The majority of content on customer segmentation in ecommerce explains how to segment using data from Google Analytics. This can be very helpful as it allows you to segment customers by traffic source and browser, and see how different ecommerce metrics differ across segments.

If these are your only customer segments and the only metrics that you segment by, then you’re missing key behavioral information like:

• Click behavior differs between customer segments
• Customers who abandon carts may behave differently on your website
• How website behavior differs between long-term customers versus newbies

This information can help you improve your personalization efforts as well as your overall marketing strategy.

Note: Want to segment your customers more precisely and reliably? Register now and get Kobe Digital Free for 30 Days. This will allow you to access visitor-based behavioral data about your visitors.

Four E-Commerce Segments That You Can Track in Google Analytics

This article will cover the four major segments that you can create in Google Analytics. We then go one step further by explaining how Kobe Digital’s visitor data opens up new realms of behavioral segments and adds level to Google Analytics segmentation.

You can skip ahead to see how Kobe Digital offers more targeted ecommerce segmentation options.

Based on data from Google Analytics, there are four major segments that ecommerce businesses may create. You can segment users by:

• Referring source
• Type of user or frequency
• Geographic location
• Types of browsers and devices

You can quickly segment your customer base by these dimensions to get an idea of how engagement and conversion differ depending on which segment. These dimensions can help you determine if your customers spend more time on your website than those who are new to it, or if customers hailing from certain countries or cities convert more frequently than customers from other places.

Referring Source Segments

Google Analytics has a report on referring sources. Acquisition – All Traffic Source/Medium.

You can gauge the quality of traffic from different sources by segmenting customers based on their origins before they land on your ecommerce website.

This is how the Google Analytics ‘Source’ report looks in Google Analytics.

It is possible to see, for instance, if Google Ads customers convert more quickly than those who come from social media (say Instagram).

You may want to test different conversion routes for both channels with this information. Google Ads visitors can be directed directly to product pages, where they can purchase right away. You might try pairing a product page with content assets, discounts, or any other mechanism to capture their email. This will allow you to remarket and keep them moving through your funnel.

User Type Segments

Google Analytics user type report: Audience – Behavior – New vs. Returning.

You can see how users have engaged with your site before and how they are performing in comparison to new users when you break them down into user types.

You can view which pages are most visited by returning and new users based on the split of returning and new user segments.

It is possible to determine which pages each segment converts to and find out if returning users are more likely than new users to purchase certain products (and vice versa). You can then test personalizing your homepage to recommend different products to return and new visitors.

Geographic Location Segments

Google Analytics location report: Audience – Geo – Location

Segmenting customers by geographic location is a common option. It allows you to gauge engagement and conversion across different countries, cities, and continents. This information is invaluable for determining marketing budgets and targeting paid campaigns.

For example, it is possible to see that Canadian customers who access your ecommerce store via Canada convert at a higher rate than customers who access the U.K.

Browser & Operating System (OS) Segments

Access the browser and OS report from Google Analytics by clicking Audience – Technology Browser & OS

Segmenting ecommerce customers by browser, OS and device type can give you valuable insights into the usability of your website across devices, as well as how it affects engagement.

If conversions seem to be low in one browser, such as Safari, you might want to investigate the reasons. A Safari browser might not render the checkout button correctly on your shopping cart page. These simple changes could dramatically increase conversions.

Kobe Digital Offers Additional Targeted Segmentation Options in Ecommerce

Google Analytics has a lot to offer, but one thing is missing that will make a big difference for ecommerce marketers: All data is based upon sessions.

Google Analytics does not tie multiple sessions of the same user together. Google Analytics can be used to create customer segments, but they don’t provide the same reliability as if they were created by actual visitors.

Kobe Digital uses visitor-based data. This allows us to create more targeted customer segments using our visitor behavior data and your ecommerce customer information. You can also add layer of analysis to your Google Analytics segments.

Kobe Digital lets you filter your results for our Confetti and Overlay reports to view click behavior across 22 dimensions.

Filtering by Referrer, New, and Other can help you filter for the segments that are most relevant to your search. You can obtain more behavior data from Google Analytics by filtering for Referrer, New vs.

This is important as you can’t use Google Analytics data alone to see what happens between when a user arrives at your site and when they convert. Did they scroll down to the bottom? Did they click to view more product reviews? Did they see additional images?

These questions will give you a better understanding of your customer segments and help you to determine what motivates them to buy.

This is an example of such information in action. Below is the Confetti Report. We filtered clicks from new users. In the beginning, we were interested in their behavior on sales forms. The highlighted yellow box shows that a significant portion of these new users is clicking the logo of the brand, which is an escape hatch leading them out of the sales funnel.

This is a hint but it does not tell us why so many users abandon the conversion process. The Overlay Report can be viewed on the same page. It shows that the majority of new users clicking the logo were coming from Google Search.

This means that those users are not ready to buy. They need more information. We can then redirect these users to the top of our funnel page instead.

Kobe Digital can also be used to create additional Ecommerce customer segments

Kobe Digital can provide you with more context information about customer segments. You can also create targeted segments.

You can define up to five variables in our heatmap tool. This means that almost anything you can measure or pass on to Kobe Digital can be tracked within your Snapshots report (that’s what we refer to as our five user behavior reports).

These custom user variables allow you to view click behavior on your website based on these five additional ecommerce segments.

• Loyalty to customers (first purchase, loyalty) and lifetime value (LTV).

• Type of buyer: bargain hunter, habitual buyer subscription, big spenders, etc.

• Cart abandoners

• Average order value

• Other customer data, including demographic and psychographic information (such as income, style, gender, and age).

Snapshots can be filtered by style to get valuable insight into how customers use your product catalog. This allows you to create personalized and dynamic catalog pages as well as related product suggestions.

You can see that customers who are represented in green are more likely to be interested in products at lower levels of the page. This is where dynamic shopping experiences might be tested.

Note: Want to segment your customers more precisely and reliably? Register now and get Kobe Digital Free for 30 Days. This will allow you to access visitor-based behavioral data about your visitors.

Kobe Digital: How to Track Visitor-Based Ecommerce Segments

You will need to hire a web developer if you are not a programmer. Kobe Digital does not automatically track the value that you specify, so you will need to inform Kobe Digital via code.

You’ll first need to decide what you want. Let’s assume that you want to track users who log in to their accounts versus users who don’t. After you have made your decision, you will need to determine how you will identify them. Your developer or programmer can assist you with this.

Our users often use the Cookie Files to track additional information. Kobe Digital can be used to set cookie values that have “logged in” as user variables.

You will need code to read the cookie, then set it as the value. It’s up to you how you do it. This is how Kobe Digital would receive this data using the CE_READY() function.

{function CE_READY()Function CE_READY()

var isLoggedIn =? var isLoggedIn =?

If ( is logged in)

CE2.set(1,’logged in’);

Other

CE2.set (1, ‘not logged into’);

After your programmer has set up custom user variables, you will start to see these data in the Confetti or Overlay Reports that you run.

Kobe Digital tracks UTM campaigns, parameters, and settings you have defined on your website. You don’t need to create user variables.

Better Ecommerce Customer Segmentation

Customer segmentation is essential in ecommerce. It’s a must to ensure that your marketing efforts keep up with your competitors.

You can make it possible to:

• You can run retargeting or other personalized ads
• Offer customers dynamic product recommendations
• Personalized landing pages and product details

These are high-value elements of ecommerce marketing campaigns. If done properly, you can expect big returns.