversion, and more.

There are “pre-loaded” analytics with a number of segments that can be used “off the shelf” and give options to categorise by visitor type, referrer or traffic source, physical location, the device or browser that was used, and more.

However, to learn information about something that Google hasn't included, or to mix and match selections for your own best practice, customised segments are the answer.

Create a segment

The Google Analytics UI is fairly straightforward and there's an “Add Segment” link.

By walking through the steps, you can set out options such as how many visitors view three or more pages and end up with a percentage summary as well as demographic and technology data.

Slice and dice

Data can be sliced and diced in many ways to give you a bespoke view of how your pages are performing – for instance, the differences between mobile and desktop user visits may mean you need to consider a website redesign or shift of emphasis in order to get the most out of it.

Essentially, the ability to customise such a powerful online marketing tool means that you can hone in on what is important to you and your business and see exactly which elements of your campaign work well.

Usage

Even though the customisation is so easy to do, 41% of users still aren't creating their own segments.

For some, the fear of getting something wrong is a reason to avoid embracing a new opportunity, but with Google Analytics it is easy to experiment and learn through trial and error without any negative effects at all.